Артур Конан Дойл The Guards Came Through, and Other Poems
HAIG IS MOVING
August 1918
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!
THE GUNS IN SUSSEX
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.
YPRES
September, 1915
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 That old Belfry rose against the sunset.
You held council at your quarters when the budding Alexanders And the Pickel-haubed Cæsars gave their reasons. Was there one amongst that bristle-headed circle of commanders Ever ventured the opinion that a little town of Flanders Would hold you pounded here through all the seasons?
You all clasped hands upon it. You would break the British line, You would smash a road to westward with your host, The howitzers should thunder and the Uhlan lances shine Till Calais heard the blaring of the distant “Wacht am Rhein,” As you topped the grassy uplands of the coast. Said the Graf von Feuer-Essen, “It's a fact beyond discussion, That man to man we can outfight the foe. There is valour in the French, there is patience in the Russian, But blend all war-like virtues and you get the lordly Prussian,” And the bristle-headed murmured, “Das ist so.”
“And the British,” cried another, “they are mercenary cattle, Without one noble impulse of the soul, Degenerate and drunken; if the dollars chink and rattle, 'Tis the only sort of music that will call them to the battle.” And all the bristle-headed cried, “Ja wohl!” And so next day your battle rolled across the Menin Plain, Where Capper's men stood lonely to your wrath. You broke him, and you broke him, but you broke him all in vain, For he and his contemptibles kept closing up again, And the khaki bar was still across your path.
And on the day when Gheluvelt lay smoking in the sun, When Von Deimling stormed so hotly in the van, You smiled as Haig reeled backwards and you thought him on the run, But, alas for dreams that vanish, for before the day was done It was you, my Lord of Würtemberg, that ran.
A dreary day was that – but another came, more dreary, When the Guard from Arras led your fierce attacks, Spruce and splendid in the morning were the Potsdam Grenadiere, But not so spruce that evening when they staggered spent and weary, With those cursed British storming at their backs.
You knew – your spies had told you – that the ranks were scant and thin, That the guns were short of shell and very few, By all Bernhardi's maxims you were surely bound to win, There's the open town before you. Haste, my Lord, and enter in, Or the War-Lord may have telegrams for you. Then came the rainy winter, when the price was ever dearer, Every time you neared the prize of which you dreamed, Each day the Belfry faced you but you never brought it nearer, Each night you saw it clearly but you never saw it clearer. Ah, what a weary time it must have seemed!
At last there came the Easter when you loosed the coward gases, Surely you have got the rascals now! You could see them spent and choking as you watched them thro' your glasses, Yes, they choke, but never waver, and again the moment passes Without one leaf of laurel for your brow.
Then at Hooge you had them helpless, for their guns were one to ten, And you blasted trench and traverse at your will, You had them dead and buried, but they still sprang up again. “Donnerwetter!” cried your Lordship, “Donnerwetter!” cried your men,
