And yonder rifleman and I
Wait here behind the misty trees,
To shoot the first man that goes by,
Our rifles ready on our knees.
How could he know that if we fail
The world may lie in chains for years
And England be a bygone Tale
And right be wrong, and laughter tears?
Strange that this bird sits there and sings
While we must only sit and plan—
Who are so much the higher things—
The murder of our fellow-man. . . .
But maybe God will cause to be—
Who brought forth sweetness from the strong—
Out of our discords harmony
Sweeter than that bird's song.
Though the rousing of Vernède's lyrical impulse was at first coincident with loss of discrimination, and might be condemned as an attempt to shout with the crowd, I find its excuse, if not its justification, in that ardent sympathy that at first wraps the confused soul in cloud, but will, like a late September morning by 10 a.m., grow glorious as a summer day. Readers only feel the insult of not being treated as an author's equals, in proportion as they are his peers. Now Vernède's peers can look after themselves, but the men he looked after in that hell at the front needed him, and needed such as he was, more than any other kind of officer. He was not artist enough to reconcile both these claims, but he chose the most important. All that he says of his friend we can safely transfer to himself; the testimony of his brother officers is our warrant.
