The volunteer, and other poems/Ares, God of War
ARES, GOD OF WAR.
UNDER the stars the armies lie asleep:
Between the lines a quiet river flows
Through brakes of honeysuckle and of rose
And fields where poppies droop in languor deep:
The night as with a mantle now enfolds
The muffled forms upon the pasture low;
The scent of thyme comes down across the wolds,
And on the roses of the dark hedgerow
The summer starlight falls in flakes of silver snow.
Here from the wooded haunt of nymph and fawn
The hidden guns peer forth across the hills,
Their wheels are on the trampled daffodils,
And so they wait the coming of the dawn.
In dappled shadows, where the fairy weaves
On grasses tall his web of sparkling lace,
The gunners lie, their heads upon the sheaves:
White falls the moon on many a sunburnt face,
That ere the day shall feel another God's embrace.
Among the barrows of the sunken plain,
Where sleep the soldiers of another day,
On misty meadow and on upland gray,
On many eyes that close but once again,
The peaceful earth her benediction throws
In waves of healing music from the streams,
That through the willows softly comes and goes;
And now the face of all the country seems
A mirror consecrated to an army's dreams.
From far away is borne a woman's pray'r
To Ares, restless in his iron crown:
"Sleep, Ares, sleep! For, once the dice are thrown,
Empires to thee are leaves upon the air!
Ere all the homes go smoking to the skies,
And men are swept upon the battle-blast,
Ere all the tears are wept from women's eyes,
O Queen of Love, hold now thy Lover fast,
And let him taste eternal anodyne at last!"
But with the dawn there comes a soldier's song:
"When all the guns have fired their last salute,
And all the tongues of all the world are mute,
And life is dearer than to right a wrong,
Then may he weary of his burning wine,
Then lay aside at last his crimson mail,
And rest for ever in the arms divine
Of Aphrodite passionate and pale—
But hark! He comes! Hail, Ares! Lord of thunder, Hail!"
"He rides above the ocean and the snow,
His trail is on the curtain of the skies:
Brighter than dawn, his young eternal eyes
Shine in the eyes of Valour far below:
Now Mammon hides beneath his trembling halls,
While Honour marches singing into war;
On strange forgotten hearts a radiance falls,
As ever nearer, burning from afar,
The sword of Ares gleams above the morning star."
"The other gods are weaker; thou alone
Dost break the King and bend the Emperor's Knee:
Lower than unto Christ they bow to thee,
Lord of the Slave, and Guardian of the Free,
Steel-hearted Ares, shaker of the Throne;
Young God of battle, restless lover, hail!
For, once a man has seen thine eyes aflame,
And mounted on the horses of the gale,
Death is a nothing, life an empty name:
Arise and lead us ere our blood be tame,
O Lord of Thunder, Ares of the Crimson Mail!"
January, 1914.