The lark has ceased his singing, The wheat is trodden low, And in the blood-stained garden No more the lilies blow. And where green poplars trembled Stand shattered trunks instead, And lines of small white crosses Keep guard above the dead. For here brave lads and noble, From lands beyond the deep, Beneath the small white crosses Have laid them down to sleep. They laid them down with gladness Upon the alien plain, That this same Belgian garden Might bud and bloom again. F. O. CALL _By permission of the Author_ ". . . . . THAT HAVE NO DOUBTS" --_Rudyard Kipling_ _The last resort of Kings are we, but the voice of peoples too_-- Ask the guns of Valmy Ridge-- Lost at the Beresina Bridge, When the Russian guns were roaring death and the Guard was charging through. _Ultima Ratio Regis, we--but he who has may hold,_ Se curantes Dei curant, Hear the gunners that strain and pant, As when before the rising gale the Great Armada rolled. _Guns of fifty--sixty tons that roared at Jutland fight,_ Clatter and clang of hoisting shell; See the flame where the salvo fell Amidst the flash of German guns against the wall of white. _The sons of English carronade or Spanish culverin--_ The Danish windows shivered and broke When over the sea the children spoke, And groaning turrets rocked again as we went out and in. _We have no passions to call our own, we work for serf or lord,_ Load us well and sponge us clean-- Be your woman a slave or queen-- And we will clear the road for you who hold us by the sword. _We come into our own again and wake to life anew--_ Put your paper and pens away, For the whole of the world is ours to-day, And it's we who'll do the talking now to smooth the way for you. _Howitzer gun or Seventy-five, the game is ours to play,_ And hills may quiver and mountains shake, But the line in front shall bend or break. What is it to us if the world is mad? For we are the kings to-day. KLAXON _By permission of Wm. Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh_ ON THE RUE DU BOIS (_Written at Sailly, France, 1915_) O pallid Christ within this broken shrine, Not those torn Hands and not that Heart of Thine Have given the nations blood to drink like wine. Through weary years and 'neath the changing skies Men turned their back on those appealing Eyes And scorned as vain Thine awful Sacrifice. Kings with their armies, children in their play, Have passed unheeding down this shell-ploughed way: The great world knew not where its true strength lay.