Page:A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919.djvu/296

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We are the guns and we need you! Here in the timbered

Pits that are screened by the crest and the copse where at dusk ye unlimbered,

Pits that one found us—and finding, gave life (did he flinch from the giving?);

Laboured by moonlight when wraith of the dead brooded yet o'er the living,

Ere, with the sun's

Rising the sorrowful spirit abandoned its guns.

Who but the guns shall avenge him? Strip us for action!

Load us and lay to the centremost hair of the dial-sight's refraction!

Set your quick hands to our levers to compass the sped soul's assoiling;

Brace your taut limbs to the shock when the thrust of the barrel recoiling

Deafens and stuns!

Vengeance is ours for our servants! Trust ye the guns!

Least of our bond-slaves or greatest, grudge ye the burden?

Hard is this service of ours which has only our service for guerdon:

Grow the limbs lax, and unsteady the hands, which aforetime we trusted?

Flawed, the clear crystal of sight; and the clean steel of hardihood rusted?

Dominant ones,

Are we not tried serfs and proven—true to our guns?

''Ye are the guns! Are we worthy? Shall not these speak for us,''

Out of the woods where the tree-trunks are slashed with the vain bolts that seek for us,

Thunder of batteries firing in unison, swish of shell fighting,

Hissing that rushes to silence and breaks to the thud of alighting?

Death that outruns

''Horseman and foot? Are we justified? Answer, O guns!''