The Maple Leafs are falling

The Maple Leafs are falling
On foreign soil again,
Scattered cross the desert
By an unforgiving wind.

This land is barren, unprotected,
Unlike his fields of wheat;
The sand is so unlike his Maritimes,
No majestic Rockie peaks.

He hears a lone Piper now,
Black boots marching through the snow,
The warm drape of the Maple Leaf,
Tells him all he has to know.

Four winds have gently cast the Leaf,
To land on home terrain,
Flying freely there, he will declare,
His death was not in vain.


J.S. McGregor

The Irish Guards


WE'RE not so old in the Army List,
But we're not so young at our trade.
For we had the honour at Fontenoy
Of meeting the Guards' Brigade.
'Twas Lally, Dillon, Bulkeley, Clare,
And Lee that led us then,
And after a hundred and seventy years
We're fighting for France again!
Old Days! The wild geese are flighting,
Head to the storm as they faced it before!
For where there are Irish there's bound to be fighting,
And when there's no fighting, it's Ireland no more!
Ireland no more!

The fashion's all for khaki now,
But once through France we went
Full-dressed in scarlet Army cloth,
The English - left at Ghent.
They're fighting on our side today
But, before they changed their clothes,
The half of Europe knew our fame,
As all of Ireland knows!
Old Days! The wild geese are flying,
Head to the storm as they faced it before!
For where there are Irish there's memory undying.
And when we forget, it is Ireland no more!
Ireland no more!

From Barry Wood to Gouzeaucourt,
From Boyne to Pilkem Ridge,
The ancient days come back no more
Than water under the bridge.
But the bridge it stands and the water runs
As red as yesterday,
And the Irish move to the sound of the guns
Like salmon to the sea.
Old Days! The wild geese are ranging .
Head to the storm as they faced it before!
For where there are Irish their hearts are unchanging,
And when they are changed, it is Ireland no more!
Ireland no more!

We're not so old in the Army List,
But we're not so new in the ring,
For we carried our packs with Marshal Saxe
When Louis was our King.
But Douglas Haig's our Marshal now
And we're King George's men,
And after one hundred and seventy years
We're fighting for France again!
Ah, France! And did we stand by you,
When life was made splendid with gifts and rewards?
Ah, France! And will we deny you
In the hour of your agony, Mother of Swords?
Old Days! The wild geese are flighting,
Head to the storm as they faced it before!
For where there are Irish there's loving and fighting,
And when we stop either, it's Ireland no more!
Ireland no more!

The Guards Came Through


Men of the Twenty-first
    Up by the Chalk Pit Wood,
Weak with our wounds and our thirst,
    Wanting our sleep and our food,
After a day and a night --
    God, shall we ever forget!
Beaten and broke in the fight,
    But sticking it -- sticking it yet.
Trying to hold the line,
    Fainting and spent and done,
Always the thud and the whine,
    Always the yell of the Hun!
Northumberland, Lancaster, York,
    Durham and Somerset,
Fighting alone, worn to the bone,
    But sticking it -- sticking it yet.

Never a message of hope!
    Never a word of cheer!
Fronting Hill 70's shell-swept slope,
    With the dull dead plain in our rear.
Always the whine of the shell,
    Always the roar of its burst,
Always the tortures of hell,
    As waiting and wincing we cursed
Our luck and the guns and the Boche,
    When our Corporal shouted, "Stand to!"

And I heard some one cry, "Clear the front for the Guards!"
    And the Guards came through.

Our throats they were parched and hot,
    But Lord, if you'd heard the cheers!
Irish and Welsh and Scot,
    Coldstream and Grenadiers.
Two brigades, if you please,
    Dressing as straight as a hem,
We -- we were down on our knees,
    Praying for us and for them!
Lord, I could speak for a week,
    But how could you understand!
How should your cheeks be wet,
    Such feelin's don't come to you.
But when can me or my mates forget,
    When the Guards came through?

"Five yards left extend!"
    If passed from rank to rank.
Line after line with never a bend,
    And a touch of the London swank.
A trifle of swank and dash,
    Cool as a home parade,
Twinkle and glitter and flash,
    Flinching never a shade,
With the shrapnel right in their face
    Doing their Hyde Park stunt,
Keeping their swing at an easy pace,
    Arms at the trail, eyes front!

Man, it was great to see!
    Man, it was fine to do!
It's a cot and a hospital ward for me,
But I'll tell'em in Blighty, wherever I be,
    How the Guards came through.
 

Arthur Conan Doyle

Lament for Flodden
 

I’VE heard them lilting  at our ewe-milking,   
  Lasses a’ lilting before dawn o’ day;   
But now they are moaning on ilka green loaning—
  For the Flowers of the Forest are a’ wede away.   

At bughts, in the morning, nae blythe lads are scorning,           
  Lasses are lonely and dowie and wae;   
Nae daffin’,  nae gabbin’, but sighing and sabbing,   
  Ilk ane lifts her leglin and hies her away.   

In har’st,  at the shearing, nae youths now are jeering,   
  Bandsters are lyart, and runkled,  and gray;           
At fair or at preaching, nae wooing, nae fleeching—    
  The Flowers of the Forest are a’ wede away.   

At e’en, in the gloaming, nae younkers are roaming   
  ’Bout stacks wi’ the lasses at bogle to play;   
But ilk ane sits drearie, lamenting her dearie—           
  The Flowers of the Forest are weded away.   

Dool and wae for the order sent our lads to the Border!   
  The English, for ance, by guile wan the day;   
The Flowers of the Forest, that fought aye the foremost,   
  The prime of our land, are cauld in the clay.           

We’ll hear nae mair lilting at the ewe-milking;   
  Women and bairns are heartless and wae;   
Sighing and moaning on ilka green loaning—   
  The Flowers of the Forest are a’ wede away.   

Jane Elliot

Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth
 

SAY not the struggle naught availeth,   
  The labour and the wounds are vain,   
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,   
  And as things have been they remain.   

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;           
  It may be, in yon smoke conceal’d,   
Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers,   
  And, but for you, possess the field.   

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,   
  Seem here no painful inch to gain,           
Far back, through creeks and inlets making,   
  Comes silent, flooding in, the main.   

And not by eastern windows only,   
  When daylight comes, comes in the light;   
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly!           
  But westward, look, the land is bright!   


Arthur Hugh Clough

Play up! Play up! And play the game!

There's a breathless hush in the close to-night
Ten to make and the match to win
A bumping pitch and a blinding light,
An hour to play, and the last man in.
And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat.
Or the selfish hope of a season's fame,
But his captain's hand on his shoulder smote
"Play up! Play up! And play the game!"


The sand of the desert is sodden red-
Red with the wreck of the square that broke
The gatling's jammed and the colonel dead,
And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.
The river of death has brimmed its banks,
And England's far and Honor a name,
But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks-
"Play up! Play up! And play the game!"


This is the word that year by year,
While in her place the school is set,
Every one of her sons must hear,
And none that hears it dare forget.
This they all with joyful mind
And bear through life eke a torch in flame,
Falling fling to the host behind-
"Play up! Play up! And play the game!"

Sir Henry Newbolt

Not to Keep
 
   
THEY sent him back to her. The letter came
Saying ... And she could have him. And before
She could be sure there was no hiddin ill
Under the formal writing, he was in her sight,
Living. They gave him back to her alive--
How else? They are not known to send the dead--
And not disfigured visibly. His face?
His hands? She had to look, to ask,
"What is it, dear?" And she had given all
And still she had all--_they_ had--they the lucky!
Wasn't she glad now? Everything seemed won,
And all the rest for them permissible ease.
She had to ask, "What was it, dear?"

"Enough,
Yet not enough. A bullet through and through,
High in the breast. Nothing but what good care
And medicine and rest, and you a week,
Can cure me of to go again." The same
Grim giving to do over for them both.

She dared no more than ask him with her eyes
How was it with him for a second trial.
And with his eyes he asked her not to ask.
They had given him back to her, but not to keep.


Robert Frost

Hold the Line


We were farm boys in the spring of 'fourteen
A few miles from mother's door the furthest I'd ever been.
One short month of training and we're off to foreign shores to hold the line.

And now a year's gone by and I've never let my mind count the minutes of these murders, the brothers now behind.

"We'll all go home by Christmas. The weather will be kind. Will you hold the line?"

"Your mask protects you from the poison yellow smoke."
"They will time their charge to take you when they think the line has broken."
"None of them expecting that we got their trenches mined."
"And we'll hold the line."

They sent us out to murder on the empty foreign fields.
There is crimson in the umber of a kind that doesn't yield.
Our youth gave in to anger, our shoulder to the toil.
A million names and faces in a mile of bloody soil.

Have I been here a lifetime or just these thousand horrid days?
Will the guns ever go silent?
Will the winds of time erase the scars upon the battlefield?
The world within our mind while we hold the line?

And of all the faces that have come and gone (while in this tomb I've grown),
The one I've come to like the least's the one that is my own.
For within this bloodied hero a murderer you find and you hold the line.
Hold the line.
 
Nathan Rogers

Here Dead We Lie


Here dead we lie
Because we did not choose
To live and shame the land
From which we sprung.

Life, to be sure,
Is nothing much to lose,
But young men think it is,
And we were young.


A. E. Housman

Fleurette


            (The Wounded Canadian Speaks)

            My leg? It's off at the knee.
            Do I miss it? Well, some. You see
                I've had it since I was born;
                And lately a devilish corn.
            (I rather chuckle with glee
                To think how I've fooled that corn.)

            But I'll hobble around all right.
                It isn't that, it's my face.
            Oh I know I'm a hideous sight,
                Hardly a thing in place;
            Sort of gargoyle, you'd say.
                Nurse won't give me a glass,
                But I see the folks as they pass
            Shudder and turn away;
                Turn away in distress . . .
                Mirror enough, I guess.

            I'm gay! You bet I AM gay;
                But I wasn't a while ago.
            If you'd seen me even to-day,
                The darndest picture of woe,
            With this Caliban mug of mine,
                So ravaged and raw and red,
            Turned to the wall -- in fine,
                Wishing that I was dead. . . .
            What has happened since then,
                Since I lay with my face to the wall,
            The most despairing of men?
                Listen! I'll tell you all.

            That poilu across the way,
                With the shrapnel wound in his head,
            Has a sister: she came to-day
                To sit awhile by his bed.
            All morning I heard him fret:
                "Oh, when will she come, Fleurette?"

            Then sudden, a joyous cry;
                The tripping of little feet,
            The softest, tenderest sigh,
                A voice so fresh and sweet;
            Clear as a silver bell,
                Fresh as the morning dews:
            "C'est toi, c'est toi, Marcel!
                Mon fre^re, comme je suis heureuse!"

            So over the blanket's rim
                I raised my terrible face,
            And I saw -- how I envied him!
                A girl of such delicate grace;
            Sixteen, all laughter and love;
                As gay as a linnet, and yet
            As tenderly sweet as a dove;
                Half woman, half child -- Fleurette.

            Then I turned to the wall again.
                (I was awfully blue, you see),
            And I thought with a bitter pain:
                "Such visions are not for me."
            So there like a log I lay,
                All hidden, I thought, from view,
            When sudden I heard her say:
                "Ah! Who is that malheureux?"
            Then briefly I heard him tell
                (However he came to know)
            How I'd smothered a bomb that fell
                Into the trench, and so
            None of my men were hit,
                Though it busted me up a bit.

            Well, I didn't quiver an eye,
                And he chattered and there she sat;
            And I fancied I heard her sigh --
                But I wouldn't just swear to that.
            And maybe she wasn't so bright,
                Though she talked in a merry strain,
            And I closed my eyes ever so tight,
                Yet I saw her ever so plain:
            Her dear little tilted nose,
                Her delicate, dimpled chin,
            Her mouth like a budding rose,
                And the glistening pearls within;
            Her eyes like the violet:
            Such a rare little queen -- Fleurette.

            And at last when she rose to go,
                The light was a little dim,
            And I ventured to peep, and so
                I saw her, graceful and slim,
            And she kissed him and kissed him, and oh
                How I envied and envied him!

            So when she was gone I said
                In rather a dreary voice
            To him of the opposite bed:
                "Ah, friend, how you must rejoice!
            But me, I'm a thing of dread.
                For me nevermore the bliss,
                The thrill of a woman's kiss."

            Then I stopped, for lo! she was there,
                And a great light shone in her eyes;
            And me! I could only stare,
                I was taken so by surprise,
            When gently she bent her head:
                "May I kiss you, Sergeant?" she said.

            Then she kissed my burning lips
                With her mouth like a scented flower,
            And I thrilled to the finger-tips,
                And I hadn't even the power
            To say: "God bless you, dear!"
            And I felt such a precious tear
                Fall on my withered cheek,
                And darn it! I couldn't speak.

            And so she went sadly away,
                And I knew that my eyes were wet.
            Ah, not to my dying day
                Will I forget, forget!
            Can you wonder now I am gay?
                God bless her, that little Fleurette!