"I think it was the same: some piercing sense Of Deity's pervasive immanence, The life that visible Nature doth indwell Grown great and near and all but palpable He might not linger but with winged strides Like one pursued, fled down the mountainsides." Poems by Alan Seeger. This reminds one instantly of the haunting Christ of Thompson's "The Hound of Heaven." And again in the presence of War's death the poet felt that other and greater presence without doubt, as these words prove: "When to the last assault our bugles blow: Reckless of pain and peril we shall go, Heads high and hearts aflame and bayonets bare, And we shall brave eternity as though Eyes looked on us in which we would see fair-- One waited in whose presence we would wear, Even as a lover who would be well-seen, Our manhood faultless and our honor clean." Poems by Alan Seeger. And with magnificent acknowledgment of the divine plan of it all, of life and war and all, he sweeps that truly great poem, "The Hosts," to a swinging climax in its last tremendous stanza; which, fitting too, shall be the closing lines of this chapter on our dead American, martyred poet. He first speaks of the marching columns of soldiers as "Big with the beauty of cosmic things. Mark how their columns surge!" "With bayonets bare and flags unfurled, They scale the summits of the world--" Poems by Alan Seeger. And then: "There was a stately drama writ By the hand that peopled the earth and air And set the stars in the infinite And made night gorgeous and morning fair, And all that had sense to reason knew That bloody drama must be gone through." Poems by Alan Seeger. ENGLISH POETS JOHN OXENHAM ALFRED NOYES JOHN MASEFIELD ROBERT SERVICE RUPERT BROOKE [Illustration: JOHN OXENHAM.] V JOHN OXENHAM [Footnote: The poetical selections appearing in this chapter are used by permission, and are taken from the following works The Vision Splendid, All's Well, and The Fiery Cross Published by George H. Doran Company, New York.] WHO MAKES ARTICULATE THE VOICE OF WAR, PEACE, THE CROSS, THE CHRIST. In the first volume of The Student in Arms, that widely read book of the war, Donald Hankey has a chapter on "The Religion of the Inarticulate," in which he shows that the "Tommy" who for so long has been accused of having no religion, really has a very definite one. He has a religion that embraces all the Christian virtues, such as love, sacrifice, brotherhood, and comradeship, but he has never connected these with either Christ or the church. His religion is the "Religion of the Inarticulate." Hankey then shows that this war is articulating religion as never before.