A Treasury of War Poetry

FIELD, A.N. He is a private in the Second New Zealand Brigade.

FRANKAU, GILBERT. Upon the declaration of war he joined the Ninth East
Surrey Regiment (Infantry), with the rank of Lieutenant. He was
transferred to the Royal Field Artillery in March, 1915, and was
appointed Adjutant during the following July. He proceeded to France in
that capacity, fought in the battle of Loos, served at Ypres during the
winter of 1915-16, and thereafter took part in the battle of the Somme.
In October, 1916, he was recalled to England, was promoted to the rank
of Staff Captain in the Intelligence Corps, and was sent to Italy to
engage in special duties.

FREEMAN, JOHN. He was Lieutenant-Colonel in the Russian A. M. S., on the
Bacteriological Mission to Galicia, 1914.

HEWLETT, MAURICE HENRY. He has published a group of his war poems under
the title _Sing-Songs of the War_.

HODGSON, W.N. He was the son of the Bishop of Ipswich and Edmundsbury,
and was a Lieutenant in the Devon Regiment. His pen-name is "Edward
Melbourne." He won the Military Cross. He was killed during the battle
of the Somme, in July, 1916.

HOWARD, GEOFFREY. He is a Lieutenant in the Royal Fusiliers.

STEWART, J.E. He is a Captain in the Eighth Border Regiment, British
Expeditionary Force. He was awarded the Military Cross in 1916.

TENNANT, EDWARD WYNDHAM. He was the son of Baron Glenconner, and was at
Winchester when war was declared. He was only seventeen when he joined
the Grenadier Guards, Twenty-first Battalion. He had one year's training
in England, saw one year's active service in France, and fell, gallantly
fighting, in the battle of the Somme, 1916.

TYNAN, KATHARINE. Pen-name of Mrs. Katharine Tynan Hinkson, whose war
writings include _The Flower of Peace_, _The Holy War_, etc.

VAN DYKE, HENRY. He has been Professor of English Literature in
Princeton University since 1900, and was United States Minister to the
Netherlands and Luxembourg from June, 1913, to December, 1916. He has
published several war poems. He is the first American to receive an
honorary degree at Oxford since the United States entered the war. The
degree of Doctor of Civil Law was conferred upon him on May 8, 1917.

VERNÈDE, ROBERT ERNEST. He was educated at St. Paul's School and at St.
John's College, Oxford. On leaving college he became a professional
writer, producing several novels and two books of travel sketches, one
dealing with India, the other with Canada. He was also author of a
number of poems. At the outbreak of the war he enlisted in the
Nineteenth Royal Fusiliers, known as the Public Schools Battalion, and
received a commission as Second Lieutenant in the Rifle Brigade, in May,
1915. He went to France in November, 1915, and was wounded during the
battle of the Somme in September of the following year, but returned to
the front in December. He died of wounds on April 9, 1917, in his
forty-second year.

WATERHOUSE, GILBERT. Lieutenant in the Second Essex Regiment. His war
writings include _Railhead, and other Poems_. He is reported "missing."

The Princeton University Press:--"To France," by Herbert Jones, from _A
Book of Princeton Verse_.

Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons:--"I Have a Rendezvous with Death," and
"Champagne, 1914-1915," by the late Alan Seeger, from _Poems_.

Messrs. Sherman, French & Company:--"The _William P. Frye_" (_New York
Times_), by Jeanne Robert Foster, from _Wild Apples_.

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.

We were fighting two foes--Time and Prussia--the moments were worth more
than troops.
We _must_ blow up the bridge. A lone soldier darts out from the Royals
and swoops
For the fuse! Fate seems with us. We cheer him; he answers--our hopes
are reborn!
A ball rips his visor--his khaki shows red where another has torn.

SEAMAN, SIR OWEN. He has been the editor of _Punch_ since 1906. His war
writings include _War-Time_ and _Made in England_.

SEEGER, ALAN. Among the Americans who have served at the front there is
none who has produced poetic work of such high quality as that of Alan
Seeger. He was born in New York on June 22nd, 1888; was educated at the
Horace Mann School; Hackley School, Tarrytown, New York; and Harvard
College. In 1912 he went to Paris and lived the life of a student and
writer in the Latin Quarter. During the third week of the war he
enlisted in the Foreign Legion of France. His service as a soldier was
steady, loyal and uncomplaining--indeed, exultant would not be too
strong a word to describe the spirit which seems constantly to have
animated his military career. He took part in the battle of Champagne.
Afterwards, his regiment was allowed to recuperate until May, 1916. On
July 1 a general advance was ordered, and on the evening of July 4 the
Legion was ordered to attack the village of Belloy-en-Santerre. Seeger's
squad was caught by the fire of six machine-guns and he himself was
wounded in several places, but he continued to cheer his comrades as
they rushed on in what proved a successful charge. He died on the
morning of July 5. The twenty or more poems he wrote during active
service are included in the collected _Poems by Alan Seeger_, with an
introduction by William Archer.

SORLEY, CHARLES HAMILTON. He was born at Old Aberdeen on May 19, 1895.
He was a student at Marlborough College from the autumn of 1908 until
the end of 1913, at which time he was elected to a scholarship at
University College, Oxford. After leaving school in England, he spent
several months as a student and observer in Germany. When the war broke
out he returned home and was gazetted Second Lieutenant in the Seventh
(Service) Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment. In November he was made a
Lieutenant, and in August, 1915, a Captain. He served in France from May
30 to October 13, 1915, when he was killed in action near Hulluch. His
war poems and letters appear in a volume entitled _Marlborough and other
Poems_, published by the Cambridge University Press.