Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ARMISTICE DAY, by WILLIAM A. PHELON


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ARMISTICE DAY, by                    
First Line: The crash of shells among the falling trees
Last Line: Aye—a year of proudest glory—and of musing o'er our dead!
Subject(s): Holidays; Praise; Soldiers; Veterans Day; World War I; First World War


THE crash of shells among the falling trees,
The crack of rifles—rising ever higher,
Amid the rocks and by the red-stained streams,
The tac-tac rattle of machine-gun fire!
Onward and forward, falling thick and fast,
But ever gaining through the forest glades,
The brown-clad swarms are pressing, clearing out
Forted defenses and dark ambuscades.
The night comes on them, as the beaten foes
Give way in panic, and the conquerors yield
Their wearied strength to sleep—they rest among
The windrowed dead on a victorious field.

A cold November morning—they arise,
Firm grasp their weapons, savagely prepare
The grim, unchecked advance along the line,
When "Countermand attack!" rings through the air!
Balked of full vengeance, the onrushing troops
Halt in mid-charge, and hear the orders read
That give us victory, dull the sword of Mars,
End the red strife—but cannot wake our dead!
The arms are grounded, and the cannon cool—
Our flags blaze proudly in the morning sun—
The worn survivors count the much-thinned ranks—
An armistice—the war is fought and won!

By the silent rivers, whence the training camps have fled,
Gray old rebels, Dixie beauties, all are mourning for their dead—
Far away, beneath the mountains, on the wide-stretched Western plain,
Comes the time of wordless sorrow, as they think upon the slain—
On the farms and in the cities, through the chill November dawn
Pride and weeping are commingled, for the young lives that are gone.
Over yonder, where the war-scythe reaped its toll in field and wood,
Long lines gleam with snowy crosses where erstwhile our thousands stood.
Red-leaved tributes of the autumn heap the graves that mark the track
Of the men whose march of valor knew no halt nor turning back—
For their bugles sounded "Forward!" and they never called "Retreat!"—
Their advance was daily triumph, and they never knew defeat!
One short year since that wild morning when the battle flags were furled,
And the sun drove back the shadows that had gloomed upon the world—
One year since the earth was shaken by the charging legions' tread—
Aye—a year of proudest glory—and of musing o'er our dead!





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