The Anvil |
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apparitions arms battle beam beautiful beneath bewail blind blood bosom brain bramble brave breath bright Burns Bursts cloud courage Crumpled darkness dearer death deep defenceless Demon desire dream earth ELKIN MATHEWS CORK endure ENGLAND ENGLISH GRAVES English voice eyes faces fancy fate fear feel fire flower France gentle glide glooms glory grass ground gusts heart hour Hovered hurt hush immense infinitely iron keen kindle lantern LAURENCE BINYON LONDON leap lift light listening ear Literary Supplement long road MATHEWS CORK STREET mind night ORPHANS patient phantom pity POEMS poplars poured pride prove true reeking savage scent sense shadows silent sing skies slay smile smouldering solitude song sons soul sound spirit splendour spring Stanzas stars Stept stone Stretchers stricken strong sudden sweetness swerve tears thirst thoughts throb thunder touch towers track tumbling vision wall waves wide WINNOWING-FAN wires worthy wounds
Popular passages
Page 19 - But my heart goes with the young cloud That voyages the April light Southward, across the beaches loud And cliffs of white To fields of France, far fields that spread Beyond the tumbling of the waves, And touches as with shadowy tread The English graves. There too is Earth that never weeps, The unrepining Earth, that holds The secret of a thousand sleeps And there unfolds Flowers of sweet ignorance on the slope Where strong arms dropped and blood choked breath, Earth that forgets all things but hope...
Page 11 - THE ANVIL BURNED from the ore's rejected dross The iron whitens in the heat. With plangent strokes of pain and loss The hammers on the iron beat. Searched by the fire, through death and dole We feel the iron in our soul. O dreadful Forge ! if torn and bruised The heart, more urgent comes our cry Not to be spared but to be used, Brain, sinew, and spirit, before we die. Beat out the iron, edge it keen, And shape us to the end we mean ! 53 THE HEALERS IN a vision of the night I saw them, In the battles...
Page 36 - EDITH CAVELL SHE was binding the wounds of her enemies when they came — The lint in her hand unrolled. They battered the door with their rifle-butts, crashed it in: She faced them gentle and bold. They haled her before the judges where they sat In their places, helmet on head. With question and menace the judges assailed her, "Yes, I have broken your law," she said. "I have tended the hurt and hidden the hunted, have done As a sister does to a brother, Because of a law that is greater than that...
Page 36 - Deal as you will with me. This is my choice to the end, To live in the life I vowed." "She is self-confessed," they cried; "she is self-condemned. She shall die, that the rest may be cowed." In the terrible hour of the dawn, when the veins are cold, They led her forth to the wall. "I have loved my land," she said, "but it is not enough: "I will empty my heart of the bitterness, hating none.
Page 40 - With arms stretched out he smiled. 1 drank the wine of life again, I breathed among my brother men, I felt the human fire. I knew that I must serve the will Of beauty and love and wisdom still ; Though all my hopes were overthrown, Though universes turned to stone, I have my being in this alone And die in that desire.
Page 38 - Only a woman ! yet she had pity on them. The victim offered slain To the gods of fear that they worship. Leave them there, Red hands, to clutch their gain ! She bewailed not herself, and we will bewail her not But with tears of pride rejoice That an English soul was found so crystal-clear To be triumphant voice Of the human heart that dares adventure all But live to itself untrue, And beyond all laws sees love as the light in the night, As the star it must answer to. The hurts she healed, the thousands...
Page 22 - Each hurries on his errand; lanterns swing; Dark shapes cross and re-cross the rails; we bring Stretchers, and pile and number them; and heap The blankets ready. Then we wait and keep A listening ear. Nothing comes yet; all's still. Only soft gusts upon the wires blow shrill Fitfully, with a gentle spot of rain. Then, ere one knows it, the long gradual train Creeps quietly in and slowly stops. No sound But a few voices
Page 23 - Touraine, the fisher-villages Of Brittany, the valleyed Pyrenees, Blue coasts of the South, old Paris streets. Argonne Of ever smouldering battle, that anon Leaps furious, brothered them in arms. They fell In the trenched forest scarred with reeking shell. Now strange the sound comes round them in the night Of English voices. By the wavering light Quickly we have borne them, one by one, to the air, And sweating in the dark lift up with care, Tense-sinewed, each to his place. The cars at last Complete...
Page 38 - She bewailed not herself, and we will bewail her not, But with tears of pride rejoice That an English soul was found so crystal-clear To be triumphant voice Of the human heart that dares adventure all But live to itself untrue, And beyond all laws sees love as the light in the night, As the star it must answer to. The hurts she healed, the thousands comforted — these Make a fragrance of her fame. But because she stept to her star right on through death It is Victory speaks her name. Laurence Binyon...
Page 22 - We leap to ground, and I forget it all. Each hurries on his errand ; lanterns swing ; Dark shapes cross and re-cross the rails ; we bring Stretchers, and pile and number them ; and heap The blankets ready.