The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Death of the Scharnhorst, and Other Poems

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Title: The Death of the Scharnhorst, and Other Poems

Author: Arch Alfred McKillen

Release date: February 19, 2021 [eBook #64594]

Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Curt Troutwine, Mary Glenn Krause, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEATH OF THE SCHARNHORST, AND OTHER POEMS ***

THE DEATH OF

THE

SCHARNHORST

AND OTHER POEMS

by ARCH ALFRED McKILLEN

VANTAGE PRESS, Inc. NEW YORK

Copyright, 1952, by Arch Alfred McKillen

Manufactured in the United States of America

To

L.R.D., EM 1/c, U. S. Navy

Killed in action, Pearl Harbor, T. H.

December 7, 1941

Smile a little, lad,

For when you smile

There is no sleep.

How can there then be Death?

The Chicago Sun has kindly granted permission to

reprint the poem “The Litany of Pearl Harbor,”

which it published on December 7, 1942, in

June Provines’ column

CONTENTS

Page

The Bird, the Lad and Me

1

The War in Spain

1

It Rains Tonight

2

While Drums Are Rolling

2

Apollo

3

Fountain of Loveliness

4

Highway Number 66

5

Dirge for the Squalus

6

Echo Canyon

7

Fragment

8

We Hang upon a Scaffold

8

I Looked into Your Eyes

9

Of This Great Voiceless Love

9

I Would Have Brought You Fire

10

Too Much of Life

10

Lone Cello

11

Apocalypse

11

The Old Sea Wall

12

The Midnight Horseman

13

Lonely Heart

14

Dreams

15

The Bugles Called

15

Morning Guard

16

When Kilmer Wrote of Trees

17

Wild Geese

17

I Write to You in Red

18

’Tis Winter Now

18

Sonnet

19

The Tropic Dawn

20

Twilight

21

Echo

21

Star Course

22

Memorandum

23

The Litany of Pearl Harbor

23

We Were Waiting That Morning for Colors

26

The Motor Launch Crew

27

To the Garrison at Wake

28

Corregidor and Calvary

31

When he and I had met

33

To the Marines

34

The Lads Who Go Below

35

The Road to High Wood

36

Night Watch

37

The Soldier and the Samovar

38

Nocturne

38

The Swing

39

Somewhere on Leave

40

The Sentry

41

I Watched Him in the Tournament

41

South Pacific

42

Deck-Ape

43

Sailor Boy

43

Avenge

44

The Crossing of the Rhine

45

The Ballad of the Dead Sailor

45

The Death of the Scharnhorst

47

Little Boys and Little Dogs

53

U.S.S. Oklahoma Returns to Her Crew

54

Night

56

For All Heroes

57

Foxhole

58

Bury Him

61

THE BIRD, THE LAD AND ME

The sky was touched with tints of morn,

A wind was in the trees,

I lay in bed awakened

By the murmur of the leaves.

I listened to the chirping

Of the first-awakened bird,

And, his leather heels a-clicking,

Some lad off to work I heard.

Then my thoughts to sleep returning

Wondered briefly, of us three,

What brave paths the fates have destined

For the bird, the lad and me.

THE WAR IN SPAIN

The war in Spain is over

Yet victory does not smile

For all the lads are murdered

Who might have laughed awhile.

And those who march triumphant

Are sadder than the dead

Because their hearts are shadowed,

Because their hands are red.

The war in Spain is over,

Yet other trumpets sound

And call the world’s young manhood

To another battleground.

IT RAINS TONIGHT

It rains tonight and wolf-winds howl.

His grave is not so deep,

But that the mournful Heavens

Upon his body weep;

They wet the mound of spaded earth

And through his coffin seep.

It rains tonight and wolf-winds howl,

And beaten hangs the tree,

And comfortless in Death he lies

Who comforted should be,

The guy who lost

And killed himself,

And never spoke to me!

WHILE DRUMS ARE ROLLING

Then you’ll go while drums are rolling,

And you’ll charge and make the bluff

That your heart is full of courage,

And you’ll curse the vilest stuff.

And you’ll see a lot of fellows

That you’ve never seen before,

And they may all be twenty

Or one or two years more.

And you’ll briefly talk together,

But of what you will not know.

There is so much that lads can say

When off to war they go.

And you’ll see a lot of fellows

When the battle roar is done,

Though all are dead upon the field

And will not know it’s won.

And the drums will roll on, rolling

Till some bullet finds your heart,

Then you’ll join the lads before you

And you’ll never have to part.

APOLLO

Beautiful pagan, possess me!

Over thy body my fingers I race.

Hot on thy cheeks are my kisses,

Naked with thee in a lovers’ embrace.

Passionate night,

And the scents from the orchard

Heavily here

In thy temple retreat.

Moonlight and marble,

Where pillars and shadows

Cast thee in twilight,

Beautiful statue,

Warm with the warmth

Of my body

Against thee,

I quiver,

I clasp thee

And fall at thy feet!

FOUNTAIN OF LOVELINESS

Fountain of loveliness, flowing

Deep in a wildwood of aspen and pine,

Swanlike forever upon thy calm surface

I drift in my nakedness, white in the sun.

O plunge me beneath,

Where thy depths are the greenest,

Cover my heart,

And the secret it keeps!

HIGHWAY NUMBER 66

We drove down the road

Like two bats out of Hell,

And before us the gates

At the rail crossing fell.

But we crashed through the splinters

And over the tracks,

And the train whistled madly

And screamed at our backs.

And we rode on in silence

With never a word,

And only the wind

And the motor were heard.

For a lad lay a-dying

That both of us knew,

And over the hills

To his bedside we flew.

He was dead when we got there,

And somehow I know

At that curve on the hill

With the valley below,

Where the crossing is laid,

And that monster of steel,

Not my hand, but his

Was guiding the wheel.

DIRGE FOR THE SQUALUS

We did not raise a submarine

From the ocean’s fathomed bed,

But twenty-six brave sailor lads

And all of them were dead.

We left them not beneath the sea;

We brought them sadly home,

To dedicate anew to Death,

Who nevermore shall roam.

Then, trumpeter, be firm your lip,

What though the tears may fall,

For muffled drums in velvet beat

Beneath your trumpet’s call.

And there are hearts in other lads

That swell with sorrow, too.

It need not matter that those hearts

Are not in navy blue.

And they who have escaped that tomb

Beneath the restless wave,

How deeply reverent they hold

The gift the dead men gave.

For twenty-six on them bestowed

The utmost they could give,

When twenty-six accepted death

That thirty-three might live.

The passage doorway dogged and tight,

On either side two groups of men.

In one compartment, mad with fright,

The thirty-three who’ll live again.

And on the other, maddened, too,

The water rising swiftly, high,

The twenty-six who looked and knew

They were the ones who had to die.

Then let some fitting tribute stand

When we from here are fled,

The living consecrated

By the consecrated dead!

ECHO CANYON

We ride to Echo Canyon,

He rides with me tonight,

No moon above to guide us,

The stars alone are bright.

The wind is in the sagebrush;

Somewhere a coyote calls;

The studded sky is briefly lit

As a flaming starlet falls.

We draw the rein together,

He trembles as I pass

To turn the horses free to graze

In the wild September grass.

And now I stretch beside him

Where he lies upon the ground,

And in all this lovely wilderness

We two alone are found.

FRAGMENT

He wandered through the darkened streets of night,

His massive cape a-blown with every wind.

He passed the strumpets flirting near the lamps,

And bowed to one—the one most infamous.

Then down familiar avenues he strolled,

And met, as he was sure to meet them there,

The lads who knew these lanes where men were bold.

How many a British soldier went to death

Beneath an Afric sun with some small gift,

A pocketknife inlaid with precious stones,

A case for cigarettes, or watch and chain,

Which had been given him by Oscar Wilde.

WE HANG UPON A SCAFFOLD

We hang upon a scaffold, lad,

The skeleton within

Is all the horror of the world,

Of virtue and of sin.

For he who knows no word of love,

Nor has his heart’s desire,

Must hang the same and die the same

As he who walks in fire.

Then hang upon your scaffold, lad

The mob will pierce your side,

Yet cry your triumph and your pain,

For man is crucified.

I LOOKED INTO YOUR EYES

I looked into your eyes and saw,

Or thought I saw, your love.

I tried to hide my own from you;

Not ever spoken of.

Yet, there was something I could feel

Electrify the air

When both of us were quite alone

And no one else was there.

And when at last I spoke my love,

And wanting yours for me,

I looked into your eyes and knew

Such love was not to be.

OF THIS GREAT VOICELESS LOVE

Of this great voiceless love of mine for you

There is no word to your heart out of mine

That may go winging through the whispering night.

Look only then for laughter in my letters

As I from day to day The Fool rehearse.

And if one blushing phrase too boldly written

Inscribes too fervently that I am yours,

Believe it only penmanship and style,

Or the careless informality of friends.

I WOULD HAVE BROUGHT YOU FIRE

I would have brought you fire for those nights

When you were cold and lonely and in doubt.

I would have brought you laughter for your tears

And given you new dreams to dream about.

But look away, your eyes are much too bright,

And sorrow has lent beauty to your face,

And should I cast aside this cloak of years

And live forever after in disgrace—

It is an old temptation sprung anew,

Yet must not be.

Ah, look at me and you shall see

I am, my love, as miserable as you!

TOO MUCH OF LIFE

Too much of life we spend alone,

Too many thoughts are ours to share,

Too little love we call our own

Though multitudes of men are there.

We’re strangers undetermined of

Where madness rules the lives of men,

Where he who dares design of love

Lives not to dare the deed again.

Beware of love! Be lonely, lad.

There is no death that can compare

Where loving hearts are crucified,

And multitudes of men are there.

LONE CELLO

Too much is incomplete. Let’s make an end

Of all the fond impossible dreams we’ve dreamed,

And when we part,

We were not meant to be

Too closely here companioned where the thorn

Of our red love transfixes joy’s brief crown.

The roses wither, time itself decays,

And log-lit embers fall to ashes when

The memory of the flame no longer glows.

We rode to Echo Canyon and your smile

Ran naked through the chambers of my heart.

Now lonely cellos must out parting sing

As when some cool green afternoon lets fall

From one high branch a few wind-weary leaves.

We grow too old too suddenly. Farewell!

APOCALYPSE

These are the seeds of the future,

The weary, the wretched, the slain.

These are the ghosts we shall harvest

In wars that shall come again.

These are the fields we have furrowed,

The dreams that have fallen apart,

And this is the plow of our madness,

The fear that has entered the heart.

Oh, how shall we welcome the reaper

When autumn shall fill the air,

When all the hope of the springtime

Is cut with the edge of despair?

THE OLD SEA WALL

Oh, you who go hurrying, worrying by

With never a cry or a call,

Saw you a lad who was standing here

On the crest of the old sea wall?

I saw him last night in the twilight

As the long low breakers rolled,

And across the bay in the chapel

An evening bell was tolled.

And we looked at each other a moment

And then from each other we turned,

But I read in his eyes of a longing

That a merciless world had spurned.

Oh, have you no answer to make me,

All you who go hastening past,

And though I am late will none tell me

Where he was standing last?

Like a whisper I hear from the sea wall,

Where the waters are troubled below,

A murmur of wavelets complaining,

And the fate of the lad I know.

Spin onward, old world, to your ending.

The hearts that you break and condemn

Will someday rise madly against you,

Reversing your judgment of them.

THE MIDNIGHT HORSEMAN

Ten thousand trees in the forest stood

And watched me as I passed,

Ten thousand trees that did not breathe

The wind that rode as fast,

Ten thousand leaves on every tree

Immovably aghast!

The road in the light of the moon was white,

The sky overhead was gray,

With a kind of a washed, half-tone effect

That took the night away,

Yet to right and left like the cloak of death

The deepest darkness lay.

The steed’s quick breath his hooves beat out

And silvered all the air,

On, on we sped like a thing of dread;

We were a ghostly pair.

We passed the somber stricken wood;

We found no shelter there.

I might have stayed and made pretense

That I was like the rest,

And laughed and drunk and sung their songs

As loudly as the best,

And never have given an answer to,

Not recognized my quest.

Farewell, and onward! Piteous flight

That leaves all friends behind,

That hastes from old familiar scenes

Where love was young and kind.

Oh, petrified Sylvania,

Where shall I others find?

LONELY HEART

Where do you wander far and afield,

Lonely heart? Lonely heart, where is your shield?

Where are your rings and where is your purse?

Love is expensive. It’s cheaper to curse.

Where are your garments? Look at your shoes.

Laughter or sorrow, which did you choose?

Walking the streets, nights that are cold,

Men who are wretched, men who are bold.

Rooms in the shadows, Love me tonight,

Love me and leave me before it grows bright.

Don’t heed the sob of a heartbreak within.

Hold me, and kiss me and teach me to sin!

Into the quicksand, hungry and dark,

Into the grotto, into the park,

Into the depths of the tomb, it is said,

Lovers have cast themselves, living and dead.

Lonely heart, lonely heart, walking alone,

Friendless and frantic, and turning to stone!

DREAMS

If you’ve a dream at heart, lad,

Some wilfull, noble plan,

Then cherish it within, lad,

And tell it to no man.

To friend and foe alike be dumb

On what you plan to do,

And keep that secret chamber locked

Until the work is through.

For I had dreams at heart, boy,

But talked them all away,

And now I needs must start, boy,

To dream anew today.

THE BUGLES CALLED

We lay together, he and I,

Upon a little hill,

Beneath a tree that sheltered us,

As trees so often will.

I touched his hand and felt him stir,

Expectancy of love!

And then my lips poured out my heart,

The things I told him of.

But when his heart began to speak

The bugles called to war

And he arose and left me there.

I never saw him more.

MORNING GUARD

Where the old road meets the new road

I stand the guard at morn,

Where one comes winding down the hill,

The other, through it torn.

October’s friendly fingers dipped

In every mellow shade

Have touched the leaves on all the trees

That stand within the glade.

In distant treetops I behold,

As I have seen in clouds,

The faces of my heroes

Or dead men in their shrouds.

The marching columns pass me by,

All sailor lads in blue.

And some will wink, and some will smile,

The way young fellows do.

And overhead the deepening sky

More bright and bluer flows,

While one lone fleecy, sheeplike cloud

Before the dog-wind goes.

The restless leaves like pounding surf

Sound breakers through the trees.

I strip of all reality

And drown myself in these.

WHEN KILMER WROTE OF TREES

When Kilmer wrote of trees he must have seen

The flowering catalpas all a-bloom,

And though about him guns spoke quick of death

And distant cannon thundered oaths of doom

He did not harken. What were all of these

To where beyond the trenches stood the trees?

WILD GEESE

Geese in the night flying low,

I hear the beat of their wings.

I wish that I could know

If they are calling to me.

Rain and a wintry wind

And trees that have shed their leaf.

If man at first had not sinned

Then Christ had not been born.

I WRITE TO YOU IN RED

I write to you in red, though not in blood,

For scarlet all my memories are dyed

With deep imaginings of what the past,

The past, the past—the unforgotten gone.

Ah, what it might have been designed upon!

I write to you in red because the flood

Of scarlet passion prisoned, long denied

Your love, yet in your bondage bonded fast,

Is freed to flow again, to stream,

And if it can, another love esteem.

But all too long your chains upon my heart

Have left a scar which testifies me dead

To all frivolity. I have no part

With lightsome love.

I write to you in red!

’TIS WINTER NOW

When spring again revisits earth,

And in the dark there comes a stirreth

Of seedlings bursting with the birth

Of summer’s future flowers,

Then will I sing you songs of love

And apple blossoms branched above

Shall know the dear devotion of

My poor poetic powers.

But wait till then—’tis winter now.

My thoughts in solitude are claimed.

Yet every wind shall hear my vow

Repeated through the hours,

It’s you alone I love,

And unashamed.

SONNET

Like solitary mountain peaks that list

And seem to sink in seas of restless grain

My love for you goes drowning through a mist

Of unrequited, unrecorded pain.

Oh, while there’s breath of life and passion still,

While yet remains a warmth, a failing flame

Within the fallen fortress of my will,

Give me a moment of your love to claim.

Come let me hold you close in hushed embrace

And crush you with the force of fierce desire,

Yet by that love no future plan to trace,

But just to love that moment to conspire.

I will not chain you, though enchained by thee;

The memory of your love will prison me.

THE TROPIC DAWN

The tropic dawn is beautiful at sea,

The clouds respond so readily to light.

Though overhead the stars continue bright

And scattered like a broken string of beads,

The eastward doors of night are opened wide

And light floods all the ocean floor inside.

The sun gets up, a painter out of bed,

To work again his canvas of the world,

To change black water into blue instead,

To tint what little frantic foam gets hurled

From two waves’ temperaments with ruby fire,

And make the sea a thing for man’s desire.

The day comes gently, working through the clouds,

Which light and burn with brilliance many-hued.

A sailor somewhere singing in the shrouds

With naked chest and feet and arms tatooed,

His sailor hat at angle on his head,

Salutes the day with thoughts of home and bed.

Oh, take me back, away from dawn and sea,

Oh, take me where the heart of me would be,

And in some blessed meadow set me free!

TWILIGHT

A little while ago that sky was gold,

And green that hill,

And blue the white-capped sea,

And I stood watching through these vines a ship

That moved, hull down, beyond,

Beneath the point.

I wonder now, before the stars are out

And long black clouds have filled the sunset sky,

Will I remember this at midnight hour:

How much I longed to be aboard that ship!

ECHO

Oh, weary heart, dependent for a song

On whether someone smiles or not at thee.

Oh, weary life, the loveless years are long

Yet deathless are the thoughts of him to me.

Within an ancient castle on the coast,

Where all the sea-dead sailor lads make moan,

I hear a melancholy cello sing

Its mad and mournful music to the moon,

A dirge of febrile beauty and despair

That fills the night with phantom, frantic song.

And phrase to phrase with sexual life responds

While fierce satyriasis, orchestrally,

Like nine symphonic horns unharmonized

Calls wildly through the hollows of my heart.

STAR COURSE

Into the darkening east we ride,

Wave upon wave we thrust aside,

White and defiant they seethe around.

What do we care! We’re homeward bound!

The sea beneath and the sky above,

These are the things a man can love,

Not when he leaves his native shore,

But when, far out of the sight of land,

He takes the wheel with a steady hand

To guide him home once more.

Then homeward, homeward be my course,

And constant be my star,

For I have wandered east and west

And I have wandered far,

Yet home and joy can only be

Where love and friendship are.

I’ve searched among the isles of men

The love I left behind,

Explored for friendships in the waste

Of broken, humankind,

And sought for beauty, sought for wit,

With naught of all to find.

In dens of laughter when I laughed

There came a hollow sound,

Yet every night I went again

To join the merry round,

And every night I knew that there

My heart would not be found.

Then homeward, homeward be my course,

And constant be my star,

And may I not have changed too much

Because I’ve wandered far.

Their love and laughter now I need

Who home and friendship are.

MEMORANDUM

Quick are the sands that bury a man

When he lays him down to die,

And quick are the hands if there be no sands

Of such fellows as you and I.

THE LITANY OF PEARL HARBOR

Harbor of morning,

Day has begun.

Hills of Oahu

Are waiting the sun.

Harbor of reveille,

Hammocks away.

Sailors are stirring

On ships in the bay.

Harbor of happiness,

Green and complete.

Day from the summit

Has smiled on the fleet.

Harbor deceived,

Death in the sky

Plummets to earth

Before colors shall fly.

Harbor surprised,

Torpedo and shell

Tear through the living,

Harbor of Hell!

Harbor of terror,

Harbor of death,

Harbor where fellows

Are choking for breath.

Harbor of drownings,

Thunderous sound.

Flooded compartments

Harbor the drowned.

Harbor of fire,

Harbor of flame,

Steel and humanity

Crumble the same.

Harbor determined,

Stations are manned.

Against the aggresor

The Harbor will stand.

Harbor of courage,

Gunners and guns

Speak of the worth

Of America’s sons.

Harbor of shipmates,

Sanctified flood,

Dying together,

Harbor of blood!

Harbor of wounds,

Beneath the attack,

Fighting the enemy,

Driving him back.

Harbor of smoke,

Blinding the sun.

Harbor contested,

Yet to be won.

Harbor of roaring,

Harbor ablaze,

Harbor of horror,

Harbor of praise.

Harbor resurgent,

Out of the gloom,

Self-resurrected

Out of the tomb.

Glorious Harbor,

Harbor of woe,

Harbor of vengeance

Blasting the foe.

Harbor of hours,

Endless, intense,

Harbor victorious,

Epic defense.

Dedicate Harbor,

Shipmates are there

Sleeping forever.

Harbor of prayer.

WE WERE WAITING THAT MORNING FOR COLORS

We were waiting that morning for colors,

And the bands were ready to play,

And a motor launch crossing the harbor

Was making its peaceful way,

But to war and the roar of its thunder

Old Glory went up that day.

The firmament split, and our gunners,

The bravest and handsomest crew,

Mid fiery bomb and shrapnel,

Oh, how to their stations they flew!

They fought like a legion of angels

Against the corruption of Hell,

In the blaze of a sacred vengeance

For shipmate lads who fell.

They fought off the vicious invader,

They cut him out of the air,

And he dropped through the smoke of the combat

To death and destruction there.

And our flag through the hours of battle

Flew on till the fighting was won.

Oh, beautiful, dedicate banner,

Our victory has only begun.

With such gunners as ours to defend you,

So bright and beloved in the sky,

While devotion and manhood attend you,

Brave standard, continue on high.

We were waiting that morning for colors.

Old Glory forever shall fly!

THE MOTOR LAUNCH CREW

Crossing the harbor, four lads in a motor launch

Saw the invader host drop from the sky,

Saw a torpedo’s white wake through the water

Make for the stern of a vessel nearby.

“Jump!” cried the coxswain, “Here is my duty,

Here is the logic for which I was born,

One life asunder to stop the torpedo

Ere from their bodies a hundred are torn!”

“Nay,” cried the bowman. “We’re in this together.

Glory to God and such men as ye are!”

Seizing a boat hook he jumped to the gunwhale,

As mad as old Ahab, as fixed as a star.

Oh, the wild race in the harbor that morning!

Prayed to his Diesel the kid engineer,

“Fail me not now, O my beautiful engine!”

Swiftly the launch and torpedo drew near.

Wake upon wake, the two masses converging,

Never a word by the sternman was said.

Oh, there was death in the harbor that morning!

Under the keel the torpedo shaft fled.

Then with the force of a mighty harpooner,

Melville’s dread hero, such bowman was he,

Then from his arm the long boat hook went plunging

Faster than death and destruction could flee.

Into the blades of the whirling propeller,

Following after, the iron hook sank,

Changing the mark where the war head exploded,

Tumbling the rocks and a tree from the bank.

Then all around them the harbor was seething,

Concussion and fire and shouting and fear,

And they, too, are dead. Dead that motor launch coxswain,

That bowman, and sternman and kid engineer!

TO THE GARRISON AT WAKE

A little while, O sacramental dead,

Unvisited a little while yet be.

You shall not lie forgotten nor alone

While ships there are, and planes, and guns, and men.

For now, more adamant, more fierce, more keen,

In permanence and purpose fixed as stars,

To finite manhood hereby we annex

The infinite almightiness of God,

And we shall be His judgment! Woe to that

Ambitious offal sprung from Hell’s abyss

Which catastrophically we shall destroy,

Annihilate, forever make extinct.

No evil feet, where from your chaliced hearts

The precious blood has spilled, shall tread that earth,

That holy, transubstantiated isle

Whose very soil is body, soul, and blood

Of restless lads who loved America!

On who so tread shall light and darkness pounce,

Vast winged horrors plummeting, destroy,

Consuming brilliance, glut-engulfing night,

Like twin devourers, feed there on them!

Ye ancient dead, who fell with Greece or Rome,

Or in the name of Allah and his prophet,

Who fell through all the cycled years of war,

Through plague, disaster, fell in civil strife,

Through revolution, famine, flood and fire,

Apocalyptic woe or freezing night,

Ye ancient dead, to whom heroic stance

And unsurrendered dignity still cling,

Receive who come among you now like gods,

Four hundred splendid, handsome, golden lads.

To them extend that comradship of men

Who live the rugged military life,

Who smile that full, good-natured kind of smile,

Most boyishly unstudied, most beloved,

Who know each other’s thoughts and wants and hopes,

Who know what prayers are said and what forgot,

Who know that greatest, crucifying love

Where friends for friends on strange new crosses die!

And you, O Seraph Outpost Garrison,

Who side by side heroically made stand,

No quarter given, none received, none asked,

Who fought those vicious legions in the three

Old elemental spheres, and of the fourth,

Almost invincible to flame and death,

Stood firmly placed before, beneath the attack

Like Milton’s epic host against all Hell,

New rest, brave lads, in consecrated sleep,

While lonely trumpets sing through muffled drums

A requiem and threnody of grief.

Ah, great Cecilia, Bach, and Handel blind,

Those last full-throated notes to swell from earth,

That trumpet song of loneliness and night,

Give it a contrapuntal theme beneath,

Whose pedal harmonies orchestrally

Shall hint of resurrection, while the pipes

And organ-pillar’d flutes resound the mode

To which the ancient dead have matched and sung.

Then light the strings until they burn as bright

And numberless as candles round a shrine,

Then start the rolling drums, and set the brass

Cannonically recalling one another,

And let the reeds’ ancestral wisdom speak,

What though at first the grave bassoons must weep

Their melancholy, febrile lamentation.

Unsheathe the horns and cut the harmonic knot.

Let full grand orchestra astound the void

With soaring fugue and metric tympani.

And in this last, let herald trumpets sing

While bright kid-trumpeteers who fell at Pearl

Resound a call to quarters there beyond!

CORREGIDOR AND CALVARY

Corregidor and Calvary,

And Christ again is crucified,

And all the lovely lads who died

Are His this day in Paradise.

They hung upon a wretched cross,

We watched them day by day,

And wondered how such men could live

Who hung in such a way,

Who hung in thorns of screeching steel

And had no time to pray.

We knew that soon the lads must die,

And yet they battled death

Unmindful of his awful wings

And black, consuming breath,

Unmindful when he roared at them

Or whispered what he saith.

For shattered men will die in pain,

And shaken men will weep,

And there are things which blast the blood

And through the body creep,

And men will not lie down at night

Afeared that they will sleep.

Afeared they would too deeply sleep,

That battered hearts would burst;

And though each knew that he must die,

The dawn must beckon first,

And each must feel again the grip

Of loneliness and thirst.

For none would die alone, apart,

By twos and twelves they fell,

And if a man could walk he worked,

He loaded shot and shell,

For none would die alone, apart,

Within a narrow cell.

Within a narrow cell at last

All men someday must lie,

But while their blood was in the heart

And light within the eye,

They would not leave the stand they took

Beneath the open sky.

They would not leave us, watching them,

Examples of defeat,

That when we come to look on death,

And though our ranks deplete,

Somehow we must think back to them,

The way they met it, meet!

Alas, Love, I would thou couldst as well

defende thy selfe as thou canst offende others

—SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

When he and I had met I knew

The way he smiled at me

That we’d become the best of pals

Two guys could ever be.

For night and day he filled my thoughts,

I talked of only him,

But there were eyes which watched us both,

Suspicious, cold, and dim.

Suspicious eyes and little mouths

That each reporting made

Of all the times we went to swim

Or rested in the shade.

They told of how we’d taken horse

To ride about the lea,

And how two lonely mounts were seen

Beneath a rugged tree.

They gossiped how instead of church

We went to watch the sun

Come charging over purple hills

To see the day begun,

And how we came not home again

Until that day was done.

And he and I went off to war,

Yet still their evil fed.

He never knew, not ever will,

The wretched things they said,

For he was on Corregidor,

And now the lad is dead.

TO THE MARINES

There’s only one banner says “Semper Fidelis!”

There’s only one flag we defend,

There’s only one heart and one mind and one body

In all of our battles we send.

We fought and we bled on Bataan and Corregidor,

Oh, how we held them at Wake!

And waited in vain for more men and munitions

With all the Pacific at stake.

The sleepers were many, but we were the few

Who wakened the quickest and fought,

And while readjustment and training were planned,

We did what we could, what we ought.

Our dead are at Henderson. Think you they rest?

They fight even now at our side,

Refusing to enter the realms of the blest

Until we have beaten the tide!

THE LADS WHO GO BELOW

The enemy’s reported,

And he’d like to see the show,

But he handles ammunition

So he’s got to go below.

And he’s ready on his station,

Every nerve alert and keen,

With a group of grim-faced sailors

In a lower magazine.

They can feel the ship’s vibrations

When the broadside salvos go,

And the shatter of the turrets

When they batter at the foe.

“Send ’em up and keep ’em coming!

Man the phones and man the hoist!”

Sweat and curse and pass the powder

Till the very deck is moist.

But the enemy is daring,

And his planes get through the screen,

A torpedo rips the blister

Just above the magazine.

Water fills the whole compartment,

In another fires rage,

But the guns still get their powder

And the enemy engage.

Trapped below, the lads are living,

And the hungry hoist they feed,

Though the first concussion stunned them

And their deafened ears must bleed.

Other hits, the foeman scoring,

Thunderous roars of flaming sheen,

“Save the ship from an explosion,

Flood the lower magazine!”

Lads, farewell! The air was dirty

With a lot of fume and smoke,

It’s as bad, lads, when you smother

As on briny water choke.

But the enemy’s defeated,

Thanks to you who’ll never know,

You who handled ammunition

And who had to go below!

THE ROAD TO HIGH WOOD

It was on the road to High Wood

That we found him lying dead,

The soldier boy in khaki

With the broken, battered head.

No more at dawn or sunset

Will he hear the bugle note,

Nor thrill to taps ascending

From a trumpet’s silver throat.

It was on the road to High Wood

Where the maple leaves were burned

That the lad went out at morning

And nevermore returned.

There are many roads to High Wood,

There are many roads to Hell,

And the fields of wheat are rotten

Where a thousand heroes fell.

NIGHT WATCH

His ship is on the ocean

But the sailor lad’s ashore,

And deeply, deeply sleeping,

He’ll waken nevermore.

We buried him atop the hill

That overlooks the bay,

And one there was who walked from there

With slower steps away.

And one there is on watch at night

Who wears the strangest smile,

Because he sees a specter lad

And talks with him awhile.

Across the world he comes to me,

And far horizons dim,

And I await the day when I,

Instead, shall go to him.

Then we will sail on all the seas

That poets can recite,

And stand beside another lad,

And watch with him at night.

THE SOLDIER AND THE SAMOVAR

They shot him as he left the house

And stripped him in the snow

But still he held the samovar

And would not let it go.

Who knows from what fine home he came

With afternoons at tea?

If I had been that lonely lad,

They would have shot at me.

For I’d have run as desperately

Behind some log to settle,

And sit me down beside my theft,

The big, old Russian kettle.

But dead he lies; the snow piles high

And winter fills the land,

And only spring will move the thing

And take it from his hand.

NOCTURNE

Beside you while you slumbered, lad,

My restless heart had lain

Through all the hours of the night

Aware of love and pain.

Aware of love and morning’s light

And eyes that must betray

When someday you should look in mine

Then ever look away.

I’ll come to where you slumber, lad,

If death shall mark me not

And say the prayer that now I pray,

And thought I had forgot.

THE SWING

The crooked swing that hung beneath

The crooked willow tree

Brought all his laughter to my ears

When school was out at three.

When later years and afternoons

Their symphony had sung

Beneath the crooked willow tree

An idle swing had hung.

Then war came on. There’s always war

To readjust the past,

And he got leave and I got leave,

And home we came at last.

But I alone return tonight

And naught to battle bring,

For he is dead beneath the tree

And broken hangs the swing.

SOMEWHERE ON LEAVE

Unfurrowed field and lonely plow,

The laughing lad has fled,

Sweet-throated, unaccompanied lark,

The laughing lad is dead.

I found him on a barren tract,

Stretched out and lying still,

And on his lips the blood had dried,

And on the blasted hill.

Oh, that was far from hills like these,

A hundred thousand guns

Are booming, bursting in his ears

And he does not hear a one.

A soldier’s thoughts and a soldier’s laugh

And a soldier’s boyish grin

Are dead on a lonely battlefield,

And the war is yet to win.

THE SENTRY

The night wind hums a lullaby,

A watchful bivouac keep.

The guns are silent now awhile,

Yet, soldier, do not sleep.

Though weary with the force of night,

And weary with the war,

Sleep not, be watchful, quick alert,

Or sleep forever more.

But words are nought to tired eyes,

And what are words of praise

To minds that long to dream a bit

Of other, saner days.

He sleeps, unmindful of his oath,

And then they find him dead,

The other soldier stands his guard

Who shot him through the head.

The night wind hums a lullaby,

A watchful bivouac keep.

The guns are silent now awhile,

Yet, soldier, do not sleep!

I WATCHED HIM IN THE TOURNAMENT

I watched him in the tournament,

And when he bowled a line

I saw the way his eyes would smile

When things were going fine.

I saw the lonely little frown

That made him look so grave

And older than his twenty years

When things would not behave.

And then we did not meet again;

I heard that he was dead.

The savage sea, not you nor me,

Knows where he is instead.

SOUTH PACIFIC

How often had the sun been red

The sky as deep a blue

Behind long, tired stretched-out clouds

When I was then with you.

How often had the evening sea

Which you so much admired

With archipelagos of foam

Been bright and ruby-fired.

Oh, all these things tonight are here

Upon a distant sea,

But I have found no other one

To stand and watch with me.

DECK-APE

He was just a little deck-ape

With a happy kind of smile,

And a line of boyish chatter

That could make you laugh awhile.

He was just a little deck-ape

Always ready with a hand

When a shipmate needed someone

Who would help or understand.

He was just a little deck-ape,

And we buried him at sea

When he stopped a strafer’s bullet

That was meant, I think, for me.

SAILOR BOY

Upon a railway station bench he lies,

Majestic image of a heathen god

Cast down unknown centuries of time,

And on his back for all the world to see.

He sleeps the silence of unspoken love,

A smile upon his lips, his cheeks aglow

With all the fire of his rhythmic heart

Betraying there the secret of his dream.

And breath and life are one where fills his chest,

And where the texture of his thighs impress

The pagan phallic frontlet in his loins

He testifies unknowingly to youth.

Unstirring in the rapture of his thoughts

He slumbers in the wakeful watch

Of envy and desire!

AVENGE

Avenge! Avenge! Great sword of God,

The massacre of these

Ten thousand Polish soldier lads,

All hung from gallows’ trees.

Send down Thy angels armed with fire,

Send down Thy fiery lake,

Avenge the tortured, fiercely marred,

And killed for killing’s sake,

Brave prisoners of Guam, Bataan, Corregidor, and Wake!

O hasten, hasten, wrath of God!

Five times five thousand slain

In one red week of murderous lust,

New Christs, new cross, new pain!

Our patience and our mercy wait

While they who slaughter don’t.

Annihilate! Annihilate!

We’ll do it if You won’t!

THE CROSSING OF THE RHINE

And what is the talk we make tonight

As we fill our glasses amber bright

And drink to the guys who are in the fight,

The crossing of the Rhine.

And the song we sing is a simple thing

Of a tune that moves with a martial swing

To a set of words that have caught the ring,

The crossing of the Rhine.

We laugh and we jest, and we wish them well,

And then we remember the lads who fell

By blasted bridge and screaming shell,

The crossing of the Rhine.

Let’s stand as we pledge the guys who are there,

The guys who are fighting everywhere

Through blood and guts and the power of prayer,

The crossing of the Rhine!

THE BALLAD OF THE DEAD SAILOR

Oh, where are the rest of my shipmates,

And why am I not at sea,

And what is this lonely valley

Where no one is but me?

Have they sailed away without me?

Will they ever again return?

I never thought when he was dead

A sailor’s heart would yearn.

Oh, how did I die? In battle?

Or how did I die? Asleep?

Were there any who laughed when they heard it?

Were any too stunned to weep?

But who dressed me up so neatly?

Who brushed and combed my hair?

Some fellow just doing his duty

Or someone who tried to care?

Whoever it was I thank him,

But what have they done to my heart

That it will not rest like a lonesome guest

In this world where they’ve set me apart?

Must I still call out for companions

And want them again at my side,

Though breath is forbidden me ever

As the longing I want to confide?

O you who are shipmates together,

Look well at each other today,

Or you’ll lie deep as I in your anguish,

And pine your dead heart away.

THE DEATH OF THE SCHARNHORST

On Christmas Day in forty-three

The Nazi Scharnhorst put to sea,

For word somehow had reached Berlin

An Allied convoy was within

Two hundred miles of where she lay

In some Norwegian, hidden bay.

She went ahead, two-thirds her speed,

A mighty, master-monster steed,

She left the fjords, mountain walled,

Where oft her echoing bugles called,

She cleared the channel, marked the land

Drop far astern on either hand.

She steamed through fog and arctic day,

And then at night, when darkness lay

Completely over all the waste,

The Scharnhorst charged with fuller haste

To intercept the Allied ships

Which dared these bold Murmansk-bound trips.

Meanwhile the convoy, slow, serene,

Behind an escort naval screen,

Proceeded eastward off North Cape.

The Scharnhorst sensed the coming rape,

And manned her guns that early dawn,

But this is what she came upon:

The cruisers Norfolk, and Belfast,

And Sheffield, all the long night past

Had known the wild sea horse was free

To terrorize the Northern Sea,

And they had placed themselves between

The charging Scharnhorst and the screen.

The winter’s dawn was blackboard gray.

The Scharnhorst held her plotted way.

The Norfolk, Sheffield, and Belfast

Were tense with waiting. Hours passed

As closer these two forces drew,

Determined ships, determined crew.

The British sensed the approach of doom.

The Scharnhorst paused within the gloom,

But then a star shell, bursting high,

Illumined her against the sky.

The great seabeast began to snort

From every nostril turret fort.

The Sheffield’s guns belched smoke and flame;

Belfast’s quick turrets did the same,

The Norfolk’s screaming shell bursts bit

The monster’s triple hull, a hit!

The Scharnhorst screamed, she turned and fled

To mend her wound, to count her dead.

Belfast forbade his ships pursue.

He judged what Scharnhorst meant to do,

Pretend retreat and then renew

Attack upon the convoy later.

Scharnhorst’s speed he knew was greater,

So he kept his course the straighter.

Scharnhorst circled east and nor’ward,

Hoped to bring her power forward.

But the convoy changed its course

To shun this grim, abhorrent horse.

The cruisers cut the arc and then

Awaited Scharnhorst’s charge again.

When, hours later, tense with rage,

The Scharnhorst, plotted to engage

Just merchant ships and escort craft,

Had reappeared to run the raft,

She met instead the concerted blast

Of Norfolk, Sheffield and Belfast.

Once again the salvos thundered.

Scharnhorst knew that she had blundered,

While her gunners cursed and wondered

Shells and fire as before

Through the gloomy twilight tore,

Swiftly, surely, more and more.

The Norfolk’s afterdeck was hit,

A blaze of flame, the air was lit.

The Scharnhorst did not wait to see

What damage or what victory.

She turned once more in fearful dread,

Homeward set her course and fled.

For Scharnhorst was a worthy prize.

Correctly had she made surmise

That other ships, the British fleet,

Would steam to intercept or meet,

And so she fled, a wounded beast,

To seek the dark, protective east.

But all this while, to interplace

Between the Scharnhorst and her base,

To cut the Nazi monster’s course,

To bridle all her vicious force,

To leave a wreck of twisted torque,

There steamed the mighty Duke of York.

Two hundred miles away or more

The Duke and her destroyers bore

When first the battle message came.

Belfast continued to proclaim

The Scharnhorst’s course, and from this plot

The Duke, her speed, position got.

For brave Belfast, and Sheffield, too,

And Norfolk this time did pursue.

The Scharnhorst turned, she headed south,

And flung herself into the mouth

Of Duke, Jamaica, and the horde,

Saumarez, Savage, Scorpion, Stord.

“Illuminate the enemy!”

Belfast’s bright shell broke high and free.

The heavy night with heavy haze

Had been descending, but the blaze

Of light and brilliance caught the steed,

Betrayed her form, her frothing speed.

The Duke’s great turrets boldly spoke,

Belched shell and fire, fume and smoke.

Concussion tore the night around.

The shells went screaming through the sound

And landed close aboard the Hun,

A “straddle” salvo number one.

The Duke corrected plot and range

And there began a fierce exchange

Of shell and suffering. Scharnhorst blazed

Where blasts and flame her structures razed.

She turned to east in panicked fright

And sought the dark, descending night.

The Duke sped after, sending shell,

Fired havoc, roaring hell

Raining down upon the fleeing

Battered, bruised and barely seeing

Nazi supership which sped

Ever more and more ahead.

At last the Duke had lost the range.

Her guns were silenced, but a strange

New battle lit the horizon’s edge

And smote the Scharnhorst like a sledge.

She reared and tossed and bellowed toward

Saumarez, Savage, Scorpion, Stord.

She did not flee as fast, for they,

More swiftly speeding on their way,

O’ertook her and on either bow

Engaged the bleeding Scharnhorst now.

Her voice was wild, her aim was bad;

She fought with all the guns she had.

At forty knots the destroyers came.

Ten thousand yards, they took their aim;

Six thousand yards, without a change

Of course or speed they closed the range.

Two thousand yards, they launched their dread

Torpedoes, and away they sped.

The Scharnhorst snorted, scored a hit.

Saumarez felt the blast of it.

But then the launched torpedoes struck,

And Scharnhorst’s inner heart was stuck.

Her guns began a wild, red fire,

She’d lost her speed, could not retire.

By now the Duke of York had closed,

And with another force composed

Of Sheffield, Norfolk, and Belfast,

Jamaica, and come up at last,

Four escorts from the convoy screen,

Began a new approach routine.

The Scharnhorst shuddered, shell on shell

From eight destroyers upon her fell.

From four crack cruisers she sustained

The heavy, horrid fire they trained.

Each salvo from the Duke of York

Left her unsteady as a cork.

Around and round the battle raged,

On every side she was engaged

By greater force and stronger will,

A broken thing of beauty still;

And then the ships received command

To stand well clear on every hand.

The battle paused. The night returned,

And in that dark the Scharnhorst burned.

The swift and final act began.

Jamaica left the cruiser van

And headed toward the trembling pile

Where life and metal burned the while.

A neat destroyer trained her lights

Upon the target and the sights

Aboard Jamaica, set to kill,

Could pledge the beast her final thrill.

Jamaica swung. Torpedoes leapt,

Their course and their appointment kept.

A last great roar the Scharnhorst gave,

Then rolled her fires beneath the wave,

A wretched, moving, dying thing

Within the watchful naval ring.

The black, salt sea her vitals drank,

And, quenched her thirst, the Scharnhorst sank.

LITTLE BOYS AND LITTLE DOGS

Little boys and little dogs

Are made for one another.

For show me, sir, a little dog

Just taken from its mother

That will not find a tenderness

And clumsy kind of joy

In the care, and taking care, of

A loving little boy.

U.S.S. OKLAHOMA RETURNS TO HER CREW

We did not recognize her as she sank among us here,

A wretched hulk, dismasted, disemboweled and stripped of gear.

We did not recognize her. They were selling her for junk

When she listed like a derelict, abandoned, wrecked, and sunk.

For we were sea-dead sailors wandering aimlessly the deep,

Without a ship, without a bunk, without a place to sleep,

For we were sea-dead sailors of a ship that killed us all

When she rolled her weight upon us as the bombs began to fall.

We loved that ship. Her lines were trim, her speed was fleet and free,

And when she joined maneuvers she was beautiful to see.

That morning when torpodoes struck, with water, oil and blood

She swiftly filled and overturned her masthead in the mud.

How long we lived, how long lay dead within her flooded sides

Till all awakened, spirit-drifted, ebbing with the tides!

Oh, some were brave but could not save the other, some afraid,

And all upon a hillside we were later, gently laid.

We did not recognize her, for the ship we loved so well

Had died with us that morning in the harbor’s flaming Hell,

And our remembrance was not this, a scrapped and broken hull

That came among us timid as a shy and lonely gull.

We turned our backs upon her; she was not of our command,

But suddenly a seaman with a flashlight in his hand

Began to signal frantically. We turned and somehow knew

She was the Oklahoma and she knew we were her crew.

We wept, we cried, we swarmed aboard, we kissed her weary decks,

We made a thousand seaweed leis and hung them round our necks.

We danced, we laughed; our salted eyes flowed tears without relief,

For it was good to know at last the end of all her grief.

We built a superstructure, casemates, turrets, funnel, jack.

We fitted out compartments and we put the galley back.

We mustered on the quarterdeck and bowed our heads in thanks,

And mourned for those, our shipmates, who were missing from the ranks.

We stationed watch and quarters and we stowed our gear below.

We manned the bridge and sea-details, and rode the undertow.

Some evening in the sunset of a bright and happy day

We’ll come steaming through the Golden Gate for San Francisco Bay!

NIGHT

Night is a stricken bird whose breast is laid against the earth,

Whose broken wings both comfort and surround the compassed air.

Night is a fallen sparrow boys have stoned in spending small

Or token sums of their vast wealth’s amazing cruelty.

Night is a stricken bird whose heart has throbbed against my own,

Whose broken wings have brushed my cheek, whose beak has hit my lip.

Night is a restless fellow gone to bed, who cannot sleep,

Yet will not rise to walk the parks and barter with desire.

Night is all the sewers of a frustrate mind

Spewing up positioned nudes inseminating one another!

FOR ALL HEROES

Here are the guys who have died for the world,

Died for the battles in which they were hurled,

Died for the flags that have long since been furled,

And on this cross, Christ!

Here are the bastard, expendable lot,

Here are the laughs when the laughter is not,

Here are the guys who are always forgot,

And on this cross, Christ!

Look, you! Behold through the beard and the blood,

The face of the lover inflamed with the crud;

See the strong limbs that lie still in the mud.

Look on the red lips that open no more.

What does it matter by what gods they swore?

War’s the procurer and here lies his whore!

What can you say to a guy when he’s dead?

Kneel down beside him, lift up his head?

Thank what you thank it was not you instead?

And on this cross?

God love you and keep you, you son of a bitch,

Scratching your ass or wherever you itch,

Restless in sleep as you jump and you twitch.

Go, when you’re called from your haunts and your sports;

Go, be a number in battle’s reports.

Drown your desires and shoot in your shorts

Take up your rifle and take up your clip,

Take the canteen and water you’ll sip.

You’ve got a class that you don’t want to skip,

As on this cross, Christ!

FOXHOLE

Your nearness thundered through me and I shook,

And when you said, “You’re trembling.” I said, “Yes.”

And then you asked, “Ya scared?” What could I say?

We two had been together since the States

And I had kept the bluff and we were friends.

Why, I remember how it was we met.

We both were standing naked. You were soaped

From head to foot and then the shower quit.

I never heard a rhythmic stream of words

So finely mouthed, and chewed and spitted out

But now we lie together in the sand

Upon a tropic beach. The enemy,

For all our air and sea and boasted might,

Had held his little island and opposed

Our coming with such surety of aim

That half our comrades dropped face down, face up,

And did not feel the black and blooded wash

That played between their sprawled and spreaded legs.

We two were forward on the farthest flank

That hoped to outmaneuver and destroy

The deep pillbox entrenchment where the Nip

Had taken his position and command

Of all the open, dead-man beach between.

We’d found a little dune and dug us in,

And all the long tormented afternoon

We lobbed our ineffectual grenades

Against the fort foreknowledge of the Jap.

When night came on we got the word to hold,

But silence and the darkness held us close

And I could hear your breathing, feel you near.

And then there went through me an echoing roar

As when a mountainside of snow and ice

Lets loose its frantic grip and tumbles down.

And then you said, “You’re trembling.” I said, “Yes.”

You asked, “Ya scared?” And I said, “Yes,” again.

The silence fell between us for a while.

Your hand reached out and rudely grasped my arm.

“You’re lying, kid.” Your grip was strong and fierce.

You held me there as if to make me shout

With pain or ecstasy, and time rushed by

Unclocked. You shuddered then and let me go.

“You’re lying, kid, and so, sweet God, am I.”

The blast of brilliance, flame and heat that came

Exploding close beside us threw the sand,

And shell, and death and you and me apart.

How long we lay half buried none will tell

I know I wakened somewhere near the dawn

And saw you stretched and saw your trousers torn.

I crawled beside you, brushed away the sand

That filled your eyes. I held you in my arms,

And pressed my mouth to yours as if my breath

Within your lungs would bring your arms around me.

I know I sobbed, and wept, and cursed, and prayed.

My fevered hands I burned beneath your blouse

To touch your unresponsive, frigid flesh.

And then I knew that you were dead,

That you were dead,

That you were dead,

That we should lie no more!

BURY HIM

Bury him! Not where the rough, raw earth

With his fathers’ bones is filled,

Nor bury him there where the old chiefs’ blood

On the rich, rolled plain is spilled,

And bury him not where he’ll be forgot,

With the reason for which he was killed,

But, bury him. Bury him.

Bury him not in a lonely plot

In the midst of the fools who cried

Of his race and his face, and forgot every trace

Of the reason for which he died,

While the heart of the nation’s demoralization

Began to ascend as it sighed,

“Bury him. Bury him.”

Bury him well. Let the bugler tell

To the listening wind and the wood

How an Indian boy, who was somebody’s joy

And the pride of a small neighborhood,

Met his death in the yell of a Korean hell,

And, returned to his home, was accused

Of his race and his place in a nation’s disgrace,

And his burial there was refused.

Let the volley resound and the hollows be found

To re-echo the bugle and gun,

Till the echoes grow dim and we know that in him

We bury all men in this one.

For we bury the stain when we bury the slain

In these wars that are yet to be won.

Bury him, then, where such comrades shall lie

Side by side in the long marbled sleep,

As have longed long for sleeping, and there in their keeping

Assign him the grave he shall keep.

In that company of others, his spiritual brothers,

Whose tears all were salt when they’d weep.

Bury him. Bury him.

Bury him mournfully, he who was scornfully

Thought to be brought to disgrace among men.

Bury heroically here all the stoically

Suffered injustice and wrong that has been.

Bury the dead and defeated, repeated

Mistakes that have tumbled our honor again.

Bury the past with its hate and its slaughter,

And from this sweet grave make beginning. Come, then,

Bury him! Bury him!

$2.50

THE DEATH

OF THE

SCHARNHORST

And Other Poems

by

Arch Alfred McKillen

In the powerful narrative poem which furnishes the title for this impressive first volume, Arch Alfred McKillen tells the dramatic story of the sinking of the German battleship Scharnhorst, during World War II—an important day for the Allied Forces.

These poems could have been written only by a man who has experienced deeply the emotions of which he writes. War is not the only subject of Mr. McKillen’s poems. He writes of love; and indignation prompts him to write strongly against racial prejudice. Sharpness and simplicity of style contribute greatly to the forceful effects which he achieves. Too often a reader’s enjoyment of poetry is marred by obscurity of meaning, but the clarity of thought and euphony of expression of the author, in this volume, leave no doubt in the reader’s mind of his intent.

Reading THE DEATH OF THE SCHARNHORST AND OTHER POEMS will be a memorable experience for poetry lovers.

A

VANTAGE

BOOK

About the Author ...

Arch Alfred McKillen was born in Chicago, in 1914. Upon completion of high school, he went to work in a wire-winding factory. Later he worked in a mail-order house, and as a bonded messenger.

In 1939, Mr. McKillen enlisted in the United States Navy. He was stationed aboard the U.S.S. Tennessee at Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked. Later, he served aboard other battleships in both the Pacific and the Atlantic, and finally was transferred to a Logistic Support Company on Okinawa.

Mr. McKillen is now a bookseller. In his spare time he is doing research for his next book.

VANTAGE PRESS, INC., 230 W. 41 Street, New York 36.

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Table of Contents

THE DEATH OF THE SCHARNHORST AND OTHER POEMS

CONTENTS

THE BIRD, THE LAD AND ME

THE WAR IN SPAIN

IT RAINS TONIGHT

WHILE DRUMS ARE ROLLING

APOLLO

FOUNTAIN OF LOVELINESS

HIGHWAY NUMBER 66

DIRGE FOR THE SQUALUS

ECHO CANYON

FRAGMENT

WE HANG UPON A SCAFFOLD

I LOOKED INTO YOUR EYES

OF THIS GREAT VOICELESS LOVE

I WOULD HAVE BROUGHT YOU FIRE

TOO MUCH OF LIFE

LONE CELLO

APOCALYPSE

THE OLD SEA WALL

THE MIDNIGHT HORSEMAN

LONELY HEART

DREAMS

THE BUGLES CALLED

MORNING GUARD

WHEN KILMER WROTE OF TREES

WILD GEESE

I WRITE TO YOU IN RED

’TIS WINTER NOW

SONNET

THE TROPIC DAWN

TWILIGHT

ECHO

STAR COURSE

MEMORANDUM

THE LITANY OF PEARL HARBOR

WE WERE WAITING THAT MORNING FOR COLORS

THE MOTOR LAUNCH CREW

TO THE GARRISON AT WAKE

CORREGIDOR AND CALVARY

TO THE MARINES

THE LADS WHO GO BELOW

THE ROAD TO HIGH WOOD

NIGHT WATCH

THE SOLDIER AND THE SAMOVAR

NOCTURNE

THE SWING

SOMEWHERE ON LEAVE

THE SENTRY

I WATCHED HIM IN THE TOURNAMENT

SOUTH PACIFIC

DECK-APE

SAILOR BOY

AVENGE

THE CROSSING OF THE RHINE

THE BALLAD OF THE DEAD SAILOR

THE DEATH OF THE SCHARNHORST

LITTLE BOYS AND LITTLE DOGS

U.S.S. OKLAHOMA RETURNS TO HER CREW

NIGHT

FOR ALL HEROES

FOXHOLE

BURY HIM

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE