Page:Canadian poems of the great war.djvu/142

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��Archibald MacMechan

Professor A. M. MacMechan., B.A., Ph.D., of Dalhousie College, Halifax, NS. Born in Berlin, Ontario, June 21st, 1862, eldest son of Rev. John MacMechan (Pres.) and Mary Jean, daughter of Hon. Archibald McKellar, a Canadian statesman. His higher education was received at University College, Toronto, and at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. Author of The Porter of Bagdad and Other Fantasies, etc.

THE CANADIANS AT YPRES

HEY did all men could do. The smoke of hell

Caught at their throats, but could not force them back.

The grey-coat foe charged hotly in the track Swept by his iron hurricane of shell, Resolved to win the sea-gate. None can tell

The force he poured, attack on mad attack,

On our brave few, as in the direst lack Of every aid, three days they fought, and fell.

But they endured. They held their blood-soaked ground. Between the sea-gate and the desperate foe,

Their thin worn lines were adamantine bars. Therefore their names with honour shall be crowned, In their dear land s fair story, not with woe, And in the record they shall shine like stars.

THE FLOOD-GATES BURST

HE flood-gates burst, and forth the deluge tore Of blood in seas, torrents of widows tears, High-billowing anguish, overwhelming fears,

Outrage and cruelty unknown before,

Such nameless horror as the fiends deplore ; And storms of lamentation smote all ears For ravage past the cure of coming years.

The deluge drowned the world ; men call it War.

One thing remains. Ever about this time

The Christian legend tells of Love made Flesh, Of God Himself to this low world come down;

There being need to teach the world afresh That many waters quench not Love sublime, Nor all the floods from broken flood-gates drown.

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