But greater than such deeds, of which there have been inspiring hundreds, is the patient endurance shown by men whose world has narrowed down to that little corner of a great war which they are fighting for their country. To fight on night and day in the trenches, under avalanches of murdering metal and storms of rending shrapnel, calls for higher qualities than those short, sharp gusts of conflict which in former days were called battles. Then men faced death in the open, weapon in hand, cheered by color and music and the personal contest, man upon man outright, greatly daring for a few sharp hours. Now all the pageantry is gone; the fight rages without ceasing; men must eat and sleep in the line of fire; death and mutilation ravage over them even while they rest. Nerves have given way, men have gone mad under this prolonged strain, and the marvel is that any have borne it; yet they have not only borne it, they have triumphed over it. These have known the exaltation of stripping life of its impedimenta to do a thing set for them to do; giving up all for an idea. The great obsession is on them; they are swayed and possessed by something greater than themselves; they live in an atmosphere which, breathing, inflames them to the utmost of their being. There was a corner in the British lines where men had fought for days, until the place was a shambles; where food could only rarely reach them; where they stood up to their knees in mud and water, where men endured, but where Death was the companion of their fortitude. Yet after a lull in the firing there came from some point in the battered trench the new British battle-cry, "Are we downhearted?" And then, as we are told, one blood-stained specter feebly raised himself above the broken parapet, shouted "No!" and fell back dead. There spoke a spirit of high endurance, of a shining defiance, of a courage which wants no pity, which exalts as it wends its way hence. SIR GILBERT PARKER. * * * * * Mother Earth! Are thy heroes dead? Do they thrill the soul of the years no more? Are the gleaming snows and the poppies red All that is left of the brave of yore? Are there none to fight as Theseus fought, Far in the young world's misty dawn? Or to teach as the gray-haired Nestor taught? Mother Earth! Are the heroes gone? Gone?--in a grander form they rise; Dead?--we may clasp their hands in ours, And catch the light of their clearer eyes, And wreathe their brows with immortal flowers. Wherever a noble deed is done, 'Tis the pulse of a hero's heart is stirred; Wherever right has a triumph won There are the heroes' voices heard. EDNA DEAN PROCTOR. FOOTNOTES: [7] FROM "THE WORLD IN THE CRUCIBLE." COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY MARSHAL FOCH