Ballads of Battle/At the Dawn: A Drama of the Trenches

by Joseph Lee

AT THE DAWN

A Drama of the Trenches.

Orion raised his red right hand
As marshalling the starry host:
Below I took my lonely stand,
Somewhere anigh the Lonely Post.

Orion wheels adown the sky;
A broken moon to Westward wends,
While I cast up a wistful eye,
Counting the stars among my friends;

Counting each burning bead that hung
Suspend in that great rosary
Which makes, unto the Might that flung,
An Orison continually.

And then the broken moon went out,
And one by one went out the stars,
And, welcome as a friendly shout,
Dawn broke from out her prison bars.

DAWN IN THE TRENCHES

An unfinished drawing made on the morning after Neuve Chapelle.
As Lasarus risen from the dead.—" At the Dawn."

But such a dawn as might have been
Prelude to an horrific play;
As if some Scientist had foreseen
The diverse drama of the day.

A dawn of streaks and streams of red,
Like swelling gouts of spilten blood;
Blood-red the sun that raised its head
Above the broken, blasted wood:
As Lazarus risen from the dead,
Silent each dust-clad sentry stood.

And with the dawn there came a gun,
And with the gun there came a cry;
Along the trench it seemed to run
That sound of strong men when they die.

Then one came running in all haste,
With, "Water, water, for Christ's sake!"
I hitched the bottle from my waist
And marvelled how his hand did shake.

I saw the shaking of his hand,
Which dripped with blood was not his own:
I saw each drop merge with the sand,
Like seed some Evil One had sown.

Then he was gone, and I stood there,
Still gazing on the reddened ground,
And musing whether wheat or tare
From such a sowing would be found.

And there was silence for a space,
Save that a lark sang on the wing:
Then, crouching low, with grim-set face,
Up the long trench came Hira Singh.

He paused by me, and with a blow
He struck the stopper in his flask,
And told me what I sought to know
Before my tongue had time to ask.

He told me what I sought to know
Before my tongue had time to ask.
—"At the Dawn."

"Finished!" he said, and closed his eyes,
As he had closed those of the dead;
And twice he snored, as one who tries
To breathe through blood: "Finished!" he said.
*****
A soldier's cross stood in the corn,
A simple cross as one might see:
Bethought me of that other morn
That broke o'er barren Calvary.

And of the word the Christ had cried
When His long agony was done:
The "It is finished!" when He died
And His redeeming work begun.

And of the kings have warred and reigned,
Since Jesu died, the King of Men,
And of the blood that earth hath stained,
And of the streams must flow again.

And in the soldier's sacrifice,
I saw the Christ's in its degree:
A sinful life—let it suffice,
He laid it down for you and me.

For one a little cross of deal,
For One the Age-Enduring Tree;
Yet each frail, faltering flesh did feel
In hands and feet the wounding steel;
Each died that mankind might be free,
Each gave a life for you and me.