War Lyrics dedicated to the friends of the dead. By A. and L. Shore. Second edition, with additions |
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WAR'S MAGIC LANTERN. |
 | War Lyrics |  |
11
WAR'S MAGIC LANTERN.
Who is this with that face we know,
Yet only as one seen long ago,
Or one that dreams, or pictures show,
Now seen—like a form that's multiplied
By a thousand mirrors—on every side?
Who glides through our doorway, haunts our walk,
Mutters into our sleeping ear,
Gathers up all our free hearth-talk
Into one theme austere;
Where voices that once so lightly ran,
Now like a stream that splits against stones,
Break and then falter hoarsely on,
With a heart's deep burden in their tones?
Who at our church door stalks in, there
Uplifting to God a stern new prayer?
We see, yet but a reflexion still
Of thee a Presence invisible—
Thou who like unseen lightning dost strike,
Who standing a Shade in the far horizon,
Drawest away to thee, loadstone-like,
To the foreign hills where the storm is rising,
Half our nation—all our hearts—
We hear thee, we feel thee, the quick blood starts.
Art thou not He whom in age calm and mellow,
As his youth's fierce dream, the father names,
Now come to be the playfellow
Of his children's nursery-games?
Yes, thou art WAR! the face of our land
Thou hast changed with a pass of thy dreadful hand.
A bugle note from the Danube cried—
And the banners of England were all flung wide,
And down, down to the water side
Troop after troop, each dazzling group,
Filling the streets like a column of light,
Marched in music out of sight.
And the Queen in her balcony stood at the dawn,
Weeping, and waving a farewell dear
To her soldiers who went no more to return,
Yet who gave her back a rapturous cheer.
And those who stayed cried undismayed,
“Go to glory, our chosen ones—
Fathers and brothers, husbands and sons!”
Now homes are empty, and hollow eyes
Are aching for what they find nowhere—
Our ripening vintage of youth swept off
Elsewhere, elsewhere;
While in our fields and in our streets
Mourner with mourner meets.
Thou bringest together, Wizard War!
Sights and sounds whole seas apart;
The crack of a rifle from afar
Rings death into our heart;
Far off a soldier in his death dream
Looks on the home that loves him well;
From that home a voice cries over the deep,
“Farewell!” and again “Farewell!”
Yet only as one seen long ago,
Or one that dreams, or pictures show,
Now seen—like a form that's multiplied
By a thousand mirrors—on every side?
Who glides through our doorway, haunts our walk,
Mutters into our sleeping ear,
Gathers up all our free hearth-talk
Into one theme austere;
12
Now like a stream that splits against stones,
Break and then falter hoarsely on,
With a heart's deep burden in their tones?
Who at our church door stalks in, there
Uplifting to God a stern new prayer?
We see, yet but a reflexion still
Of thee a Presence invisible—
Thou who like unseen lightning dost strike,
Who standing a Shade in the far horizon,
Drawest away to thee, loadstone-like,
To the foreign hills where the storm is rising,
Half our nation—all our hearts—
We hear thee, we feel thee, the quick blood starts.
Art thou not He whom in age calm and mellow,
As his youth's fierce dream, the father names,
Now come to be the playfellow
Of his children's nursery-games?
13
Thou hast changed with a pass of thy dreadful hand.
A bugle note from the Danube cried—
And the banners of England were all flung wide,
And down, down to the water side
Troop after troop, each dazzling group,
Filling the streets like a column of light,
Marched in music out of sight.
And the Queen in her balcony stood at the dawn,
Weeping, and waving a farewell dear
To her soldiers who went no more to return,
Yet who gave her back a rapturous cheer.
And those who stayed cried undismayed,
“Go to glory, our chosen ones—
Fathers and brothers, husbands and sons!”
Now homes are empty, and hollow eyes
Are aching for what they find nowhere—
Our ripening vintage of youth swept off
Elsewhere, elsewhere;
14
Mourner with mourner meets.
Thou bringest together, Wizard War!
Sights and sounds whole seas apart;
The crack of a rifle from afar
Rings death into our heart;
Far off a soldier in his death dream
Looks on the home that loves him well;
From that home a voice cries over the deep,
“Farewell!” and again “Farewell!”
Now through our islands a craving silence
Asks the news that comes first in a whisper, a hush,
Then in a storm-swift, sudden rush
Of battle stories, of dismal glories,
Out of whose surges often emerges
A bleeding limb, or a grim pale head,
Or the one name is caught, and 'tis that of the dead!
Then comes a storm, as when chords we strike,
Clashing out triumph and anguish alike.
High and low together flow,
Mingled by the mingling blood
Epaulette, and rank and file
Shed in brother-herohood.
Stripling noble, peasant's son,
With one pulse your true veins bound,
Bravely, bravely both have done,
And in both one race is crowned.
Peeress mother, labouring father,
Hearts that once no bond allied,
Meet in terror, meet in pain,
Meet in pity and in pride.
For from soft and snowy pillow,
And from coarse flock bed is one,
One deep cry sent to the sky,
“Save, oh God! my son!”
Whence comest thou, strange Innovator,
Democrat, Anarchist, who hast made
Troubled and hot as a seething crater
The calmest isle in sea-cradle laid?
Whence art thou? There is a palace can tell—
'Tis not a phosphor-lit hall of Hell,
Where on the doomed by the naphtha lake
The god-fiend scowls from his burning crown;
But polished and white, in the sun's free light,
Where on smiling courtiers a prince smiles down.
From the deeps of that despot's purple heart,
Did the dragon-dream full wingëd start.
O'er Russia's wide wastes the storm-herald hastes,
Their myriad slaves to the field to drive;
Gloomily arming,
All came swarming
Like bees from their savage boundless hive.
From the cold shining granite of palaces
That glare through the sunny city of ice,
In his furs came the noble haughtily clad,
The serf in his sheepskin hungry and sad,
From his hut that arose a blot in the snows;
Like a pack of well-trained, well-starved hounds,
Down came the drove from all Russia's bounds.
Asks the news that comes first in a whisper, a hush,
Then in a storm-swift, sudden rush
Of battle stories, of dismal glories,
Out of whose surges often emerges
A bleeding limb, or a grim pale head,
Or the one name is caught, and 'tis that of the dead!
15
Clashing out triumph and anguish alike.
High and low together flow,
Mingled by the mingling blood
Epaulette, and rank and file
Shed in brother-herohood.
Stripling noble, peasant's son,
With one pulse your true veins bound,
Bravely, bravely both have done,
And in both one race is crowned.
Peeress mother, labouring father,
Hearts that once no bond allied,
Meet in terror, meet in pain,
Meet in pity and in pride.
For from soft and snowy pillow,
And from coarse flock bed is one,
One deep cry sent to the sky,
“Save, oh God! my son!”
16
Democrat, Anarchist, who hast made
Troubled and hot as a seething crater
The calmest isle in sea-cradle laid?
Whence art thou? There is a palace can tell—
'Tis not a phosphor-lit hall of Hell,
Where on the doomed by the naphtha lake
The god-fiend scowls from his burning crown;
But polished and white, in the sun's free light,
Where on smiling courtiers a prince smiles down.
From the deeps of that despot's purple heart,
Did the dragon-dream full wingëd start.
O'er Russia's wide wastes the storm-herald hastes,
Their myriad slaves to the field to drive;
Gloomily arming,
All came swarming
Like bees from their savage boundless hive.
From the cold shining granite of palaces
That glare through the sunny city of ice,
17
The serf in his sheepskin hungry and sad,
From his hut that arose a blot in the snows;
Like a pack of well-trained, well-starved hounds,
Down came the drove from all Russia's bounds.
But there in the Tauric land
Ashore stepped another band,
From Europe's prime realm, in power and grace,
From the sea's isle-Queen so safe in its place,
The small and the strong,
They came on the wave that kissed like a slave
The keels of that war-freighted throng.
Yes, there the fleets of England and France,
The swan-queens of the sea, advance;
Their necks arched for conquest in scornful beauty
They bend to the foe with proud salute—
So, gracefully pay their haughty duty,
Then float to the triumph none dare dispute.
There came the Britons, the lions of war,
Massive, majestic, in form and in mind,
Like powers of nature, strong workers by law,
Vassals to duty, else kings of their kind.
And France sent her sons,
The chivalric ones,
All fire in the fight, all laughter in death,
Whose blood bounds a war-dance, who waste life
like breath,
For the payment of glory, their passionate faith.
They came, in flame-letters, to write on War's page,
How England and France in jubilant scorn,
Flung down to Russia their gage
On Alma's wild morn.
They took up their ground, each steadfast troop,
Led by those plumes, the snow-wreaths of war,
Soon to be crimsoned, but never to droop,
The soldier's idol, the Muscovite's awe.
On, splendid warriors! Fame hangs in the air,
To watch what you do, to cheer what you dare.
Ashore stepped another band,
From Europe's prime realm, in power and grace,
From the sea's isle-Queen so safe in its place,
The small and the strong,
They came on the wave that kissed like a slave
The keels of that war-freighted throng.
Yes, there the fleets of England and France,
The swan-queens of the sea, advance;
Their necks arched for conquest in scornful beauty
They bend to the foe with proud salute—
So, gracefully pay their haughty duty,
Then float to the triumph none dare dispute.
18
Massive, majestic, in form and in mind,
Like powers of nature, strong workers by law,
Vassals to duty, else kings of their kind.
And France sent her sons,
The chivalric ones,
All fire in the fight, all laughter in death,
Whose blood bounds a war-dance, who waste life
like breath,
For the payment of glory, their passionate faith.
They came, in flame-letters, to write on War's page,
How England and France in jubilant scorn,
Flung down to Russia their gage
On Alma's wild morn.
They took up their ground, each steadfast troop,
Led by those plumes, the snow-wreaths of war,
Soon to be crimsoned, but never to droop,
The soldier's idol, the Muscovite's awe.
19
To watch what you do, to cheer what you dare.
Like the wolves their brothers, wild sons of wild mothers,
To the field trooped the gray men in swarms,
They raved and they wrangled, they tore and they mangled
In hordes that bade scorn to our arms.
But the sun looked sadly ere he set,
On hills of those savage slain,
Like wild beasts with jaws all red and wet,
And their fierce teeth fixed in the plain.
Oh, the glory of battle!
When the loud sharp rattle
Of rifles out-volleying all in one,
Makes glaring blanks in the close welded ranks,
Whence dead with a cry drops man after man.
Oh, the bayonet's dash!
With its dark red splash,
When, though hosts stand like granite, the granite is cleft!
And the sabre charge where right and left
The sword lightning flies, and a foeman dies
At each rapid twist of the trooper's wrist,
When he fights hemmed in by circling bands—
Close walls all alive with points of steel,
Like death darting out a hundred hands;
Yet out of that live solid mass of strife
He hews his way back into life.
To the field trooped the gray men in swarms,
They raved and they wrangled, they tore and they mangled
In hordes that bade scorn to our arms.
But the sun looked sadly ere he set,
On hills of those savage slain,
Like wild beasts with jaws all red and wet,
And their fierce teeth fixed in the plain.
Oh, the glory of battle!
When the loud sharp rattle
Of rifles out-volleying all in one,
Makes glaring blanks in the close welded ranks,
Whence dead with a cry drops man after man.
20
With its dark red splash,
When, though hosts stand like granite, the granite is cleft!
And the sabre charge where right and left
The sword lightning flies, and a foeman dies
At each rapid twist of the trooper's wrist,
When he fights hemmed in by circling bands—
Close walls all alive with points of steel,
Like death darting out a hundred hands;
Yet out of that live solid mass of strife
He hews his way back into life.
Oh, rapture of warfare! and canst thou not last?
Look again, England, dare not recoil—
Now houseless before the winter blast,
Half naked in snows and starved amidst toil,
A skeleton band
In the frozen land,
With sickening eyes looks for the morn
Whence Victory and Vengeance shall spring twinborn.
Ay, their hearts fail not, and we will quail not,
O War! for thy price we know;
With a solemn cheer we have welcomed thee here,
And we do not bid thee go.
We are strong, though trouble like a knife
Has searched our strength to the root of its life;
Though now stand our statesmen, nerved to bear
In pale, unmurmuring despair,
Pierced in hand, in heart, in brain,
By the bitter missiles the slingers rain—
While the people's heart boils up, leaps forth,
From a cry of pain to a cry of wrath,
Asking account of their loved, their slain—
O people be patient! they die not in vain.
Look again, England, dare not recoil—
Now houseless before the winter blast,
Half naked in snows and starved amidst toil,
A skeleton band
In the frozen land,
21
Whence Victory and Vengeance shall spring twinborn.
Ay, their hearts fail not, and we will quail not,
O War! for thy price we know;
With a solemn cheer we have welcomed thee here,
And we do not bid thee go.
We are strong, though trouble like a knife
Has searched our strength to the root of its life;
Though now stand our statesmen, nerved to bear
In pale, unmurmuring despair,
Pierced in hand, in heart, in brain,
By the bitter missiles the slingers rain—
While the people's heart boils up, leaps forth,
From a cry of pain to a cry of wrath,
Asking account of their loved, their slain—
O people be patient! they die not in vain.
If, seers who the shine, not the shadow, saw,
With too much hope and too little awe,
And vain of the splendour poured from our coasts,
We launched our ships and we armed our hosts
With blessings too proudly swelled to boasts;
If we counted but half of the price to pay,
All the drain of our heart's best gold,
The long death in life so sadly told,
That we die almost in the listening—yea,
If at that altar of sombre pomp,
Our prayers took too bold a breath,
Not now will we falter, not now at that altar
Unswear a whole nation's faith;
Nor stir the bed where our champions bled,
To take the crown from their death;
Nor call from the field they never will yield
The brothers of those who fell;
Nor waste on a few vain battle flashes
The passion evoked like a spell;
No—we are pledged to thy very ashes,
Thou fortress gate of Hell!
The soldier outworn, lying cold in the morn,
Whom life in the trenches left,
Dies with his eyes on those blank white walls,
Dreams of the passage by blazing balls
For the rushing Vengeance cleft,
And he sighs for all that glory foregone,
Yet he dooms those walls ere his breath be flown.
In Scutari's chambers of prostrate strength,
The moaning raver of the night,
Fancying the assault, drinks up at length
That cup of burning delight.
And the spirits who, gloomy man by man,
Went out from our banished troop,
Through the silent gates where no foeman waits—
There still walks the ghostly group.
They linger yet on the blood-red strand,
They float not o'er to the cherished land,
Where nightly the living and loving yearn
For a dream of the phantom exile's return.
They wait till they hear o'er their rocky graves
Another dirge than that of the waves,
Till those anthems of cannon music roll
O'er the ashes of Sebastopol.
Till Russia, into our sovereign hands
From her nerveless grasp letting fall
The keys of the seas and the fettered lands,
Her conquering creditor pay for all.
With too much hope and too little awe,
22
We launched our ships and we armed our hosts
With blessings too proudly swelled to boasts;
If we counted but half of the price to pay,
All the drain of our heart's best gold,
The long death in life so sadly told,
That we die almost in the listening—yea,
If at that altar of sombre pomp,
Our prayers took too bold a breath,
Not now will we falter, not now at that altar
Unswear a whole nation's faith;
Nor stir the bed where our champions bled,
To take the crown from their death;
Nor call from the field they never will yield
The brothers of those who fell;
Nor waste on a few vain battle flashes
The passion evoked like a spell;
No—we are pledged to thy very ashes,
Thou fortress gate of Hell!
23
Whom life in the trenches left,
Dies with his eyes on those blank white walls,
Dreams of the passage by blazing balls
For the rushing Vengeance cleft,
And he sighs for all that glory foregone,
Yet he dooms those walls ere his breath be flown.
In Scutari's chambers of prostrate strength,
The moaning raver of the night,
Fancying the assault, drinks up at length
That cup of burning delight.
And the spirits who, gloomy man by man,
Went out from our banished troop,
Through the silent gates where no foeman waits—
There still walks the ghostly group.
They linger yet on the blood-red strand,
They float not o'er to the cherished land,
Where nightly the living and loving yearn
For a dream of the phantom exile's return.
24
Another dirge than that of the waves,
Till those anthems of cannon music roll
O'er the ashes of Sebastopol.
Till Russia, into our sovereign hands
From her nerveless grasp letting fall
The keys of the seas and the fettered lands,
Her conquering creditor pay for all.
And you who weep in England and France
O'er a name in the blood-bright list,
Oh think that the spirits of the dead
Your souls with brave lips have kissed;
And with eyes made calm by a noble grief,
Look to their comrades for its relief.
“War on! till under your hands arise
A dome of Peace to the storm-freed skies,
Wherein may Freedom find ample room
For her eagles' stately sweep;
And be that rainbow-like, heaven-wide dome,
An arch of triumph to vault the tomb
That covers our heroes' sleep.”
O'er a name in the blood-bright list,
Oh think that the spirits of the dead
Your souls with brave lips have kissed;
And with eyes made calm by a noble grief,
Look to their comrades for its relief.
“War on! till under your hands arise
A dome of Peace to the storm-freed skies,
Wherein may Freedom find ample room
25
And be that rainbow-like, heaven-wide dome,
An arch of triumph to vault the tomb
That covers our heroes' sleep.”
A. February 7, 1855.
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