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Read Ebook: The Coming of Evolution: The Story of a Great Revolution in Science by Judd John W John Wesley
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Ebook has 465 lines and 48310 words, and 10 pages
Stretched and silent they lie to the furious gold of the dawn, And the earth like a leper's face is pitted and scarred. Firm in the grip of the wire relentless and hard, They lie with their dead young faces pallid and drawn.
Somewhere stupidly, thickly, a big gun booms! A rifle cracks like the spit of a snake in the trees! And ever the great sun rises, rolling the glooms Of the sulphurous night to the fields and the cliffs and the seas.
The groan of a dying man crawls out from his teeth! He groans no more: his lips become leaden and cold! And ever the sun flashes forth like a sword from its sheath, And dazzles the dawn with terrors of scarlet and gold.
The guns snarl out like a dog reluctant and grim. The triggers of rifles loosen in blue numb hands. Faintly the wings of a silence frightened and dim Hover down closer over the blasted lands.
Gods of the great wars, Gods that stand Somewhere afar off, Cruel and grand, Silence, Silence, In No Man's Land!
Gods of the great wars, Cruel and high, Listen afar off! Grant us to die With the song of Silence In the morning sky!
Gods of the great wars, Gas-wave and gun, Are ye not happy With the red work done? Drown ye the planets, Shatter the sun!
Not a twitching of bloodless lip or of glazing eye! For the Silence is deeper than Noon and older than Time, The Silence inert and intense of the far first sky When never a wind breathed over the primal slime.
The Sun is stayed in his march, and even Death With the flush of triumph mantling his cheeks of gloom, He too stands still for an instant and holds his breath. A million of years passes by in a moment of doom.
Suddenly! Terrible! Wild! A skylark shatters the spell, With a music more fiery than hell, More frail than the laugh of a child!
His little brown wings soar high to assault the sun. His little round throat sends a challenge audacious and far To the pale-faced legions of Silence that waver and run, To the uprisen dawn and every invisible star.
Ah God! the song cuts deeper than tempered steel! The eyes overflow with the surge of a salt harsh tear, Again to listen to Music, again to feel The uttermost glory of living when Death is so near!
Scream of a shell! ... Dull dead thud in a trench, Curses and flame and stench! ...
Instantly all the white dawn, Fragrant and frail and cool, Breaks like a vase in the hands of a fool. For the thick sick lips of Death have spoken, The fine gold chain of the bird-song is broken. The lank dank hand of Death has withdrawn The curtain of bird-song and magic dawn From the sullen red windows of Hell.
Rattle of rifle and shriek of gun, Gas-cloud sickly and heavy and dun, Death has taken his armies in hand, And the bodies lie countless in No Man's Land.
Out of the shock of the storm Where the foul winds meet and cry, Something drops down at my feet, A little brown body and sweet, A little dead body and warm.
The tiny dead throat shall sing no more, Nor the quick eyes flash nor the swift wings soar; But the shells shall hurtle, the grim guns roar, O skylark out of the sky!
My singing is ended, the pall descended on land and sea. I sang my song to the tune of my own heart-beat Between the sound of the wars, and there sang with me My little brother the skylark, dead at my feet.
France, 1917
JACK OF APRIL
April!--this is when All the flowers beloved of men, This is when they laugh all day, Birds and they. Then are they not opened quite To the singing year's delight. This is when the April showers Make a running road of noise; Woods are stormed by boyish flowers, Flowery boys. Would you then not weep with me, Wring your hands, Sing a dirge of saddest grief, If your eyes should chance to see Blight upon the April leaf; O, but more, Would you not weep long and sore, If an April flower that stands Waiting for the kiss of May, Suddenly, swift, were snapt away, Down, deep down, were crushed in clay? Then would you not almost say, "Curst be April! Never sunlight bring in May! Curst be June! Death hath seized the budding year. Never flush of copper stir On the unrisen harvest moon! May stark winter come straightway --Now my little flower of April, Now is cold and clay!"
April!--this was when Jack went laughing to the wars. Now he knew What a boy in Spring must do. There are flowers to learn, he said, In the countries where I go. There are birds to talk to and Skies and winds to understand. Never a moment knew he pause. Jack went swinging to the ships With a laughter on his lips, Jack went singing to the wars. Jack among the boys and men Went to France in April when Flowers and boys laughed all the day, Birds and they. ... Till the Doom came down that day, Even though the time was Spring, Even April, Even though he had not sung Half the songs a lad should sing, When the nesting-time is young, April, Spring.
And he shuddered for a moment, Blood and flame convulsed the day, And he crumpled on the way, And the scarlet tide went sweeping, Heaping, heaping Clay upon his trodden clay, April, Spring! April!--can you wonder then That my bitten lips have said, "Curst be men, Now that Jack in lyric April, Jack is dead. Curst be all the race of men! May the last child die away From the poisoned air of day! Never May-time come, nor summer; Never autumn Crown the dim uncertain ending To the fevers of the race With a drowsy peace descending On their spirits racked and rending, On the evil human face. May the last supernal winter Freeze the earth straightway, Now my little Jack of April, Now is cold and clay!"
STATESMEN DEBONAIR
O ye statesmen debonair, With the partings in your hair; Statesmen, ye who do your bit In the arm-chairs where you sit; You with top-hats on your head Even when you lie in bed; O superbly happy, ye Traders in Humanity; Every time you smile, sweet friends, A moan goes up, a plague descends. Every time you show your teeth, A hundred swords desert the sheath. Every time you pare your nails, The manhood of a city fails. Every time you dip your pen, You slaughter ten platoons of men. For every glass of port you hold, Blood is spilt ten thousandfold.... O ye statesmen debonair, With the partings in your hair; O ye statesmen pink and white, Sleep like little lambs to-night.
OVER IN FLANDERS ...
They were writing for the Poetry bookshops, Poetry no doubt well worth reading. Over in Flanders, in the wet weather, Love lay bleeding!
If you carefully record your emotions, Lyric or Sonnet that haunts your head, Will you revive for me over in Flanders Love stone dead?
WILD WEATHER
Wild weather, O my heart, and strong winds beating The great trees straining in their despair. The crumpled leaves that fall and flee Whistle like ghosts across the air. And how should I, lone mortal fleeting, Not be uprooted by winds that, meeting, Wrench at my limbs to cast them in the sea!
Wild weather, O my heart, for all my lovers, The lads I loved in the time entombed, Crumpled and stark against trench and tree, Whistle like leaves through the woods engloomed. There all year long my poor ghost hovers, Never to see what the darkness covers, The faces I loved of old that so loved me.
BROKEN BODIES
Not for the broken bodies, When the War is over and done, For the miserable eyes that never Again shall see the sun; Not for the broken bodies Crawling over the land, The patchwork limbs, the shoddies, Not for the broken bodies, Dear Lord, we crave your hand.
Not for the broken bodies, We pray your dearest aid, When the ghost of War for ever Is levelled at last and laid; Not for the broken bodies That wrought their sorrowful parts Our chiefest need of God is, Not for the broken bodies, Dear Lord--the broken hearts!
A THOUGHT
To-night a thought leapt in my head like flame. Suppose one night I walked into my room And found that someone filling all the gloom Was waiting on my bed until I came;
And I walked in and switched the light on straight, And found the figure sitting on my bed, Limp with contrition and with sunken head, Was God bowed down under His burden's weight;
And He looked up with sorrow and surmise To see how deep the tale the Wars have written Lay on my mortal features, battle-smitten, And in the shadows of my deathless eyes;
--This was the thought and flame that pierced me through: If God sat waiting there, anxious and grey, Then should I have the charity to say, "God, we forgive you; you know not what you do"?
THE VINTNER
The War-God now is happy. His sunken eyeballs shine. The War-God is a Vintner Who makes the rarest wine.
His vineyard is not bounded Between the West and East. A thousand mothers hourly Grow pregnant for his feast.
The grapes the Vintner presses Below his granite feet Are bodies, bodies, bodies, Alive and brown and sweet.
O how the red juice splashes Around his pounding limbs! It stains the deepest rivers, The furthest sunset rims.
O how the Gods his comrades, When he, the Vintner, calls, Drain deep the lurid beakers In their carousal halls!
All night they hold red riot, "For this is wine indeed! Then bravo! merry Vintner, We wish thy work good speed!"
And still the Vintner presses The grapes with feet of stone, Until the deep green ocean-cup Shall hold red wine alone.
FOR NOW COMES SUMMER
For now comes Summer with a thousand birds. And I must add up figures all the day. And I must drive a tram the whole day long. And I must make a living out of words. For now comes Summer with a thousand birds; And in green fields the little lambs will play, Brown birds will lift so loud a storm of song, For now comes Summer with a thousand birds.
For now comes Summer with a thousand birds. And I must make munitions right away. And I must check the biscuits at the base. And I must plan to slaughter men in herds, For now comes Summer with a thousand birds. My brother's lying quiet on his face. And I must sit and wait and die to-day, For now comes Summer with a thousand birds.
HARFLEUR
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