Page:The Muse in Arms, Osborn (ed), 1917.djvu/19

Rh and with some hope of posterity's approval, if only he will try to imitate the simplicity of the antique models. The famous epitaph on Waggon Hill, above Ladysmith—

rivals the immortal tribute by Simonides of Cos to Leonidas and his comrades in brevity and restraint, if not in beauty of musical diction. In the making of epitaphs for the fallen, the non-combatant poet, though he may not work in Latin, which is so truly "marble's language," could find a fitting occupation during war-time.

A distinguishing characteristic of the new soldier-poet is the complete absence of the note of hatred for a most hateful enemy. It is curious how seldom he mentions or even remembers the German practitioner of what is called "absolute" warfare by modern disciples of Clausewitz. Of the many hundreds of his pieces (one in three of them unpublished) I have considered only six were addressed to Germany or the Germans; and, of these six, not one was abusive or argumentative. All seemed to be written rather in sorrow than in anger; and the most deeply pondered is the sonnet "To Germany," by the late Captain Charles Sorley, which I have included as an example of a mood that so seldom becomes articulate. In this poem the cause of Armageddon is thus expounded:

No civilian poet, not being a Pacifist by profession, would have dared to write these lines, which any German might take as an apologia pro vitiis suis. The explanation of this absence of rancour is not far to seek. No civilised soldier