Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, IN TIME OF WAR I SING, by ALLEN CRAFTON


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

IN TIME OF WAR I SING, by                    
First Line: I sing of song! Of spontaneity
Last Line: I find my song within the world's soul -- crowned.
Subject(s): Singing & Singers; World War I; Songs; First World War


I

I sing of Song! of Spontaneity.
Of all the mirage Hopes we're dreaming of.
I sing of Deity!
The Song-god gave to me
The love of Song, the song of Love.
Crude-carven it may be,
My song of Song;
And its supremacy
Lies not in master-music ravishing,
Nor in gemmed verse by genius' hand set free,
But in the words: I sing!

II

Song's parents are the singer's Joy and Pain;
Song's soul is Love;
Song is the mirror of the heart
That pictures to the mind a world apart
From sordid things it's thinking of.
Song is a sacred treasure-trove
That e'en the humblest do not seek in vain.
When touched by Art,
Song is transfigured
And mounts to golden air above,
A living dream to be and to remain
Eternal lovelihead.

III

In carefree boyhood, bare of feet and arms,
I whistled out my song in dusty lanes;
In awkward youth-tide, filled with faint alarms,
I hummed my song, timid of noisy strains;
In passionate manhood, burning with the sweet
And awful fire, in Love's own tongue I'd greet
The pink of dawn,
The gold of eve;
The woodland-warbler's glad, wide-throated song
Shamed not my song of Love.

Now in full lustihood of powers I stand
And see grim War enshroud the ravished world.
War-slaved, into a chaos I am hurled.
I see the giant guillotine grow great;
I hear the snarling hymns of poisoned hate;
I hear the world's soul shriek --
It dare not speak;
Its hollow face
Looks piteously for a place
To hide itself in death.

Still do I sing
And bring
My soul of song to solace the world's soul.

IV

The wolf-world shows its fangs and cries:
You fool, your songs are lies!
Barbaric foes ordain to devastate
The world of good; therefore to expiate
The crime, we must retaliate.
Sing hate!
Feel hate!
Our guilt will be purged white through bloody sacrifice.

I sing of hate? . . .

There is no wrath among the stars for me;
There is no rage in the white moon for me;
There is no combat in my dreams;
There is no hate within my memory;
My soul knows not the chord: retaliate.
I have no song of hate.

V

So still I sing, till leaping at the smart
Of War's hard hand, I turn; and from his heart
Of iron he vomits through his bloody lips:
Poor slavering pygmy! You are caught in grips
Of powers so gigantic that the whole
Of Life is shackled; this decrepit soul
Of which you prate needs but a breath
To shrivel into silence with your death.

His cannon roar of laughter rocks the sky
I cower for a moment, then I cry:
I live this hour, and in it I
Sing as ne'er I sang before!
Your dread, death-reeking power
Stops at the door
Behind which souls assemble; that fair place
Of spirit-song your form can not disgrace.
This pygmy self defies you to destroy
My soul's one hour of exalted joy!

VI

He turns, but does not go . . .
Ah, well I know
The fire of War's breath
Means death.
Ah, well I feel Moloch's certain power
Crushing this glad hour.
To-day I may be thrown
Into abyssmal War's red zone.
To-morrow I may see
Strong bodies shattered hideously.
Then will I sing?
Can I then sing?

The Song-god gave to me
The love of Song, the song of Love, and He,
Mightier than Moloch, gave it immortality.

VII

Dear God, when stumbling up the scorching hill
That dooms my death, e'en then
My song must not be still!

I see ahead a gored, ensanguined path;
I hear the guns belch forth in deafening wrath;
Sickened, I stand before the shrieking slain;
I watch the scarlet stretchers write with pain;
See War obliterate the Brotherhood
My song had wooed

Alone with God I sing above the strife!

Rings out the word to charge!
I cross the marge
Of life.

Then will one last enraptured, quivering cry,
One more loved strain from memory,
One final hope for time to be,
Burst from my soul as in the mud I die!
Mingling with the earth-mold, one last kiss
I'll give the world's soul -- only this --
A friend's farewell -- then silence -- War's roar drowned --
I find my song within the world's soul -- crowned.





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