Till, red behind the branches, The death-sun sank to blood; And the Red-Steel Killers rested.... But we, by swamp and flood, Through mirk and night--his shells for light-- Blaspheming, choked with mud, Roped to the tilting axles, Man-handled up the crest; And wrenched our plunging gun-teams Foam-flecked from jowl to breast, Downwards, and on, where trench-lights shone-- For _we_, we might not rest! Shell-deafened; soaked and sleepless; Short-handed; under fire; Days upon nights unending, We wrought, and dared not tire-- With whip and bit from dump to pit, From pit to trench with wire. The Killers in the Open, The Killers down the Wind, They saw the Gray Man eye to eye-- But _we_, we fought him blind, Nor knew whence came the screaming flame That killed us, miles behind. Yet, when the triple rockets Flew skyward, blazed and paled, For sign the lines were broken; When the Red Steel naught availed; When, through the smoke, on shield and spoke His rifle bullets hailed; When we waited, dazed and hopeless, Till the layer’s eye could trace Helmets, bobbing just above us Like mad jockeys in a race.... Then--loaded, laid, and unafraid, We met him face to face; Jerked the trigger; felt the trunnions Rock and quiver; saw the flail Of our zero-fuses blast him; Saw his gapping ranks turn tail; Heard the charging-cheer behind us ... And dropped dead across the trail. _VALHALLA’S VERDICT_ It heard the Song of the Gunner-Dead die out to a sullen roar: But Nakéd Truth said never a word; and Eye peered down no more. For Eye had seen; and Truth had judged ... and It might not pass the Door! And now, like a dog in the dark, It shrank from the voice of a man It knew:-- “There are empty seats at the Banquet-board, but there’s never a seat for you; For they will not drink with a coward soul, the stark red men who slew. There’s meat and to spare, at the Killer-Feasts where Thor’s swung hammer twirls; There’s beer and enough, in the Free Canteen where the Endless Smoke upcurls; There are lips and lips, for the Killer-Men, in the Hall of the Dancing-Girls. There’s a place for any that passes clean--but for you there’s never a place: The Endless Smoke would blacken your lips, and the Girls would spit in your face; And the Beer and the Meat go sour on your guts--for you died the death of disgrace. We were pals on earth: but by God’s brave Son and the bomb that I reached too late, I damn the day and I blast the hour when first I called you mate; And I’d sell my soul for one of my feet, to hack you from the gate--