Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, LEST WE FORGET; ARMISTICE NIGHT, 1920, by CURTIS WHEELER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

LEST WE FORGET; ARMISTICE NIGHT, 1920, by                    
First Line: The cold rain falls on dun-sur-meuse tonight
Last Line: "when taps blew so much more than just ""goodnight."
Subject(s): Holidays; Veterans Day


The cold rain falls on Dun-sur-Meuse tonight.
My brothers of the Marne, do you fare well,
Where, by the ford, or on some wind-swept height
You lie among the hamlets where you fell?

Do you sleep well these wet November nights,
Where there is never any brushwood blaze
To cast within the dugout wavering lights,
And warm the chill of these benumbing days?

Romagne-sous-Montfaucon! The little towns
That scatter from the Somme to the Moselle,
Some silent sentry on their high-backed downs
Harks still to every far white church's bell—

The humble little church of misty hills,
Set where the white roads cross, with ruined fane,
Where, through the window-gaps with war-scarred sill,
A battered Christ looks out into the rain.

Silent, all silent to the passer-by,
Those lonely mounds, or rows of crosses white.
Beyond the need of bitter words they lie.
But are they silent to their friends tonight?

Can we stand whole before a crackling fire—
We, who have gone in peace year after year,
Singing and jesting, working again for hire—
Deaf to the message they would have us hear?

Not while the red of poppies in the wheat,
Not while a silver bugle on the breeze,
Not while the smell of leather in the heat,
Bring us anew in spirit overseas.

While stars of Alsace light the Vosges at night,
As long as Lorraine's cross shines in the sun,
While moons on Bar-le-Duc send bombers light,
Or rain drives down the gray road to Verdun,

So long shall we hear those we left behind,
Where eddying smoke fell like a mountain wraith,
And in the din that left us deaf and blind
We sensed the uttered message clear—"Keep faith."

To every man a different meaning, yet—
Faith to the thing that set him at his best,
Something above the blood and dirt and wet,
Something apart. May God forget the rest!

Lest we forget! The months swing into years,
Our souls are caught in trivial things again,
We laugh at what we once beheld with tears,
In petty strife we ease our souls their pain.

The cold rain falls in France! Ah! send anew
The spirit that once flamed so high and bright,
When, by your graves, we bade you brave adieu
When Taps blew so much more than just "Goodnight."





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