Voices of Silence (7 page)

Eight little Germans, generalled from Heaven,

Chased the Allies to the Marne – then there were seven;

Seven little Germans, in a nasty fix

Had to fight a battle there – then there were six;

Six little Germans, only just alive,

Made a dash for Calais – then there were five;

Five little Germans thro’ the French line tore,

Ran against the British – then there were four;

Four little Germans, sniping in a tree,

One was soon located – then there were three;

Three little Germans, in a fearful stew,

Thought they’d have a right bust up – then there were two;

Two little Germans, tired of all the fun,

Desperately tried again – then were was one;

One little German, whose little game is done,

Send him to the hangman – then there will be none;

No little Germans to make our lives a pest,

Peace will once more reign supreme – then
we
can have a rest.

Kaiser Bill once climbed a hill

And saw the cliffs of Dover.

Said he: ‘What fun

To get a gun

And send some big shells over.

It will be grand with my German Band

To occupy these islands’.

He forgot for a second,

Or never had reckoned,

He’d meet with some men from the Highlands.

So with his son and a great big gun

He started off for Calais.

He smiled a smile,

He thought by guile

He’d keep the Belgians pally;

But King Albert swore by the crown he wore

To fight his people’s cause.

So the Kaiser found

He’d to go to ground,

And there he’s had to pause.

Old Von Kluck, who was sent to chuck

The French all out of Paris,

Met General French,

With some men in a trench,

And got stuck up at Arras.

Von Hinderman said, ‘I’ll not rest in my bed,

Till at Warsaw I call a halt’;

But he’s not there yet,

Nor likely to get,

But he says it’s the Russians’ fault.

Von Tirpitz, they say, is an Admiral gay,

And commands the German Navy.

But somehow they feel,

When they come out from Kiel,

They will go down to Jones – first name Davy.

A ship or two came into view,

In the seas off Falkland Island;

But Sturdee was there

And took good care

To blow them up to Skyland.

The Kaiser’s dream, so it would seem,

To be Lord of all creation,

Was stopped quite short

By a loud report

When he got to Ypres Station.

For there he found his men half drowned,

And it nearly made him balmy,

To find that the trenches

That stopped him held French’s

Contemptible little army.

The Kaiser thought that if he fought,

We would stand by – and watch him.

But now he knows,

And our Army shows,

We’re British, and we’ll Scotch him.

And when we’re done there’ll be no Hun

To kill our Allies’ babies.

Our flag will fly

’Neath every sky,

And there’ll be no German Navies.

Hope and mirth are gone. Beauty is departed.

Heaven’s hid in smoke, if there’s Heaven still.

Silent the city, friendless, broken-hearted,

Crying in quiet as a widow will.

Oh for the sound here of a good man’s laughter,

Of one blind beggar singing in the street,

Where there’s no sound, except a blazing rafter

Falls, or the patter of a starved dog’s feet.

I have seen Death, and comrades’ crumbled faces,

Yea, I have closed dear eyes with half a smile,

But horror’s in this havoc of old places

Where driven men once rested from their hurry,

And girls were happy for a little while

Forgiving, praying, singing, feeling sorry.

William G. Shakespeare

City of stark desolation,

Infinite voices of silence,

Crying aloud in the daytime,

Whispering shrill in the moonlight,

Ask of the world, appealing,

‘What are you now but a name?’

Hushed are your streets, and the rumble

Of lorries and wagons and limbers

And low, dull tread of battalions,

Moving stubbornly cheerful

Back of invisible fighters

Muddily bedded in Flanders –

These alone for your roadways,

And these for the hours of darkness.

Wide to inscrutable heaven

Lie, in their ruin all equal,

Houses and hovels abandoned,

Windowless yawnings and pillars,

Chasms and doorways and gables,

Tottering spectres of brickwork

Strewn through the naked chambers –

Never a home for the seeking,

Not through the whole of the city,

Save for the spirit-fled body.

And over the breakage and rubble,

Furious wastage of warfare,

Rise in their piteous grandeur,

Oaks, still battling the tempest,

Riven and broken Cathedral,

Shattered, half-pinnacled Cloth-Hall,

Towers of solemn, grey greatness

Calling on heaven to witness,

Listening, steadfastly watchful

For boom that will herald disaster

Down on their remnants of glory,

Asking the world, appealing,

‘What are we now but a name?’

City of wanton destruction

Standing nakedly awful,

Token of agonized country,

When was an answer demanded

In so relentless a silence?

How can the asking be empty?

Name and nought else in your ruins,

Crowned in the hearts as an emblem,

Child of the ravenous booming,

Page of heroical story

Greatest in still desolation,

Never in all your peace-slumber

Garnered you fame as in fury.

Silent mother of splendour,

Stand when your ruins have crumbled

And, sinking to soul of Flanders,

Merged with the valiant sleepers;

And after that and for always,

As long as the breath of men’s honour

Is to the earth as the springtime,

Speak with your voices undying; –

How in the anguish and glory

Belgium and Britain you stood for,

World of men’s honour undaunted

Just in the lines round your city,

Where the fierce waves of ambition,

Ruthlessly seeking their purpose,

Sank with the dead into Flanders.

Desolate spirit unconquered,

Here where the fury lingered,

Here where the graves of the honoured

Around your ruins are clustered,

Rise in your triumph eternal,

Built in the heart of man.

R. Gorell Barnes

Past the marching men, where the great road runs,

Out of burning Ypres, three pale women came.

One was a widow (listen to the guns!) –

She wheeled a heaped-up barrow. One walked lame

And dragged two tired children at her side,

Frightened and coughing with the dust. The third

Nestled a dead child on her breast, and tried

To suckle him. They never spoke a word . . .

So they came down along the great Ypres road.

A soldier stayed his mirth to watch them pass,

Turned, and in silence helped them with their load,

And led them to a field and gave them bread . . .

I saw them hide their faces in the grass

And cry, as women cried when Christ was dead.

William G. Shakespeare

I met a man – a refugee,

And he was blind in both his eyes, Sir,

And in his pate

A silver plate

(’Twas rather comical to see!)

Shone where the bone skull used to be

Before your shrapnel struck him, Kaiser,

Shattering in the self same blast

(Blind as a tyrant in his dotage)

The foolish wife

Who risked her life,

As peasants will do to the last,

Clinging to one small Belgian cottage.

That was their home. The whining child

Beside him in the railway carriage

Was born there, and

The little land

Around it (now untilled and wild)

Was brought him by his wife on marriage.

The child was whining for its mother,

And interrupting half he said, Sir.

I’ll never see the pair again . . .

Nor they the mother that lies dead, Sir.

That’s all – a foolish tale, not worth

The ear of noble lord or Kaiser,

A man un-named,

By shrapnel maimed,

Wife slain, home levelled to the earth –

That’s all. You see no point? Nor I, Sir.

Yet on the day you come to die, Sir,

When all your war dreams cease to be,

Perchance will rise

Before your eyes

(Piercing your hollow heart, Sir Kaiser!)

The picture that I chanced to see

Riding (we’ll say) from A to B.

F.W. Harvey