The Pilgrims of Hope Read online

  But now when we came unto Paris and were out in the sun and the street,

  It was strange to see the faces that our wondering eyes did meet;

  Such joy and peace and pleasure! That folk were glad we knew,

  But knew not the why and the wherefore; and we who had just come through

  The vanquished land and down-cast, and there at St. Denis e'en now

  Had seen the German soldiers, and heard their bugles blow,

  And the drum and fife go rattling through the freshness of the morn -

  Yet here we beheld all joyous the folk they had made forlorn!

  So at last from a grey stone building we saw a great flag fly,

  One colour, red and solemn 'gainst the blue of the spring-tide sky,

  And we stopped and turned to each other, and as each at each did we gaze,

  The city's hope enwrapped us with joy and great amaze.

  As folk in a dream we washed and we ate, and in all detail,

  Oft told and in many a fashion, did we have all yesterday's tale:

  How while we were threading our tangle of trouble in London there,

  And I for my part, let me say it, within but a step of despair,

  In Paris the day of days had betid; for the vile dwarf's stroke,

  To madden Paris and crush her, had been struck and the dull sword broke;

  There was now no foe and no fool in the city, and Paris was free;

  And e'en as she is this morning, to-morrow all France will be.

  We heard, and our hearts were saying, "In a little while all the earth-"

  And that day at last of all days I knew what life was worth;

  For I saw what few have beheld, a folk with all hearts gay.

  Then at last I knew indeed that our word of the coming day,

  That so oft in grief and in sorrow I had preached, and scarcely knew

  If it was but despair of the present or the hope of the day that was due

  -

  I say that I saw it now, real, solid and at hand.

  And strange how my heart went back to our little nook of the land,

  And how plain and clear I saw it, as though I longed indeed

  To give it a share of the joy and the satisfaction of need

  That here in the folk I beheld. For this in our country spring

  Did the starlings bechatter the gables, and the thrush in the thorn-bush sing,

  And the green cloud spread o'er the willows, and the little children rejoice

  And shout midst a nameless longing to the morning's mingled voice;

  For this was the promise of spring-tide, and the new leaves longing to burst,

  And the white roads threading the acres, and the sun-warmed meadows athirst.

  Once all was the work of sorrow and the life without reward,

  And the toil that fear hath bidden, and the folly of master and lord;

  But now are all things changing, and hope without a fear

  Shall speed us on through the story of the changes of the year.

  Now spring shall pluck the garland that summer weaves for all,

  And autumn spread the banquet and winter fill the hall.

  O earth, thou kind bestower, thou ancient fruitful place,

  How lovely and beloved now gleams thy happy face!

  And O mother, mother, I said, hadst thou known as I lay in thy lap,

  And for me thou hopedst and fearedst, on what days my life should hap,

  Hadst thou known of the death that I look for, and the deeds wherein I

  should deal,

  How calm had been thy gladness! How sweet hadst thou smiled on my weal!

  As some woman of old hadst thou wondered, who hath brought forth a god of the earth,

  And in joy that knoweth no speech she dreams of the happy birth.

  Yea, fair were those hours indeed, whatever hereafter might come,

  And they swept over all my sorrow, and all thought of my wildered home.

  But not for dreams of rejoicing had we come across the sea:

  That day we delivered the letters that our friends had given to me,

  And we craved for some work for the cause. And what work was there indeed,

  But to learn the business of battle and the manner of dying at need?

  We three could think of none other, and we wrought our best therein;

  And both of us made a shift the sergeant's stripes to win,

  For diligent were we indeed: and he, as in all he did,

  Showed a cheerful ready talent that nowise might be hid,

  And yet hurt the pride of no man that he needs must step before.

  But as for my wife, the brancard of the ambulance-women she wore,

  And gently and bravely would serve us; and to all as a sister to be -

  A sister amidst of the strangers-and, alas! a sister to me.

  MEETING THE WAR-MACHINE

  So we dwelt in the war-girdled city as a very part of its life.

  Looking back at it all from England, I an atom of the strife,

  I can see that I might have seen what the end would be from the first,

  The hope of man devoured in the day when the Gods are athirst.

  But those days we lived, as I tell you, a life that was not our own;

  And we saw but the hope of the world, and the seed that the ages had sown,

  Spring up now a fair-blossomed tree from the earth lying over the dead;

  Earth quickened, earth kindled to spring-tide with the blood that her lovers have shed,

  With the happy days cast off for the sake of her happy day,

  With the love of women foregone, and the bright youth worn away,

  With the gentleness stripped from the lives thrust into the jostle of war,

  With the hope of the hardy heart forever dwindling afar.

  O Earth, Earth, look on thy lovers, who knew all thy gifts and thy gain,

  But cast them aside for thy sake, and caught up barren pain!

  Indeed of some art thou mindful, and ne'er shalt forget their tale,

  Till shrunk are the floods of thine ocean and thy sun is waxen pale.

  But rather I bid thee remember e'en these of the latter days,

  Who were fed by no fair promise and made drunken by no praise.

  For them no opening heaven reached out the martyr's crown;

  No folk delivered wept them, and no harvest of renown

  They reaped with the scythe of battle; nor round their dying bed

  Did kindly friendly farewell the dew of blessing shed;

  In the sordid streets of the city mid a folk that knew them not,

  In the living death of the prison didst thou deal them out their lot,

  Yet foundest them deeds to be doing; and no feeble folk were they

  To scowl on their own undoing and wail their lives away;

  But oft were they blithe and merry and deft from the strife to wring

  Some joy that others gained not midst their peaceful wayfaring.

  So fared they, giftless ever, and no help of fortune sought.

  Their life was thy deliverance, O Earth, and for thee they fought;

  Mid the jeers of the happy and deedless, mid failing friends they went

  To their foredoomed fruitful ending on the love of thee intent.

  Yea and we were a part of it all, the beginning of the end,

  That first fight of the uttermost battle whither all the nations wend;

  And yet could I tell you its story, you might think it little and mean.

  For few of you now will be thinking of the day that might have been,

  And fewer still meseemeth of the day that yet shall be,

  That shall light up that first beginning and its tangled misery.

  For indeed a very machine is the war that now men wage;

  Nor have we hold of its handle, we gulled of our heritage,

  We workmen slaves of machines. Well, it ground us small enough

  This
machine of the beaten Bourgeois; though oft the work was rough

  That it turned out for its money. Like other young soldiers at first

  I scarcely knew the wherefore why our side had had the worst;

  For man to man and in knots we faced the matter well;

  And I thought, well to-morrow or next day a new tale will be to tell.

  I was fierce and not afraid; yet O were the wood-sides fair,

  And the crofts and the sunny gardens, though death they harboured there!

  And few but fools are fain of leaving the world outright,

  And the story over and done, and an end of the life and the light.

  No hatred of life, thou knowest, O Earth, mid the bullets I bore,

  Though pain and grief oppressed me that I never may suffer more.

  But in those days past over did life and death seem one;

  Yea the life had we attained to which could never be undone.

  You would have me tell of the fighting? Well, you know it was new to me,

  Yet it soon seemed as if it had been for ever, and ever would be.

  The morn when we made that sally, some thought (and yet not I)

  That a few days and all would be over: just a few had got to die,

  And the rest would be happy thenceforward. But my stubborn country blood

  Was bidding me hold my halloo till we were out of the wood.

  And that was the reason perhaps why little disheartened I was,

  As we stood all huddled together that night in a helpless mass,

  As beaten men are wont: and I knew enough of war

  To know midst its unskilled labour what slips full often are.

  There was Arthur unhurt beside me, and my wife come back again,

  And surely that eve between us there was love though no lack of pain

  As we talked all the matter over, and our hearts spake more than our lips;

  And we said, "We shall learn, we shall learn-yea, e'en from disasters and slips."

  Well, many a thing we learned, but we learned not how to prevail

  O'er the brutal war-machine, the ruthless grinder of bale;

  By the bourgeois world it was made, for the bourgeois world; and we,

  We were e'en as the village weaver 'gainst the power-loom, maybe.

  It drew on nearer and nearer, and we 'gan to look to the end -

  We three, at least-and our lives began with death to blend;

  Though we were long a-dying-though I dwell on yet as a ghost

  In the land where we once were happy, to look on the loved and the lost.

  THE STORY'S ENDING

  How can I tell you the story of the Hope and its defence?

  We wrought in a narrow circle; it was hither and thither and thence;

  To the walls, and back for a little; to the fort and there to abide,

  Grey-beards and boys and women; they lived there-and they died;

  Nor counted much in the story. I have heard it told since then,

  And mere lies our deeds have turned to in the mouths of happy men,

  And e'en those will be soon forgotten as the world wends on its way,

  Too busy for truth or kindness. Yet my soul is seeing the day

  When those who are now but children the new generation shall be,

  And e'en in our land of commerce and the workshop over the sea,

  Amid them shall spring up the story; yea the very breath of the air

  To the yearning hearts of the workers true tale of it all shall bear.

  Year after year shall men meet with the red flag over head,

  And shall call on the help of the vanquished and the kindness of the dead.

  And time that weareth most things, and the years that overgrow

  The tale of the fools triumphant, yet clearer and clearer shall show

  The deeds of the helpers of menfolk to every age and clime,

  The deeds of the cursed and the conquered that were wise before their time.

  Of these were my wife and my friend; there they ended their wayfaring

  Like the generations before them thick thronging as leaves of the spring,

  Fast falling as leaves of the autumn as the ancient singer hath said,

  And each one with a love and a story. Ah the grief of the early dead!

  "What is all this talk?" you are saying; "why all this long delay?"

  Yes, indeed, it is hard in the telling. Of things too grievous to say

  I would be, but cannot be, silent. Well, I hurry on to the end -

  For it drew to the latter ending of the hope that we helped to defend.

  The forts were gone and the foemen drew near to the thin-manned wall,

  And it wanted not many hours to the last hour and the fall,

  And we lived amid the bullets and seldom went away

  To what as yet were the streets by night-tide or by day.

  We three, we fought together, and I did the best I could,

  Too busy to think of the ending; but Arthur was better than good;

  Resourceful, keen and eager, from post to post he ran,

  To thrust out aught that was moving and bring up the uttermost man,

  He was gone on some such errand, and was absent a little space,

  When I turned about for a moment and saw my wife's fair face,

  And her foot set firm on the rampart, as she hastened here and there,

  To some of our wounded comrades such help as she could to bear.

  Then straight she looked upon me with such lovely, friendly eyes

  Of the days gone by and remembered, that up from my heart 'gan rise

  The choking sobbing passion; but I kept it aback, and smiled,

  And waved my hand aloft-But therewith her face turned wild

  In a moment of time, and she stared along the length of the wall,

  And I saw a man who was running and crouching, stagger and fall,

  And knew it for Arthur at once; but voiceless toward him she ran,

  I with her, crying aloud. But or ever we reached the man,

  Lo! a roar and a crash around us and my sick brain whirling around,

  And a white light turning to black, and no sky and no air and no ground,

  And then what I needs must tell of as a great blank; but indeed

  No words to tell of its horror hath language for my need:

  As a map is to a picture, so is all that my words can say.

  But when I came to myself, in a friend's house sick I lay

  Amid strange blended noises, and my own mind wandering there;

  Delirium in me indeed and around me everywhere.

  That passed, and all things grew calmer, I with them: all the stress

  That the last three months had been on me now sank to helplessness.

  I bettered, and then they told me the tale of what had betid;

  And first, that under the name of a friend of theirs I was hid,

  Who was slain by mere misadventure, and was English as was I,

  And no rebel, and had due papers wherewith I might well slip by

  When I was somewhat better. Then I knew, though they had not told,

  How all was fallen together, and my heart grew sick and cold.

  And yet indeed thenceforward I strove my life to live,

  That e'en as I was and so hapless I yet might live to strive.

  It was but few words they told me of that murder great and grim,

  And how with the blood of the guiltless the city's streets did swim,

  And of other horrors they told not, except in a word or two,

  When they told of their scheme to save me from the hands of the villainous crew,

  Whereby I guessed what was happening in the main without detail.

  And so at last it came to their telling the other tale

  Of my wife and my friend; though that also methought I knew too well.

  Well, they said that I had been wounded by the fragment of a shell,

&
nbsp; Another of which had slain her outright, as forth she ran

  Toward Arthur struck by a bullet. She never touched the man

  Alive and she also alive; but thereafter as they lay

  Both dead on one litter together, then folk who knew not us,

  But were moved by seeing the twain so fair and so piteous,

  Took them for husband and wife who were fated there to die,

  Or, it may be lover and lover indeed-but what know I?

  Well, you know that I 'scaped from Paris, and crossed the narrow sea,

  And made my way to the country where we twain were wont to be,

  And that is the last and the latest of the tale I have to tell.

  I came not here to be bidding my happiness farewell,

  And to nurse my grief and to win me the gain of a wounded life,

  That because of the bygone sorrow may hide away from the strife.

  I came to look to my son, and myself to get stout and strong,

  That two men there might be hereafter to battle against the wrong;

  And I cling to the love of the past and the love of the day to be,

  And the present, it is but the building of the man to be strong in me.

  FB2 document info

  Document ID: d32205bc-0b48-47b9-beee-01188f2f7ca8

  Document version: 1

  Document creation date: 06 May 2013

  Created using: FictionBook Editor Release 2.6 software

  Document authors :

  Lykas

  Document history:

  V1.0 - Lykas (конвертация из TXT)

  About

  This file was generated by Lord KiRon's FB2EPUB converter version 1.1.5.0.

  (This book might contain copyrighted material, author of the converter bears no responsibility for it's usage)

  Этот файл создан при помощи конвертера FB2EPUB версии 1.1.5.0 написанного Lord KiRon.

  (Эта книга может содержать материал который защищен авторским правом, автор конвертера не несет ответственности за его использование)

  http://www.fb2epub.net

  https://code.google.com/p/fb2epub/