More songs by the fighting men. Soldiers poets: second series/H. S. Graham

H. S. GRAHAM

Capt., R.E.T.

 

The Seers

THE Poets who have sung have not revealed
The great abiding purpose for which God
Has led again the Nations to the Field
Of Blood, through which our fathers ofttimes trod.

And we must wait; for unto them alone
The Truth is naked who themselves, ahead
Of all their fellow-men, away have thrown
Their Life, and on the battlefield lie dead.

To them who thus to God have bared the Soul
Is shown the Truth, the Victory of Loss,
Of Sacrifice of all for God, the bowl
Which Jesus drained for man upon the Cross!

To them we turn, our lost, our best, our brave!
Yet should we hear though one rose from the grave?

⁠France, 1916.

 

The Field of Blood

STRANGER, this foreign field wherein you lie
Has many human vessels fashioned true
Under the Potter's Thumb. The Priests did buy
It with the silver Traitor Judas threw
Into the Treasury, as he confessed
He had betrayed the Blood of Innocence.
They bought the field for weary Strangers' rest;
And you are Stranger thrice,—to War's offence,
To death and to this land. The World allied
To other Traitors long have seized Our Lord
And by this War have Him re-crucified;
And soldiers guard His Tomb with naked swords.
⁠But for all this the stone shall roll away,
⁠And you shall rise with Him on Easter Day!

⁠6th December, 1916.