The Aisne (1914–15)
We first saw fire on the tragic slopesWhere the flood-tide of France’s early gain,Big with wrecked promise and abandoned hopes,Broke in a surf of blood along the Aisne.
The charge her heroes left us, we assumed,What, dying, they reconquered, we preserved,In the chill trenches, harried, shelled, entombed,Winter came down on us, but no man swerved.
Winter came down on us. The low clouds, tornIn the stark branches of the riven pines,Blurred the white rockets that from dusk till mornTraced the wide curve of the close-grappling lines.
In rain, and fog that on the withered hillFroze before dawn, the lurking foe drew down;Or light snows fell that made forlorner stillThe ravaged country and the ruined town;
Or the long clouds would end. Intensely fair,The winter constellations blazing forth—Perseus, the Twins, Orion, the Great Bear—Gleamed on our bayonets pointing to the north.
And the lone sentinel would start and soarOn wings of strong emotion as he knewThat kinship with the stars that only WarIs great enough to lift man’s spirit to.
And ever down the curving front, aglowWith the pale rockets’ intermittent light,He heard, like distant thunder, growl and growThe rumble of far battles in the night,—
Rumors, reverberant, indistinct, remote,Borne from red fields whose martial names have wonThe power to thrill like a far trumpet-note,—Vic, Vailly, Soupir, Hurtelise, Craonne …
Craonne, before thy cannon-swept plateau,Where like sere leaves lay strewn September’s dead,I found for all dear things I forfeitedA recompense I would not now forego.
For that high fellowship was ours thenWith those who, championing another’s good,More than dull Peace or its poor votaries could,Taught us the dignity of being men.
There we drained deeper the deep cup of life,And on sublimer summits came to learn,After soft things, the terrible and stern,After sweet Love, the majesty of Strife;
There where we faced under those frowning heightsThe blast that maims, the hurricane that kills;There where the watchlights on the winter hillsFlickered like balefire through inclement nights;
There where, firm links in the unyielding chain,Where fell the long-planned blow and fell in vain—Hearts worthy of the honor and the trial,We helped to hold the lines along the Aisne.