May 4, 1916 
LAND & W A T E K 
11 
Over the grave 
Of the work that was spared fur the sake of the work 
by the Vandals of elder wars, 
Only one tattered pinnacle leers to the calm of the out- 
raged stars. 
This is the City of Fear ! 
Death 
Has ringed her walls with his sickle, has choked her 
streets with his breath ; 
In her cellars the rat feeds red 
On the bodies of those whom their own roofbeams be- 
trayed to him as they fled — ■ 
For none live here 
Save you that shall die, as we died, for the city, and we, 
your dead 
Whom God for the sake of our one brave dream has 
garnered into His hand .... 
Will He give them to understand, 
Tlie proud and the thankless cities we left in a sheltered 
land ? 
Our spirits fret 
Through the troubled night, 
To each sputter of rifle fire. 
To each chnk of your transport w heels ; 
Fret 
To the roar and flash of your sleepless guns, to the tread 
of your feet in the mire. 
To each soaring light 
That reveals, 
In a silver silhouette, 
House and tree and the hump of a crest and the broken 
tooth of a spire ; 
Fret, 
By day when the liigh planes drone 
And the great shells throb through the void 
And the trench blur in the gray ; 
Fret, and pray 
That the hour be near 
When the bonds of the foeman that hold us be utterly 
broke and destroyed, 
And ours alone,' 
The City of Fear. 
Should we care at all ? 
Sliould we not turn and take rest from our labours ? 
Here, wliere you buried us, sleep ? 
Forget the dream that was cheap at Ufe, forget the 
wounds and the pain ? 
Never again 
Remember the call 
That came to our souls in the sheltered cities, drawing us 
over the deep ? • 
kemember in XAin ! 
Gladly we came — 
From peaceful homeland village ; from the raw dun 
dusty town, 
\Vhere sun of the North drops down 
In purple behind the prairie ; from the pulsing plate- 
glass streets. 
That are bright with the girls of our younger nations at 
southern rim of the sea ; 
From lazy tropic townships, where hght of day is a flame, 
And the night wave beats 
In fire on the scented foreshores, and the cicad rings in 
the tree ; 
From the gay gray mother of all jjur cities, at ease on 
her banks ofiThames — 
Came and died, 
Here 
In the City of Fear. 
Gladly we died. 
But in death is no peace for us, 
Rest nor release for us. 
Had you buried ns deep— 
You whom we left to fulfill us the task that was stricken 
out of our power — 
Had you rolled the battle-tide back from our city, till 
only the growl of your guns 
Fell faint on our ears as the baying of hounds that were 
hunting over the hill, 
Perchance we might sleep : 
But day upon day that grows weary, and hour upon slow 
footed hour, 
The long year runs, 
And ever the foeman beats at the gates and batters at 
rampart and tower 
:\.nd our souls are untpiiet, for the voice of our dreaming 
will neither rest nor be still. 
How can we rest, 
Knowing it all unaccomplished, the vow that was dear 
to us dying ; 
How can we sleep or be still 
In our tombs that are spattered and ploughed by the 
shell-bursts and shaken by salvoes replying, 
Till dead bones thrill ; 
Till our souls break forth from the grave — 
Unshriven, unblest— 
To flutter and shrill 
Down the winds that murmur and moan in the ruins 
our bodies were tortured to save. 
Ye that remain. 
Have ye no pity 
For'us that are sped ? • 
Was it then vain. 
Vain that we bartered our youth for the walls of the 
desolate city. 
Bartered the red 
Life's blood, and the hopes that were dearer than blood 
and the uttermost faith that was given us 
Death hath not shriven us ... . 
Shrive ye your dead ! 
YPRES, 1916. 
Sortcs Sbakespeariana^ 
By SIR SIDNEY LEE 
The; Kaiser's Empty Brag — Dublin and 
Lowestoft at Easte r : 
Whiles I in Ireland riowis/i a mighty band, 
1 will stir up in England some black storm 
Shall bloTO ten thousand souls to heaven or 
hell. 
2 Hcnr/ VI„ UI., i.. 348-50. 
The Weakness of Mr. Birrell : 
Fools do those villains pity who are punish' d 
Ere they have done their mischief. 
King Lear IV., ii., 54-5. 
The Sinn Feiners: 
But for you, rebels, look to taste the due 
Meet for rebellion and such acts as yours. 
Most shallow ly did you these arms commence. 
2 Henry IV., IV., ii.. 1I6R 
