LAND AND .WATER 
August 28, 1915. 
Virgilianx 
of tlie 
or obscure passages in Homer : our 
native poets l.ave said enough and to the po.nt J ^u here 
Ts one last MiUonic passage wluch m.ght stand for all 
time as an exact picture of a modern field liosp.tal . 
Immediately a place 
Before his eyes appeared, sad, noisome dark; 
A lazar-house it seemed, wherein were, laid 
Numbers of all diseased— all maladies 
Of gliastly spa.^m, or racking torture, qualms 
Of heart-sick agony, all feverous kinds. . • • 
Dire wa3 the t-issing, d^ep Mie groans : Despair 
Tended tlie sick, busiest from couch t« coucb. 
And over them triumphant Death his dart 
Shcok, but delayed to :^trike, though oft invokea 
With vows, as their chief good and tinal iof>«. 
Sight so deform what heart of rock could long 
Dry-eyed behold ? 
Anvone mav for liimself. bv merely picking up and 
openini a copy of " Paradise Lost." chance upon 
passages even more apposite than these which I ha-e 
(luoted. but these few which have been sent Iiome to me 
from the tienches.will serve to show the power that one 
of our own poets has to depict all these horrors. 
Apart, too, from his graphic descriptions 
terrors of war. we find in Milton that perfect expression 
of tlie patriotic spirit which has certainly been resuscs 
tated in the last vear throughout the British Empire, 
but which so far lias not found worthy utterance m the 
majority -«f poems which iiave professed to express it. 
The spi'rit of freedom, the birtli-pangs of a real profound 
love of country are to be found in all the sonnets of 
Milton, in some sonnets of Wordsworth," and scarcely 
anywiierc else in English literature. Has ever the 
patriotic spirit been so exquisitely and surely portrayed 
in fourteen lines as in this sonnet of Wordsworth's? 
It is not to be thought of that the flood 
Of British freedom, which, to the open sea 
Of the world's praise, from dark antiquity 
Hath flowed, with pomp of waters, unwithstood, 
Roused though it be full often to a mood 
Which spurns the check of salutary bands, 
That this most famous stream in bogs and sands 
Should perish; and to evil and to good 
Be lost for ever. In our halls is hung 
Armoury of the invincible knights of old : 
We must be free or die, who speak the tongue 
That Shakespeare spoke ; the faith and morals hold 
Which Milton held. — In everything we are sprung 
Of Earth's first blood, have titles manifold. 
It is bv a strange irony that the very poets who Iiave 
always been revered from a distance, but never been 
taken up as breast-pocket companions in the years gone 
bv, should have come into their own through the agency 
of war. There is no doubt now that Milton and Words- 
v,rorth are the most read of any of the poets by those 
who are seeking for real spiritual comfort and inspira- 
tion in a time of agony and chaos like the present. 
Their souls were like the stars and dwelt apart, " pur^ 
as the naked heavens, majestic, free "; we go to them 
as we go to Shakespeare, Homer, Virgil, DatUe, 
yEschylus, or Sophocles, sure that we shall finil life de- 
picted free of its trappings and insincerities, sure of tlie 
uplifting power of their 4,vords, sure of consolation and 
hope. In the old days of leisured" eas? we wers^ easily 
hypnotised by tlie cloying honey-sweetness of tlie seconii- 
rate; to-day we are unable to tolerate anything e.scept 
Nature herself or those whose gift it has been to hold the 
mirror up to Nature. 
But of late the spirit of these men, tlie spirit of 
Browning's " Here and here did England help me, how 
can I help England? " has found utterance in the work 
of a new school, headed by the young soldier-poet 
Rupert Brooke. This is how the outbreak of war affects 
this fine poet of our own age : 
Now God be thanked who has matched us with His hour. 
To turn . . . glad from a world grown old and cold 
and weary. 
Leave the sick hearts that Iionour could not ni 
And half-men, and tiieir dirty songs and di 
And all the little emptiness of love 
ilhen there is liis beautiful 
move, 
Ireary, 
IS 
simple 
Soldier," which has been so widely quoted. No sane 
critic would venture to deny greatness to such a per- 
fectlv executed poem as this. But perhaps nowhere i3 
the impetus given to inspired expression in verse so 
easilv to be seen as in a little eighteenpenny book ju.st 
published bv Messrs. Sidgwick and Jaclcson, called 
Poems of fo-dav. Here are gathered up for the 
sake of future generations all the best poems of our time, 
and it is little short of amazing to compare such a collec- 
tion with others of a few years back. Love of I'.ngland 
■ vi.sible in everv line; everywhere there breathes a 
direct, instantaneous appeal. To choose almost 
at random, take Miss Rose Macaulay's " Many Sisters 
to Many Brothers " : 
When we fought campaigns (in the long Christmas rains) 
With soldiers spread in troops on the floor, 
I shot as straight as you, my losses were as few, 
My victories as many, or more . . • 
Was there a scrap or ploy in which you, the boy, 
Could Ijetter me ''. You could not climb higher. 
Ride straighter, run as quick (and to smoke made you sick); 
But I sit here and you're under fire. 
Oh ! it's you that have the luck, out there in blood and muck:; 
You were born beneath a kindly star. 
All w-e dreamt, I and you, you can really go and do. 
And I can't, the' way things are. 
In a trench you are sitting, while I am knitting 
A hoj>eless sock that never gets done. 
Well, here's luck, my dear— and you've got it, no fear; 
But for me . ". . a war is poor fun. 
You will find tiiis new note struck with equal effect 
in the latest work of Masefield, G. K. Chesterton, and 
all the school of Georgian poets who before tlie war 
were in danger of getting lost in the forest of new ideas. 
The swing of the pendulum has brought poetry into 
repute again. Everywhere, in the most unlikely places, 
men and^ women may be seen reading old and new 
poetry, who onlv a year ago either read not at ail or 
found their mental appetite satisfied by the yellow-back 
or the cheaper sort of magazine. 
Certainly the whirligig of Time brings in its re- 
venges, and the shades of poets dead and gone may now 
rest assured that justice is being done to their genius 
and vision, for never was there a time when worth was 
more passionately needed or merit more surely recog- 
nised than the present. 
Whether it is a man who, despairing of finding 
language fit to express what he is living through at the 
front, turns to the great poets to help him out, or 
whether it is some lonely soul, bereft of all that he or 
she loves best, in some out-of-the-way spot here at home, 
seeks oblivion or fresh strength from the old giants of 
literature — on every side it can be easily seen that 
literature has come into its own through war, and that 
war brings into being a fresh source of good writing, 
is in itself the fountain head of the eternal spring of tiiat 
flowing stream of literary effort by which a nation's 
greatness is most surely measured and which v.ill still 
inspire mankind through future ages to nobility of aim 
when all wars and rumours of wars are but as a forgotten 
niglitmare. 
sonnet entitled " The 
OUR MOTOR AMBULANCE FUND. 
[3 motfir ambulance present-ed to the Red Cross Motor 
I Ambulance Yoluntser Corps by means of subscription 
from our readers is aTread? aCiil^ ^°°'^ '^°^^ .'"^ 
Belgium. The Hon. Treasurer of the Corps, Mr. AlefauCiS? 
McConnell, in acknowledging receipt 'of a cheque for 
£171 16s. 4d., being the balance of the sum subscribed by 
the readers of Land and Water for the purchase of a motor 
ambulance and its maint.enaoe, writes : 
The Napier motor ambulance which was paid for and 
presented to our Corps by your readers has been regularly 
working in Belgium for some time. This particular ambu- 
lance is in charge of Dr. Henry Jellett and Lady Dorothie 
Feildiug. Dr. Jellett was recently mentioned in despatches 
for gallant and distinguished service in the field, and Lady 
Dorothie Feilding's record of bravery and self-sacrifioe is very 
well known to you. I can assure you that both my Loudoa 
Committee and the Corps Committee in Belgium are very 
encouraged by all the help your readers have rendered ua. 
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