Cornell University Library PR 6003.I63W5 The winnowing-fan; poems on the great war 3 1924 013 589 118 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 92401 35891 1 8 THE WINNOWING-FAN BY THE SAME WRITER ODES LONDON VISIONS ENGLAND AND OTHER POEMS ETC. THE WINNOWING- FAN : POEMS ON THE GREAT WAR BY LAURENCE BINYON LONDON: ELKIN MATHEWS CORK STREET MCMXV EV. >5 A3t,if^05 First Pnblishea. . December fg/4 Reprinted (soo copies) . June igij CONTENTS THE FOURTH OF AUGUST PACE • 9 STRANGE FRUIT . . . . . II THE NEW IDOL . . . . • 13 THE HARVEST • 14 TO THE BELGIANS • 15 LOUVAIN .... . 18 TO GOETHE .... . 20 AT RHEIMS .... . 22 TO THE ENEMY COMPLAINING • 25 TO WOMEN .... . 26 FOR THE FALLEN . . 28 ODE FOR SEPTEMBER . 30 THE FOURTH OF AUGUST Now in thy splendour go before us. Spirit of England, ardent-eyed, Enkindle this dear earth that bore us. In the hour of peril purified. The cares we hugged drop out of vision. Our hearts with deeper thoughts dilate. We step from days of sour division Into the grandeur of our fate. For us the glorious dead have striven. They battled that we might be free. We to their Uving cause are given ; We arm for men that are to be. Among the nations nobUest chartered, England recalls her heritage. In her is that which is not bartered. Which force can neither quell nor cage. 10 THE FOURTH OF AUGUST For her immortal stars are burning With her the hope that's never done, The seed that's in the Spring's returning. The very flower that seeks the sun. She fights the fraud that feeds desire on Lies, in a lust to enslave or kill, The barren creed of blood and iron. Vampire of Europe's wasted will . . . Endure, O Earth ! and thou, awaken. Purged by this dreadful winnowing-fan, O wronged, untameable, unshaken Soul of divinely suffering man. STRANGE FRUIT This year the grain is heavy-ripe ; The apple shows a ruddier stripe ; Never berries so profuse Blackened with so sweet a juice On brambly hedges, summer-dyed. The yellow leaves begin to glide ; But Earth in careless lap-ful treasures Pledge of over-brimming measures, As if some rich unwonted zest Stirred prodigal within her breast. And now, while plenty's left uncared. The fruit unplucked, the sickle spared. Where men go forth to waste and spill. Toiling to bum, destroy, and kill, Lo, also side by side with these Beast-hungers, ravening miseries. The heart of man has brought to birth Splendours richer than his earth. Now in the thunder-hour of fate Each one is kinder to his mate ; The surly smile ; the hard forbear ; There's help and hope for all to share ; 12 STRANGE FRUIT And sudden visions of goodwill Transcending all the scope of ill Like a glory of rare weather Link us in common Ught together, A clearness of the cleansing sun, Where none's alone and all are one ; And touching each a priceless pain We find our own true hearts again. No more the eeisy masks deceive : We give, we dare, and we believe. 13 THE NEW IDOL Magnificent the Beast ! Look in the eyes Of the fell tiger towering on his prey. Beautiful in his power to pounce and slay And effortless in action. He denies All but himself. He gloats on his weak prize, Roaring the anger of wUd breath at bay, Blank anger like an element whose way Is mere annihilation ! Terrible eyes ! But there is one more to be feared, who can Escape the prison of his own wrath ; whose will Lives beyond life ; who smiles with quiet lips ; Most terrible because most tender, Man, — Not only uncowed but irresistible When the cause fires him to the finger-tips. 14 THE HARVEST Red reapers under these sad August skies, Proud War-Lords, careless of ten thousand dead. Who leave earth's kindly crops unharvested As you have left the kindness of the wise For brutal menace and for clumsy lies. The spawn of insolence by bragging fed, With power and fraud in faith's and honour's stead. Accounting these but good stupidities ; You reap a heavier harvest than you know. Disnaturing a nation, you have thieved Her name, her patient genius, while you thought To fool the world and master it. You sought Reality. It comes in hate and woe. In the end you also shall not be deceived. IS TO THE BELGIANS O RACE that Caesar knew, That won stern Roman praise, What land not envies you The laurel of these days ? You built your cities rich Around each towered hall,— Without, the statued niche. Within, the pictured wall. Your ship-thronged wharves, your marts With gorgeous Venice vied. Peace and her famous arts Were yours : though tide on tide Of Europe's battle scourged Black field and reddened soil. From blood and smoke emerged Peace and her fruitful toil. i6 TO THE BELGIANS Yet when the challenge rang, " The War-Lord comes ; give room ! " Fearless to arms you sprang Against the odds of doom. Like your own Damian Who sought that lepers' isle To die a simple man For men with tranquil smile, So strong in faith you dared Defy the giant, scorn Ignobly to be spared. Though trampled, spoiled, and torn. And in your faith arose And smote, and smote again. Till those astonished foes Reeled from their mounds of slain. The faith that the free soul. Untaught by force to quail. Through fire and dirge and dole Prevails and shall prevail. TO THE BELGIANS i7 Still for your frontier stands The host that knew no dread, Your little, stubborn land's Nameless, immortal dead. l8 LOUVAIN To Dom Bruno Destrie, O.S.B. I It was the very heart of Peace that thrilled In the deep minster-beU's wide-throbbing sound When over old roofs evening seemed to build Security this world has never found. Your cloister looked from Ceesar's rampart, high O'er the fair city : clustered orchard-trees Married their murmur with the dreaming sky. It was the house of lore and living peace. And there we talked of youth's deUghtful years In Italy, in England. Now, Friend, I know not if I speak to living ears Or if upon you too is come the end. Peace is on Louvain ; dead peace of spilt blood Upon the mounded ashes where she stood. LOUVAIN 19 II But from that blood, those ashes there arose Not hoped-for terror cowering as it ran, But divine anger flaming upon those Defamers of the very name of man, Abortions of their bUnd hyena-creed. Who for " protection " of their battle-host Against the unarmed of them they had made to bleed. Whose hearts they had tortured to the utter- most Without a cause, past pardon, fired and tore The towers of fame and beauty, while they shot And butchered the defenceless in the door. But History shall hang them high, to rot Unburied, in the face of times unborn. Mankind's abomination and last scorn. TO GOETHE Goethe, who saw and who foretold A world revealed New-springing from its ashes old On Valmy field. When Prussia's sullen hosts retired Before the advance Of ragged, starved, but freedom-fired Soldiers of France ; If still those clear, Olympian eyes Through smoke and rage Your ancient Europe scrutinize, What think you. Sage ? Are these the armies of the Light That seek to drown The light of lands where freedom's fight Has won renown ? TO GOETHE = Will they blot also out your name Because you praise All works of men that shrine the flame Of beauty's ways, Wherever men have proved them great. Nor, drunk with pride. Saw but a single swollen State And naught beside. Nor dreamed of drilling Europe's mind With threat and blow The way professors have designed Genius should go ? Or shall a people rise at length And see and shake The fetters from its giant strength. And grandly break This pedantry of feud and force To man untrue Thundering and blundering on its course To death and rue ? AT RHEIMS Their hearts were burning in their breasts Too hot for curse or cries. They stared upon the towers that burned Before their smarting eyes. There where, since France began to be, Anointed kings knelt down. There where the Maid, the unafraid. Received her vision's crown. The senseless shell with nightmare scream Burst, and fair fragments fell Tom from their centuries of peace As by the rage of hell. What help for wrath, what use for wail ? Before a dumb despair All ancient, high, heroic France Seemed burning, bleeding there. AT RHEIMS 23 Within, the pillars soar to gloom Lit by the glimmering Rose ; Spirits of beauty shrined in stone Afar from mortal woes, Hearing not, though their haunted shade Is stricken, and all around With splintering flash and brutal crash The ghostly aisles resound. And there, upon the pavement stretched. The German wounded groan To see the dropping flames of death And feel the shells their own. Too fierce the fire ! Helped by their foes They stagger out to air. The green-gray coats are seen, are known Through all the crowded square. Ah, now for vengeance ! Deep the groan : A death-knell ! Quietly Soldiers unsHng their rifles, hft And aim with steady eye. 24 AT RHEIMS But sudden in the hush between Death and the doomed, there stands Against those levelled guns a priest. Gentle, with outstretched hands. Be not as guilty as they ! he cries . . . Each lets his weapon fall. As if a vision showed him France And vengeance vain and small. 2S TO THE ENEMY COMPLAINING Be ruthless, then ; scorn slaves of scruple ; avow The blow, planned with such patience, that you deal So terribly ; hack on, and care not how The innocent fall ; live out your faith of steel. Then you speak speech that we can comprehend. It cries from the unpitied blood you spill. And so we stand against you, and to the end Flame as one man, the weapon of one will. But when your lips usurp the loyal phrase Of honour, querulously voluble Of " chivalry " and " kindness," and you praise What you despise for weakness of the fool. Then the gorge rises. Bleat to dupe the dead ! The wolf beneath the sheepskin drips too red. Missing Page Missing Page 28 FOR THE FALLEN With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children, England mourns for her dead across the sea. Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit, Fallen in the cause of the free. Solemn the drums thrill : Death august and royal Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres. There is music in the midst of desolation And a glory that shines upon our tears. They went with songs to the battle, they were young, Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow. They were staunch to the end against odds uncoimted. They fell with their faces to the foe. FOR THE FALLEN 29 They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years con- demn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We wUl remember them. They mingle not with their laughing comrades again ; They sit no more at familiar tables of home ; They have no lot in our labour of the day-time ; They sleep beyond England's foam. But where our desires are and our hopes pro- found, Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight. To the innermost heart of their own land they are known As the stars are known to the Night ; As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain. As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness. To the end, to the end, they remain. 30 ODE FOR SEPTEMBER On that long day when England held her breath, Suddenly gripped at heart And called to choose her part Between her loyal soul and luring sophistries, We watched the wide, green-bosomed land beneath Driven and tumultuous skies ; We watched the volley of white shower after shower Desolate with fierce drops the fallen flower ; And still the rain's retreat Drew glory on its track. And still, when all was darkness and defeat, Upon dissolving cloud the bow of peace shone back. So in our hearts was alternating beat. With very dread elate ; And Earth dyed all her day in colours of our fate. ODE FOR SEPTEMBER 31 n But oh, how faint the image we foretold In fancies of our fear Now that the truth is here ! And we awake from dream yet think it still a dream. It bursts our thoughts with more than thought can hold ; And more than human seem These agonies of conflict ; Elements At war ! yet not with vast indifference Casually crushing ; nay. It is as if were hurled Lightnings that murdered, seeking out their prey ; As if an earthquake shook to chaos half the world. Equal in purpose as in power to slay ; And thunder stunned our ears Streaming in rain of blood on torrents that are tears. ODE FOR SEPTEMBER III Around a planet rolls the drum's alarm. Far where the summer smiles Upon the utmost isles, Danger is treading silent as a fever-breath. Now in the North the secret waters arm ; Under the wave is Death : They fight in the very air, the virgin air, Hovering on fierce wings to the onset : there Nations to battle stream ; Earth smokes and cities bum ; Heaven thickens in a storm of shells that scream; The long lines shattering break, turn and again return ; And still across a continent they teem. Moving in mjniads ; more Than ranks of flesh and blood, but soul with soul at war ! ODE FOR SEPTEMBER 33 IV All the hells are awake : the old serpents hiss From dungeons of the mind ; Fury of hate born blind, Madness and lust, despairs and treacheries un- clean ; They shudder up from man's most dark abyss. But there are heavens serene That answer strength with strength ; they stand secure ; They arm us from within, and we endure. Now are the brave more brave, Now is the cause more dear. The more the tempests of the darkness rave As, when the sun goes down, the shining stars are clear. Radiant the spirit rushes to the grave. Glorious it is to live In such an hour, but life is lovelier yet to give. 34 ODE FOR SEPTEMBER Alas ! what comfort for the uncomforted Who knew no cause, nor sought Glory or gain ? they are taught, Homeless in homes that bum, what human hearts can bear. The children stumble over their dear dead. Wandering they know not where. And there is one who simply fights, obeys. Tramps, till he loses count of nights and days. Tired, mired in dust and sweat. Far from his own hearth-stone ; A common man of common earth, and yet The battle-winner he, a man of no renown. Where " food for cannon " pays a nation's debt. This is Earth's hero, whom The pride of Empire tosses careless to his doom. ODE FOR SEPTEMBER 35 VI Now will we speak, while we have eyes for tears And fibres to be wrung And in our mouths a tongue. We will bear wrongs untold but will not only bear; Not only bear, but build through striving years The answer of our prayer, That whosoever has the noble name Of man, shall not be yoked to ahen shame ; That life shall be indeed Life, not permitted breath Of spirits wrenched and forced to others' need. Robbed of their nature's joy and free alone in death. The world shall travail in that cause, shall bleed. But deep in hope it dwells Until the morning break which the long night foretells. 36 ODE FOR SEPTEMBER vn O children filled with your own airy glee Or with a grief that comes So swift, so strange, it numbs. If ,on your growing youth this page of terror bite, Harden not then your senses, feel and be The promise of the light. O heirs of Man, keep in your hearts not less The divine torrents of his tenderness ! 'Tis ever war : but rust Grows on the sword ; the tale Of earth is strewn with empires heaped in dust Because they dreamed that force should punish and prevail. The will to kindness lives beyond their lust ; Their grandeurs are undone : Deep, deep within man's soul are all his vic- tories won. Thanks are due to the editors of the Times, the Pall MaU Gazette, the Nation, the Spectator, the Sphere, the Westminster Gazette, and the Fortnightly Review for permission to reprint poems originally contributed to those peri- odicals. PRINTED BY BRENDOM AND SON, LTD. PLYMOUTH THE WINNOWING-FAN POEMS ON THE GREAT WAR By LAURENCE BINYON Fcap. 8^0, Wrapper, is. net; Cloih (Jine paper edition), 2S. 6d. net SOME PRESS OPINIONS "Mr. Laurence Binyon's grave and beautiful poetry is always worthy of attention, but in his slender volume on the Great War, which he calls Tke Winntyivinff-Fan, he seems to us to have surpassed all his former achievements. Perhaps some masterful crisis was needed to kindle Mr. Binyon's temperament till the marble of his verse glowed with the colours of life. Here we find all the old delicacy and precision of phrase and thought, but also a new gift, which we can only describe as unforgettableness. There are many fine things — ' To the Belgians,' for example, and 'To the Enemy Complaining,' which recalls Wordsworth's famous lines on Spain, and 'To Women,' but ' For the Fallen ' transcends these, as it easily transcends all the war verse written since August. Beauty of word and cadence and an austere elevation of mood are combined with a curious and most com- forting tenderness, as if the singer's voice broke suddenly in the midst of his flight. We quote the last stanzas for the sheer pleasure of tran- scribing them." [Four Stanzas q\xot&d..'\— Spectator. " It may seem strange, at the moment, that by a monstrous brutality spirits should be finely touched and to fine issues ; yet it has proved true of war in the past, and may prove true in the near future. "On the poetry of Mr. Binyon, for one, the war appears to have already had an enriching effect. . . . He has never before written with so much passion and so large an utterance as in these twelve poems on various aspects of the war." — Times' Literary Supplement. " In ' For the Fallen ' this studious poet, lifting his eyes to the stars from the Oriental prints he knows so well, has achieved the noblest war poem that has yet appeared in English." — Morning Post. LONDON: ELKIN MATHEWS, CORK STREET