Page:The Muse in Arms, Osborn (ed), 1917.djvu/25

Rh forth in the true English war-poetry assumes many forms in this Anthology. It is variously shown, this dominant emotion, in abiding memories of sights and sounds and odours of the green country-side, the turmoil and clangour of great cities, the historic towns inscribed with the "frozen music" of unravished centuries, the curious laws and quaint customs of famous schools and ancient universities, the more humane games which teach an unselfish discipline, the treasured books which are a mirror of the past that flashes light into the future. Now and again, also, there is a glimpse of the certainty that the dread glittering visage of war is what it has always been—that, as we are but guests of England's dead in their serried patience, so we go out to fight, or come back with thanksgiving, accompanied by ghostly comrades.

But all this, and much more besides, is best learnt from the poems I have selected, the least skilful of which will have for our posterity the beauty of memorial. Many of these soldier-poets have already fallen in action; in every case—for example, in that of Captain Robert Palmer's one poem—each piece will be accepted as a testamentum militare, bequeathing valour without rancour or repining as an heirloom to future generations. One generation will have all but perished before the end comes; few indeed will return to their former habitations in Oxford of all who bound themselves to return when the war was over and see that the old traditions were renewed and kept up by those who were too young to go to the war. The tremendous loss the nation will have suffered would be made manifest to all visitors to these ancient seats of learning if the American custom of class parades on academic festivals existed in this country. At Harvard on one such occasion some years ago there was a deep silence when