CURRENT WAR POETRY.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 11, 12 January 1918, Page 13

CURRENT WAR POETRY.

THE RETINUE. Archduke Francis Ferdinand, Austrian Heir-Apparent, -■ Bideth through the Shadow Land, not a lone knight errant. But captain of a mighty train, millions | upon millions, ■ *■ «v Armies of the battle-slain, hordes o£ dim - civilians; German ghosts who sec their work with tortured eyes, the sorry Spectres of scare)}, tyrants, Turks bunted by their quarry, Liars, plotters red of hand—like wayea. of poisonous gases Sweeping through the 'Shadow Land the Host of horror passes; Spirits bright as broken blades drawn for truth and honour. Sons of Belgium, pallid maids, martyra who have won her Love eternal, bleeding breasts of the. French defiance, Busslans on enraptured quests. Freedom's-• proud alliance. Through that hollow hash of doom, vast, unvlsloned regions. Led by Kitchener of Khartoum, march the English legions: •'..- ' Kilt and shamrock, maple leaf, dreaming Hindu races. Brows of glory, eyes of grief, arms or lost embraces. . Like a moaning tide of woe, midst those pale battallons : . _ From the Danube and the Po, Arabs and Australians, :.. ..'•• Pours a ghastly multitude that breaks the heart of pity. Wreckage of some shell-bestrewed waste that was a city; Flocking from the murderous seas, from the famished lowland, From the blazing villages of Serbia and Poland, "Woman phantoms, baby wraiths, trampled by war's blindness. Horses, dogs, that put their faiths In human loving kindness. Tamburlalue, Napoleon, envious Alexander Peer In wonder at the wan*, tragical commander. Archduke Francis Ferdinand—when shall his train be ended?— Of all the lords of Shadow Laud most royally attended! -KATHERINB LEE BATES. In th« "Atlantic Monthly."