A Song of the Guns — Key Ideas to Explore

Produced by Al Haines.

GILBERT FRANKAU, R.S.A.

BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY The Riverside Press Cambridge 1916

COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY GILBERT FRANKAU ALL RIGHTS RESERVED _Published April 1916_

_A Song of the Guns_ was written under what are probably the most remarkable conditions in which a poem has ever been composed. The author, who is now serving in Flanders, was present at the battle of Loos, and during a lull in the fighting--when the gunners, who had been sleepless for five nights, were resting like tired dogs under their guns--he jotted down the main theme of the poem. After the battle the artillery brigade to which he was attached was ordered to Ypres, and it was during the long trench warfare in this district, within sight of the ruined tower of Ypres Cathedral, that the poem was finally completed. The last three stanzas were written at midnight in Brigade Headquarters with the German shells screaming over into the ruined town.

The Voice of the Slaves Headquarters Gun-Teams Eyes in the Air Signals The Observers Ammunition Column The Voice of the Guns

These are our masters, the slim Grim muzzles that irk in the pit; That chafe for the rushing of wheels, For the teams plunging madly to bit As the gunners wing down to unkey, For the trails sweeping half-circle-right, For the six breech-blocks clashing as one To a target viewed clear on the sight-- Gray masses the shells search and tear Into fragments that bunch as they run-- For the hour of the red battle-harvest, The dream of the slaves of the gun!

We have bartered our souls to the guns; Every fibre of body and brain Have we trained to them, chained to them. Serfs? Aye! but proud of the weight of our chain, Of our backs that are bowed to their workings, To hide them and guard and disguise, Of our ears that are deafened with service, Of hands that are scarred, and of eyes Grown hawklike with marking their prey, Of wings that are slashed as with swords When we hover, the turn of a blade From the death that is sweet to our lords.

THE VOICE OF THE SLAVES

_By the ears and the eyes and the brain,_ _By the limbs and the hands and the wings,_ _We are slaves to our masters the guns;_ _But their slaves are the masters of kings!_

A league and a league from the trenches, from the traversed maze of the lines,-- Where daylong the sniper watches and daylong the bullet whines, And the cratered earth is in travail with mines and with countermines,--

Here, where haply some woman dreamed, (are those her roses that bloom In the garden beyond the windows of my littered working-room?) We have decked the map for our masters as a bride is decked for the groom.

Here, on each numbered lettered square,--cross-road and mound and wire, Loophole, redoubt, and emplacement, are the targets their mouths desire,-- Gay with purples and browns and blues, have we traced them their arcs of fire.

And ever the type-keys clatter; and ever our keen wires bring Word from the watchers a-crouch below, word from the watchers a-wing; And ever we hear the distant growl of our hid guns thundering;

Hear it hardly, and turn again to our maps, where the trench-lines crawl, Red on the gray and each with a sign for the ranging shrapnel’s fall-- Snakes that our masters shall scotch at dawn, as is written here on the wall.

For the weeks of our waiting draw to a close.... There is scarcely a leaf astir In the garden beyond my windows where the twilight shadows blur The blaze of some woman’s roses.... "Bombardment orders, sir."

Their rugs are sodden, their heads are down, their tails are turned to the storm. (Would you know them, you that groomed them in the sleek fat days of peace,-- When the tiles rang to their pawings in the lighted stalls and warm,-- Now the foul clay cakes on breeching-strap and clogs the quick-release?)

The blown rain stings, there is never a star, the tracks are rivers of slime. (You must harness up by guesswork with a failing torch for light, Instep-deep in unmade standings, for it’s active-service time, And our resting weeks are over, and we move the guns to-night.)

The iron tires slither, the traces sag; their blind hooves stumble and slide; They are war-worn, they are weary, soaked with sweat and sopped with rain. (You must hold them, you must help them, swing your lead and centre wide Where the greasy granite pave peters out to squelching drain.)