More songs by the fighting men. Soldiers poets: second series/J. Peterson

J. PETERSON

Private, Seaforth Highlanders

 

Peace

"THERE is no peace, no peace," the big guns shout
To drown the little voice that ev'ry hour,
Persistent as the muezzin from his tower,
Proclaims that all is well.—Yet who shall doubt
The deep-sea thunder in dim moonlit caves,
The green hills singing to the morning sun,
The wild flowers flaunting till the day is done,
Or plaintive sea-gull cries o'er twilit waves?—
"No peace," they growl! The little voice pleads on:
A lark high singing o'er the barrage blast,
A moonbeam on the lake's dark bosom cast,
A whisper from a thousand mouths anon,
"Lo! beauty, beauty may not, cannot cease,
And beauty's thrice-starred crown is peace, is peace."

 

Arras

I WENT and walked by Arras
In the dim uncertain night;
I went and walked by Arras
In the dazzling noonday light;
First, I saw a fairy glamour—
Later, 'twas another sight.

Out by Arras in the night-time,
Star-shells in the starlit sky
Showered like wild silver raindrops
From a fountain scattered high,
Like the silver scales of fishes
In the tideway curving by.

Out by Arras in the night-time
There were glints of red and green
Like the glow of fairy camp-fires
In some hidden high wood seen,
Like the day-dawn of the night-land
Where no man has ever been.

Out by Arras in the day-time
There stretched broad the sun-parched sand
Where together men and torture
Lived with foul death hand and hand,
Horror-stricken, God-forsaken,
There stretched far the war-cursed land.

And upon the stretches barren
Far I saw the thousands lie
That the wind of war had blasted,
Sweeping on without a sigh;
In the hollows, huddled hundreds
Who were not afraid to die.