A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919/The Silent Toast

by Frederick George Scott

THE SILENT TOAST^[1]

THEY stand with reverent faces,
And their merriment give o'er,
As they drink the toast to the unseen host
Who have fought and gone before.

It is only a passing moment
In the midst of the feast and song,
But it grips the breath, as the wing of death
In a vision sweeps along.

No more they see the banquet
And the brilliant lights around;
But they charge again on the hideous plain
When the shell-bursts rip the ground.

Or they creep at night, like panthers,
Through the waste of No Man's Land,
Their hearts afire with a wild desire,
And death on every hand.

And out of the roar and tumult,
Or the black night loud with rain,
Some face comes back on the fiery track
And looks in their eyes again.

And the love that is passing woman's,
And the bonds that are forged by death,
Now grip the soul with a strange control
And speak what no man saith.

The vision dies off in the stillness,
Once more the tables shine,
But the eyes of all in the banquet hall
Are lit with a light divine.

Frederick George Scott

Vimy Ridge, April, 1917.

1. At our banquets at the Front the toast to the Dead was drunk in silence. It was naturally a very impressive moment.