They say that ‘war is hell,’ the ‘great accursed,’
The sin impossible to be forgiven;
Yet I can look beyond it at its worst,
And still find blue in Heaven.
And as I note how nobly natures form
Under the war’s red rain, I deem it true
That He who made the earthquake and the storm
Perchance makes battles too!
The life He loves is not the life of span
Abbreviated by each passing breath,
It is the true humanity of man
Victorious over death,
The long expectance of the upward gaze,
Sense ineradicable of things afar,
Fair hope of finding after many days
The bright and morning star.
Methinks I see how spirits may be tried,
Transfigured into beauty on war’s verge,
Like flowers, whose tremulous grace is learnt beside
The trampling of the surge.
And now, not only Englishmen at need
Have won a fiery and unequal fray,—
No infantry has ever done such deed
Since Albuera’s day!
Those who live on amid our homes to dwell
Have grasped the higher lessons that endure,—
The gallant Private learns to practise well
His heroism obscure.
His heart beats high as one for whom is made
A mighty music solemnly, what time
The oratorio of the cannonade
Rolls through the hills sublime.
Yet his the dangerous posts that few can mark,
The crimson death, the dread unerring aim,
The fatal ball that whizzes through the dark,
The just-recorded name—
The faithful following of the flag all day,
he duty done that brings no nation’s thanks,
The Ama Nesciri1 of some grim and grey
À Kempis of the ranks.
These are the things our commonweal to guard,
The patient strength that is too proud to press,
The duty done for duty, not reward,
The lofty littleness.
And they of greater state who never turned,
Taking their path of duty higher and higher,
What do we deem that they, too, may have learned
In that baptismal fire?
Not that the only end beneath the sun
Is to make every sea a trading lake,
And all our splendid English history one
Voluminous mistake.
They who marched up the bluffs last stormy week—
Some of them, ere they reached the mountain’s crown,
The wind of battle breathing on their cheek
Suddenly laid them down.
Like sleepers—not like those whose race is run—
Fast, fast asleep amid the cannon’s roar,
Them no reveillÉ and no morning gun
Shall ever waken more.
And the boy-beauty passed from off the face
Of those who lived, and into it instead
Came proud forgetfulness of ball and race,
Sweet commune with the dead.
And thoughts beyond their thoughts the Spirit lent,
And manly tears made mist upon their eyes,
And to them came a great presentiment
Of high self-sacrifice.
Thus, as the heaven’s many-coloured flames
At sunset are but dust in rich disguise,
The ascending earthquake dust of battle frames
God’s pictures in the skies.
William Alexander.
