Part 32

NOVEMBER, 1916

THE AMERICAN PEOPLE: What was it kept you so long, brave German submersible? We have been very anxious lest matters had not gone well With you and the precious cargo of your country's drugs and dyes. But here you are at last, and the sight is good for our eyes, Glad to welcome you up and out of the caves of the sea, And ready for sale or barter, whatever your will may be.

THE CAPTAIN OF THE SUBMERSIBLE: Oh, do not be impatient, good friends of this neutral land, That we have been so tardy in reaching your eager strand. We were stopped by a curious chance just off the Irish coast, Where the mightiest wreck ever was lay crowded with a host Of the dead that went down with her; and some prayed us to bring them here That they might be at home with their brothers and sisters dear. We Germans have tender hearts, and it grieved us sore to say We were not a passenger ship, and to most we must answer nay, But if from among their hundreds they could somehow a half-score choose We thought we could manage to bring them, and we would not refuse. They chose, and the women and children that are greeting you here are those Ghosts of the women and children that the rest of the hundred chose.

THE AMERICAN PEOPLE: What guff are you giving us, Captain? We are able to tell, we hope, A dozen ghosts, when we see them, apart from a periscope. Come, come, get down to business! For time is money, you know, And you must make up in both to us for having been so slow. Better tell this story of yours to the submarines, for we Know there was no such wreck, and none of your spookery.

THE GHOSTS OF THE LUSITANIA WOMEN AND CHILDREN: Oh, kind kin of our murderers, take us back when you sail away; Our own kin have forgotten us. O Captain, do not stay! But hasten, Captain, hasten: The wreck that lies under the sea Shall be ever the home for us this land can never be.

William Dean Howells

EDITH CAVELL

She was binding the wounds of her enemies when they came-- The lint in her hand unrolled. They battered the door with their rifle-butts, crashed it in: She faced them gentle and bold.

They haled her before the judges where they sat In their places, helmet on head. With question and menace the judges assailed her, "Yes, I have broken your law," she said.

"I have tended the hurt and hidden the hunted, have done As a sister does to a brother, Because of a law that is greater than that you have made, Because I could do none other.

"Deal as you will with me. This is my choice to the end, To live in the life I vowed." "She is self-confessed," they cried; "she is self-condemned. She shall die, that the rest may be cowed."

In the terrible hour of the dawn, when the veins are cold, They led her forth to the wall. "I have loved my land," she said, "but it is not enough: Love requires of me all.

"I will empty my heart of the bitterness, hating none." And sweetness filled her brave With a vision of understanding beyond the hour That knelled to the waiting grave.

They bound her eyes, but she stood as if she shone. The rifles it was that shook When the hoarse command rang out. They could not endure That last, that defenceless look.

And the officer strode and pistolled her surely, ashamed That men, seasoned in blood, Should quail at a woman, only a woman,-- As a flower stamped in the mud.

And now that the deed was securely done, in the night When none had known her fate, They answered those that had striven for her, day by day: "It is over, you come too late."

And with many words and sorrowful-phrased excuse Argued their German right To kill, most legally; hard though the duty be, The law must assert its might.

Only a woman! yet she had pity on them, The victim offered slain To the gods of fear that they worship. Leave them there, Red hands, to clutch their gain!

She bewailed not herself, and we will bewail her not, But with tears of pride rejoice That an English soul was found so crystal-clear To be triumphant voice

Of the human heart that dares adventure all But live to itself untrue, And beyond all laws sees love as the light in the night, As the star it must answer to.

The hurts she healed, the thousands comforted--these Make a fragrance of her fame. But because she stept to her star right on through death It is Victory speaks her name.

Laurence Binyon

THE HELL-GATE OF SOISSONS

My name is Darino, the poet. You have heard? Oui, Comédie Française. Perchance it has happened, mon ami, you know of my unworthy lays. Ah, then you must guess how my fingers are itching to talk to a pen; For I was at Soissons, and saw it, the death of the twelve Englishmen.

My leg, malheureusement, I left it behind on the banks of the Aisne. Regret? I would pay with the other to witness their valor again. A trifle, indeed, I assure you, to give for the honor to tell How that handful of British, undaunted, went into the Gateway of Hell.

Let me draw you a plan of the battle. Here we French and your Engineers stood; Over there a detachment of German sharpshooters lay hid in a wood. A mitrailleuse battery planted on top of this well-chosen ridge Held the road for the Prussians and covered the direct approach to the bridge.

It was madness to dare the dense murder that spewed from those ghastly machines. (Only those who have danced to its music can know what the mitrailleuse means.) But the bridge on the Aisne was a menace; our safety demanded its fall: "Engineers,--volunteers!" In a body, the Royals stood out at the call.

Death at best was the fate of that mission--to their glory not one was dismayed. A party was chosen--and seven survived till the powder was laid. And they died with their fuses unlighted. Another detachment! Again A sortie is made--all too vainly. The bridge still commanded the Aisne.