Page:The Muse in Arms, Osborn (ed), 1917.djvu/17

Rh on the subject. It may be that the seamen and private soldiers of the 'nineties were in the habit of dropping their h's and emasculating the broad open vowels. It is not so to-day, when, generally speaking, the King's fighting men—an educated nation in arms—speak the King's English. For this reason I have not admitted to this Anthology any of the innumerable pieces which are written in conventional Cockneyese. In such a case, insincerity of manner is as fatal a fault as insincerity of matter. If the writers of popular war literature would listen to soldiers talking, instead of imitating the diction of the "Barrack-room Ballads," they would get closer to the reality which is so infinitely preferable to all forms of literary realism. If it had been possible to find true dialect poems of the war—such as William Barnes or Edwin Waugh would have written, had they been living to-day and of military age—I should have gladly included them. But as yet nothing of the kind has appeared, nor has anything of true worth been written, so far as I know, in that noble Doric—no dialect but an own sister of classic English—which has been finely handled of late years by Mr. Charles Marriott and Mrs. Jacob. It would have been a great joy to find one or two Scottish war-songs, for the true Doric is the very honey of musical speech and sings itself so mellowly. But as long as such stuff as "My Daddy is a Fireman," and the revived Salvation Army ditty that begins—

are in favour at the front, the maker of soldiers' songs in any mode can hardly hope for an audience to sing them back to him.

So far, only the disappointments of the anthologist have been touched upon. Yet there is no reason to be