  That Barret, the painter of pictures, what feeling for color he had! And Fanning, the maker of music, such melodies mirthful and mad! And Harley, the writer of stories, so whimsical, tender and glad! To hark to their talk in the trenches, high heart unfolding to heart, Of the day when the war would be over, and each would be true to his part, Upbuilding a Palace of Beauty to the wonder and glory of Art . . . Yon's Barret, the painter of pictures, yon carcass that rots on the wire; His hand with its sensitive cunning is crisped to a cinder with fire; His eyes with their magical vision are bubbles of glutinous mire. Poor Fanning! He sought to discover the symphonic note of a shell; There are bits of him broken and bloody, to show you the place where he fell; I've reason to fear on his exquisite ear the rats have been banqueting well. And speaking of Harley, the writer, I fancy I looked on him last, Sprawling and staring and writhing in the roar of the battle blast; Then a mad gun-team crashed over, and scattered his brains as it passed. Oh, Harley and Fanning and Barret, they were bloody good mates o' mine; Their bodies are empty bottles; Death has guzzled the wine; What's left of them's filth and corruption. . . . Where is the Fire Divine? I'll tell you. . . . At night in the trenches, as I watch and I do my part, Three radiant spirits I'm seeing, high heart revealing to heart, And they're building a peerless palace to the splendor and triumph of Art. Yet, alas! for the fame of Barret, the glory he might have trailed! And alas! for the name of Fanning, a star that beaconed and paled, Poor Harley, obscure and forgotten. . . . Well, who shall say that they failed! No, each did a Something Grander than ever he dreamed to do; And as for the work unfinished, all will be paid their due; The broken ends will be fitted, the balance struck will be true. So painters, and players, and penmen, I tell you: Do as you please; Let your fame outleap on the trumpets, you'll never rise up to these— To three grim and gory Tommies, down, down on your bended knees! Daventry, the sculptor, is buried in a little graveyard near one of our posts. Just now our section of the line is quiet, so I often go and sit there. Stretching myself on a flat stone, I dream for hours. Silence and solitude! How good the peace of it all seems! Around me the grasses weave a pattern, and half hide the hundreds of little wooden crosses. Here is one with a single name: AUBREY. Who was Aubrey I wonder? Then another: To Our Beloved Comrade. Then one which has attached to it, in the cheapest of little frames, the crude water-color daub of a child, three purple flowers standing in a yellow vase. Below it, painfully printed, I read: To My Darling Papa—Thy Little Odette. And beyond the crosses many fresh graves have been dug. With hungry open mouths they wait. Even now I can hear the guns that are going to feed them. Soon there will be more crosses, and more and more. Then they will cease, and wives and mothers will come here to weep. Ah! Peace so precious must be bought with blood and tears. Let us honor and bless the men who pay, and envy them the manner of their dying; for not all the jeweled orders on the breasts of the living can vie in glory with the little wooden cross the humblest of these has won. . . . |
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