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This text has been proofread but is not guaranteed to be free from errors. Corrections to the original text have been left in place.
Title: Lest We Forget: A War Anthology, an electronic edition
Author: Elliot, H. B.
Publisher: Jarrold & Sons
Place published: 
Date: 1915
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FOREWORD.THIS book is inscribed to every individual woman and girl of Great Britain who to-day is bearing so heroically--so uncomplainingly--her own share of Britain's burden in this Great War. She is asked to give of her dearest and her best, to see the man she loves--husband, son, sweetheart or friend--go to fight his country's battles, to fight in the cause of justice and humanity and honour whilst she--mother, wife or sweetheart--must perforce stay at home and strive with all her might to hide her tears, to keep back the one little word which perhaps would shake the loved one's resolution, the one little word which might unnerve him and cause him to stay by her side. Indeed, the burden laid upon all the women and girls of Great Britain is no light one! and they are bearing it with all the heroism of their race. Their sorrow is great--and in that sorrow but one solace is left to them--that of thinking and planning and working for those who have so bravely gone. It is their skill, their industry, their devotion which makes our gallant soldiers' and sailors' lives at the post of duty a little more happy and a little more comfortable. The warm clothing, which loving fingers at home fashion for the magnificent man who fights on land or at sea, is a comfort not only to his body, but also for his heart, for it reminds him of home, of brave hands that work while brave lips are praying for him.It is to aid this work that this book has been compiled; it is to the workers that it is dedicated. Cheered by the patronage of a gracious Queen they will continue their labour of love so long as their fingers have the strength to wield needles and pins, and in the years to come, when the history of the twentieth century comes to be written, not its least heroic page will be the account of how the women and girls of Great Britain bore their part in the Great War by working for the material comfort of Britain's fighting men.EMMUSKA ORCZY.Snowfield, Bearsted, Kent.THE ROLL OF HONOUR.YOUR faces haunt me from the printed pages,The roll call of our valiant English dead;What woman's hands, I wonder, clung in parting?What woman's heart breaks now the shot is sped?We speak of Glory and the Cause you died for,We lay our homage on your bloodstained grave,Will Glory help to ease the women's anguishOr solace them for these dear dead they gave?Yea, surely. For your spirits go before them,You, who made Death a crown about your lives!And in the splendour of your souls that conqueredWe learn this lesson. Blessed is he who strives,For Love and Faith, for Truth and priceless Honour,These cannot pass away with mortal breath,God guards them safe, and in His mighty keepingAre also those who nobly looked on Death!MARGARET PETERSON, Author of "The Lure of the Little Drums,""Blind Eyes," " Tony Bellew," etc.Daily Chronicle.THE WOMEN OF BELGIUM TO THE WOMEN OF ENGLAND.OH, English women! see, our country's dying;Her life-blood from her gaping wounds is sighing,Her bitter wrongs to God for vengeance crying!The Iron hand has struck, but in the smitingIts own dishonour on the wall is writing,And Belgium's funeral pyre the world is lighting.If we had failed or shrunk before the paying,If we had saved our dearest from the slaying,What price had you not paid for the delaying?Oh, mothers! who your man-grown sons are keeping,Oh, fathers! to the patriot's duty, sleeping,Oh, lovers! at the thought of parting, weeping,Awake, and give us Men to do our Reaping!MARY BOOTH.The Queen.LE JOUR DES MORTS.THE day of the dead, the day of the dead,Down on your knees and pray,For the souls of the living, the souls of the dying,The souls that have passed away.And the great bell tollsFor the treasure of soulsDelivered into his hand,Gabriel, Michael, Uriel, reapSouls as a measure of sand,Souls from the restless deep,Souls from the blood-red land.The day of the dead, the day of the dead, Down on your knees and pray,For the souls of the outcast, despised and rejected,The heroes and victors to-day.And the great bell rings,And the great bell swings,As death makes up the numberOf men's lives as grains of sand,From the decks their bodies cumber,From the panting shivering land,From crash and shriek to slumber.The day of the dead, the day of the dead,Up on your feet and standFor the souls of the living, the fighting, the striving,For the gun and the sword in hand.And His TransfigurationDescends on a nation, And death is a little thing,And lives as a grain of sand.Michael, Gabriel Uriel, bringFrom the desolate blood-red land,From the tall ships foundering.The day of the dead, the day of the dead,Down on your knees and prayFor the souls of the living, the souls of the dying,The souls that have passed away.FRANCES CHESTERTON.SUSPENSE.O'ER oceans, lands, bend down, O God to-day,And as we ask,Shield with Thy wings the many, far away;Soothe those who watch and wait and do each taskWith brave hands working, while their brave lips pray.'Tis but a little world, O God, to Thee,Who rulest all!'Tis such a little way earth-sight may seeThe dusk-times fall.Across each hour, perchance--we dare not faceSuch shades alone--unstrengthened! Send us Grace.LILLIAN GARD.The Queen.CALLED UP!GIVE them a cheer as they march along!A life is a life, so don't mistakeThere's death to meet or a name to make.Give them a cheer!Give them a song as they take the way!There's not a bird or a passing breezeBut mingles notes in the roadside trees,Lilt of hope is a true heartease.Give them a song!Give them a prayer as you watch them go.(May be lips have forgotten to pray.)For right upheld to the end of the way,For goal of peace at the set of the day,Give them a prayer!LILLIAN GARD.The Queen.WINTER NIGHT.ROAMS the East wind across a midnight sky,And shapes of cloud, transparent, curdled, white,Like homing spirits take their lowly flightBefore his breath; but glittering on highA throb of winter stars doth chequer heaven with light.Here, underneath the Hunter, all is still,And silver Sirius sparkles at his feet;While nearer, children of the earth, they fleet--Those sad, etiolate clouds along the hill--As though our dead returned their native land to greet.How may one slumber, how the curtain closeAnd shut them out and turn to blessed rest,While, panging like a poison in the breast,Their agony for ever flows and flows?By day, by night they fall our bravest and our best.O little clouds, the stars ye cannot hide,Yet shadow in your impotence a pleaMightier than all the night's immensityHath power to conjure of her pomp and pride:The claim of men who die that man may still go free.Your vapours sink to earth; down from his height,Flashing red gold, each ancient star departs;Chill Eurus droops at dawn's approaching darts;For clouds and stars and winds shall pass with night;The ever living dead shine on within our hearts.EDEN PHILLPOTTS.British Review.REASON AND HONOUR.WAS not the bounty of the grape and corn,Burned into ripeness by a summer sped,Harvest enough without all they have borneIn their own aching flesh and from their bosoms fed?Shall they, the mothers of the time to be,Create for nothing but a league-long grave,That swallows up their immortalityAnd hideous yawns across a kingdom while they rave?'Tis they who forge the bolt, when nations chafeAnd howl their battle cries of right and wrong;'Tis they who lead the mighty armies safeTo manhood's threshold, brave and beautiful and strong.For death's the only answer that we makeWhen hungry kingdoms rise and fall on strife;Still one insensate spirit's greed can breakThe wide world's peace, and drain her holy founts of life.And still the grandest death that man may dieIs held the death of war, at some great needBeyond all human reason's power to try,Since honour often spurns her sister, reason's rede.For reason's dumb while honour's thirsty bladeStill flashes to the universe how manRemains so blind, so faltering, so afraidThat carnage yet controls his highest hope and plan.But reason, guarding well her golden light,Denies he shall for ever sate his dearthLike wolf or tiger; wills such futile mightAnon be banned and thrust from off the good round earth.She dawns upon the darkness of our eyes;Reveals that war can only hurl us backOn hostile values; whispers to the wiseHow virtue in the fed is vice to them that lack.Virtue and vice are names, not qualities,And when the baffled cry that might is right,No smug opinion from the unconscious skiesFor doubtful virtue's sake shall hold them to their plight.All nations live by ideals; but in needThey linger with no ethic obsolete;They bend the knee to no unfriendly creed;But tramp their values firm beneath an army's feet.Remains to man this everlasting truth:That for his sure defence and steadfast guide,Reason and honour, by the way of truth,Shall yet march, hand in hand, and onward, side by side.Again the world is meeting might with might,And when the battle's fought and lost and won,Pray victory decree, as primal right,That reason also wins a kingdom in the sun.Then shall she swiftly, for our world-wide shame,Bend to the Mother from her starry place,And, in humanity's almighty name,For ever dry the tears upon that sacred face.EDEN PHILLPOTTS.English Review.MEDIATION IN WAR-TIME(After St. Anselm.)IF Thou, Lord God, willest to judgeThis Thy most piteous clay,Which to save, Christ did not grudgeHis red dying I should say:"Now I interpose His death'Twixt these children and Thy wrath."Then if Thou should'st say, "Their shameIs as scarlet in Mine eyes,"I should ask, "Who bare the blame?Look on Thy Son's sacrifice!His dear Blood is far more brightThat shall wash the scarlet white."Still if Thou Thy frown must keepAnd Thine eyes Thou dost avert(Ah! dear Shepherd of the Sheep)I will say, "Who took the hurt?I present Christ's death and pain'Twixt Thine anger and these slain."Dear, they die in millionsFor a quarrel not their own;Look to this poor flock, Thy Son's,Harried all and overthrown.See, I lay Christ's Cross betweenDear, Thy justice and their sin.KATHERINE TYNAN.New Witness.MATER DOLOROSA.WHAT have I given thee,England, beloved of me?I have no gold for thy desolate,I have n spear to guard thy gate,My hands are weak on the harp of fateIn the hour of threnody.Yet have given, I;And England, my gifts lieFar from thee and thy sacred strand.I have given the hand that held my hand,The feet that once on my palm could stand,The hopes I was nourished by.All that I had, I give,The life that I bade live,The heart that my heart made to beat,The lips erstwhile on my lips so sweetThese have I given; is it not meetTo have striven that thou mayst strive?The day of France doth shrineThis only gift of mine;England, be it not made in vain,Be but thy glory great as our pain.We are glad to have given--would give againThe light of our days for thine!DOROTHY MARGARET STUART.British Review.ABI, VIATOR---.IF thou hast seen the standard dimDroop in its mesh of dust and grimeAbove the carven hands of himWho bore it in some ancient time;If thou hast seen the silent swordRust redly in its tattered sheath,Hast caught the echo of the wordThat flung an English glove at death,And yet thy pulses march unstirred,And still thy breath comes calm and slow,Pass on--no Englishman art thou!If thou canst hear and see to-dayThe distant clamour and the fume Of crimson fate, and yet canst say"The gain is mine, be theirs the doom."If thou thy unthrilled hands canst fold,If thou canst check thy seaward tread, Canst shun the dust and guard the gold,Thou hast no kinship with thy dead;Ah! if thy craven heart is cold,Pause not the perilous page to scan--Pass on--thou art no Englishman!But if the distant unisonOf swooping sword and flying dart,Of straining sail and muttering gun,Touches thy spirit and thy heart;If England's day and England's callFind thee a son of England, thenThou canst not falter--thou, nor allHer noble heritage of men;Pass on--she stands, although we fall,Pass on unshaken though stars shakeThyself canst tell what road to take!DOROTHY MARGARET STUART.British Review.A RE ALBERTO.Saluto Italico.O ALBERTO, biondo e leggendario re,Che nè lusinga menzognera ammaliaNe ferreo pugno piega--noi vorremmoMietere tutti i fiori dell'ItaliaE darli a te!Anche l'Italia contro l'oppressore Magnifica e furente combattè;Tra le antiche ferite nel suo cuore Una nuova ferita di dolore Aperta or s'è:Questa--che pur fremente di stupendaFerocia e di magnanimo fervoreIl popolo d'Italia, o eroico re,Nell'ora tua più sacra e più tremendaNon fu con te.ANNIE VIVANTI CHARTRES.Times.A TRIBUTE FROM ITALY.ALBERT, thou standest where the storm-cloud lowersUnvanquished in thy glorious defeat.Oh! to strip Italy of all her flowersAnd bring them to thy feet!No deeper sorrow shall Italia know,Whose sons for freedom's sake have fought and died,Than this--that in thine hour of darkest woeShe was not by thy side.A.V.C.Times.NON-COMBATANT.BEFORE one drop of angry blood was shedI was sore hurt and beaten to my knee;efore one fighting man reeled back and diedThe War-Lords struck at me.They struck me down--an idle, useless mouth,As cumbrous--nay, more cumbrous than the dead,With life and heart afire to give and giveI take a dole instead.With life and heart afire to give and giveI take and eat the bread of charity.In all the length of all this eager land,No man has need of me.That is my hurt--my burning, beating wound;That is the spear--thrust driven through my pride!With aimless hands, and mouth that must be fed,I wait and stand aside.Let me endure it, then, with stiffened lip:I, even, I have suffered in the strife!Let me endure it then--then I give my prideWhere others give a life.Cicely Hamilton.Westminster GazetteWAR.O HELL-SPED fury War, with wings raised highHawk-like that hoverest to smite!How many eager now, stark-dead shall lie,Ere thou hast flown thy fatal flight!O sea of strife, whose armed hosts still come on,Like wind-urged waves across the main!--What throes must flesh endure ere thou sink downIn smoothly flowing Peace again!O callous War! Cold-blooded game of death,With men 'gainst men as foes arrayed,--What pride of youth must yield life's precious breathEre to an end thy game be played!O devastating, desolating War, --What dirges follow thee! what dearthAnd blackened ruin, where thou goest, marThe goodly pleasantness of Earth!GRACE B. TOLLEMACHE.August 1st.SONNET.O YE to whom dear life is still most dear,Heed not the sirens' soft perfidious songThat bids you barter, for a brief term here,Abiding honour! As the martyr-throngFor love of Christ went stedfast to the stakeAnd by faith's rapturous power embraced the flame,So, gladly, ye, for your own Country's sake,Must court the fiery Fates that wound and maim!And if on valour's path to victory's end,Sweet life in one swift flash ye must renounce--Rejoice that your high lot should so transcendMan's common doom! The brave can die but once,But in your death, thrice-gloriously ye'll die,--For England, for men's hearths, and Liberty!GRACE E. TOLLEMACHE.September 1st.SONNET.ENGLAND! that thou wast faint of heart we said,Or inly thought; and that the wreath of baysDrooped on thy brow, withered with length of days,A dust-layered trophy of the age-long Dead:We wronged thee much! --Myriads this month have bledAnd died for thee, and though the end delays,There's not one that a daunted spirit betraysNor that for thee life's last drop would not shed!We deemed thy robes grown faded,--but fresh-dyedWe now behold them,--and their crimson dyeIs of thy sons' spilt blood, deep-hued and glowing:O England! thou art comely in thy prideAnd clad in glorious raiment, and thy goingIs as of one who goes to victory!GRACE E. TOLLEMACHE.October 1st.ONE NIGHT.I WALKED into a moon of gold last nightAcross grey sands she seemed to shine so bright.Wide, wide the sands until I met the sea,Cradle of moons, yet searchlights followed me.I asked the moon if creeping round the ZonesShe had seen good, or only poor things' bones."Pale faces I have seen, unconscious menBereft of struggling horror now and then."And sinking ships I see, and floating mines,And cries I hear, 'O God,' and choking whines.But later when the stars shine on the waveAnd give more light, I know the dead die brave."Passing so quickly from the things that count,Count to all mortal thoughts, to find the Fount,"Where angels pour elixir into bowls,Drink, not for broken hearts, but thirsty souls."And what on shore?" I asked, "the great DivideWhere rivers run, and trenches side by side?""There," the moon said, "the snow was on the groundAnd the frost pinched me as I beamed around."Red pools of gore, and ghastly shadows layIn deep dug corners, so I sank away."Let misty cloudlets sweep across my faceTo hide the earth, and give me heart of grace."Sudden the air seemed filled with eager breathOf great Adventurers, released from death,"And shaking blood from out their eyes and hairShouting for further knowledge here and there."I lighted these across the treacherous PathTo reach the garden of Life's aftermath."And as they sped in troops the great guns boomed,With flashes lightning swift, and dark hordes loomed,"And phantom shapes of patient warrior bands--Then more snow fell and shrouded all the lands.*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*Now pondering from the moon I turned again,Over the sands, back to our House of Pain.MILLICENT SUTHERLAND.British Hospital, Malo, Dunkirk, France.English Review.