Welsh Journals

THIS TO HIS MEMORY A sheet of foam is our great Soldier's shroud Beside the desolate Orkneys groaning caves And we are desolate and groan aloud To know his body wandering with the waves. Who when the thunder-cloud of battle hate Broke o'er us, though it towered, the while he bore Upon his Titan shoulders a world weight Of doubt and danger none had brooked before. For while incredulous friend and foe denied him Such possible prowess, Honour's blast he blew, And lo as if from out the earth beside him Army on army into order grew. Till need at last was none for our retreating And back to Belgium and the front of France We bore, firm gathered for our foes defeating Against the sounding of the Great Advance. Few were his friends, yet closely round him clustered But from five million Britons, who at his call Came uncompelled and round him sternly mustered The sighs escape, the silent teardrops fall. And not alone the Mother land is weeping Her great dead Captain but, the Seven Seas o'er, Daughter Dominions sorrows watch are keeping, For he was theirs as her's in peace and war. Yea, strong, sage Botha and that stern Cape Raider Whom first he fought, then bound with friendship's bond- Each now our own victorious Empire aider- Lament his loss the sounding deeps beyond. And India mourns her mightiest Soldier Warden, Egypt the Sirdar who her desert through Laid iron lines of vengeance for our Gordon Till on the Mahdi he swept, and struck, and slew. And France for whom he fought, a youthful gallant, From whose proud breast he drew Fashoda's thorn- France, who with England shared his searching talent, France like his second mother stands forlorn. A man was he, the steadfast glances Of whose steel-grey, indomitable eyes So pierced the mind, behind all countenances, Crushed were the sophist's arts, the coward's lies. A man of men but in his greatness lonely- Undaunted in defeat, in conquest calm, For God and Country living and dying only And winner therefore of the deathless palm. A truce to tears then. Though his body hath No rest in English earth, his shining soul Still leads his armies up the arduous path He paved for them forthright to Glory's goal. And we, the men and women who remain, Let us to be his Other Army burn With such pure fires of sacrificial pain As shall reward our warriors' return. But now a sudden heavy silence falls On all our streets, half-mast the standard hangs- The hearseless funeral passes to St. Paul's And out of every steeple the death-bell clangs. Now sorrowing King and Queen, as mid-day booms, The hushed Fane enter, while o'er mourners black, Grey soldier, choral white, quick gleams and glooms Of sun and shadow darkle and sparkle back. The prayers of priest and people to heaven's gate win, And a choir, as of angels, welcoming thither our chief- Till a thunder of drums the mighty Dead March beats in, And the Last Post lingers, lingers and dies on our grief. Alfred Perceval Graves.