Produced by Tom Harris
by Lord Dunsany
1916
Preface
I have chosen a title that shall show that I make no claim for thisbook to be "up-to-date." As the first title indicates, I hoped toshow, to as many as might to read my words, something of the extentof the wrongs that the people of France had suffered. There is nosuch need any longer. The tales, so far as they went, I gathertogether here for the few that seem to read my books in England.
Dunsany.
A Dirge Of Victory (Sonnet)
Lift not thy trumpet, Victory, to the sky,
Nor through battalions nor by batteries blow,
But over hollows full of old wire go,
Where among dregs of war the long-dead lie
With wasted iron that the guns passed by.
When they went eastwards like a tide at flow;
There blow thy trumpet that the dead may know,
Who waited for thy coming, Victory.
It is not we that have deserved thy wreath,
They waited there among the towering weeds.
The deep mud burned under the thermite's breath,
And winter cracked the bones that no man heeds:
Hundreds of nights flamed by: the seasons passed.
And thou last come to them at last, at last!
The Cathedral Of Arras
On the great steps of Arras Cathedral I saw a procession, in silence,standing still.
They were in orderly and perfect lines, stirring or swaying slightly:sometimes they bent their heads, sometimes two leaned together, butfor the most part they were motionless. It was the time when thefashion is just changing and some were newly all in shining yellow,while others still wore green.
I went up the steps amongst them, the only human thing, for men andwomen worship no more in Arras Cathedral, and the trees have comeinstead; little humble things, all less than four years old, in greatnumbers thronging the steps processionally, and growing in perfectrows just where step meets step. They have come to Arras with thewind and the rain; which enter the aisles together whenever theywill, and go wherever man went; they have such a reverent air, theyoung limes on the three flights of steps, that you would say theydid not know that Arras Cathedral was fallen on evil days, that theydid not know they looked on ruin and vast disaster, but thought thatthese great walls open to stars and sun were the natural and fittingplace for the worship of little weeds.
Behind them the shattered houses of Arras seemed to cluster about thecathedral as, one might fancy easily, hurt and frightened children,so wistful are their gaping windows and old, grey empty gables, somelancholy and puzzled. They are more like a little old people comeupon trouble, gazing at their great elder companion and not knowingwhat to do.
But the facts of Arras are sadder than a poet's most tragic fancies.In the western front of Arras Cathedral stand eight pillars risingfrom the ground; above them stood four more. Of the four upperpillars the two on the left are gone, swept away by shells from thenorth: and a shell has passed through the neck of one of the two thatis left, just as a bullet might go through a daffodil's stem.
The left-hand corner of that western wall has been caught from thenorth, by some tremendous shell which has torn the whole corner downin a mound of stone: and still the walls have stood.
I went