The Guards Came Through, and Other Poems. Doyle Arthur Conan

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      Haig is moving!

      Three plain words are all that matter,

      Mid the gossip and the chatter,

      Hopes in speeches, fears in papers,

      Pessimistic froth and vapours —

      Haig is moving!

      Haig is moving!

      We can turn from German scheming,

      From humanitarian dreaming,

      From assertions, contradictions,

      Twisted facts and solemn fictions —

      Haig is moving!

      Haig is moving!

      All the weary idle phrases,

      Empty blamings, empty praises,

      Here's an end to their recital,

      There is only one thing vital —

      Haig is moving!

      Haig is moving!

      He is moving, he is gaining,

      And the whole hushed world is straining,

      Straining, yearning, for the vision

      Of the doom and the decision —

      Haig is moving!

      Light green of grass and richer green of bush

      Slope upwards to the darkest green of fir.

      How still! How deathly still! And yet the hush

      Shivers and trembles with some subtle stir,

      Some far-off throbbing like a muffled drum,

      Beaten in broken rhythm oversea,

      To play the last funereal march of some

      Who die to-day that Europe may be free.

      The deep-blue heaven, curving from the green,

      Spans with its shimmering arch the flowery zone;

      In all God's earth there is no gentler scene,

      And yet I hear that awesome monotone.

      Above the circling midge's piping shrill,

      And the long droning of the questing bee,

      Above all sultry summer sounds, it still

      Mutters its ceaseless menaces to me.

      And as I listen, all the garden fair

      Darkens to plains of misery and death,

      And, looking past the roses, I see there

      Those sordid furrows with the rising breath

      Of all things foul and black. My heart is hot

      Within me as I view it, and I cry,

      “Better the misery of these men's lot

      Than all the peace that comes to such as I!”

      And strange that in the pauses of the sound

      I hear the children's laughter as they roam,

      And then their mother calls, and all around

      Rise up the gentle murmurs of a home.

      But still I gaze afar, and at the sight

      My whole soul softens to its heart-felt prayer,

      “Spirit of Justice, Thou for whom they fight,

      Ah, turn in mercy to our lads out there!

      “The froward peoples have deserved Thy wrath,

      And on them is the Judgment as of old,

      But if they wandered from the hallowed path

      Yet is their retribution manifold.

      Behold all Europe writhing on the rack,

      The sins of fathers grinding down the sons!

      How long, O Lord?” He sends no answer back,

      But still I hear the mutter of the guns.

      Push on, my Lord of Würtemberg, across the Flemish Fen!

      See where the lure of Ypres calls you!

      There's just one ragged British line of Plumer's weary men;

      It's true they held you off before, but venture it again,

      Come, try your luck, whatever fate befalls you!

      You've been some little time, my Lord. Perhaps you scarce remember

      The far-off early days of that resistance.

      Was it in October last? Or was it in November?

      And now the leaves are turning and you stand in mid-September

      Still staring at the Belfry in the distance.

      Can you recall the fateful day – a day of drifting skies,

      When you started on the famous Calais onset?

      Can it be the War-Lord blundered when he urged the enterprise?

      For surely it's a weary while since first before your eyes