WARFARE—OLD AND NEW.

Otago Witness, Issue 3314, 19 September 1917, Page 48

WARFARE—OLD AND NEW.

By Chas. W. Puenell.

In days of yore our fathers fought -with battleaxe and spear, Their arms, were strong, their weapons keen, they never recke>& >of fear; And when the tocsin rousad the land with noise of coming war Their f*\ces flushed to see again the battleL._ht afar. In ordered ranks the yeomen inarched, with stalwart mien and proud; Some carried pikes, and such were men with mighty thews endowed; The archers made their bows resound like voioes of the gale, Their cloth-yard shafts flew thick and fast, a storm of fiery hail. Their hearts were true, their courage high, these gallant men and bold, With love of country, they were filled, the love of England old; Her fields and flower 3, her hills and dales, her towers and minsters grey; The patriot's fire burned in their breasts, a fire that burned alway. Now o'er the world a blackness hangs, a pall of wrath and woe, And through the darkness crimson flames are flashing to and fro; Deep thunders roll; great armour clangs; death roves about the scene; 'Twould eeein as if all gods of war had sought this globe terrene. Titanio engines slowly crawl, and from, their evil souls Incessantly, by day and night, a flood of fury .^rolls; Huge cones of steel, grim nests of death, are through the ether hurled, About the soldier, everywhere, the fatal bolts are whirled, And from a cloud emerges oft a light and graceful thing, Like some rejoicing bird that floats upon a youthiul wing, And yet it bears within ite clasp destruction swift and sure: — The bursting bomb,* with flame that kills, whose Dreath none can endure. Across the land a vapour sweeps, that who inhales must die; A demon weird, it drifts along, and murders noiselessly. No courage can delay its course, no weapon strike it down, Device alone oan stay the death that follows on its frown. One© on the sea the battleship in panoply of smoke, With lightning flashing from her guns, upon the foemen broko. Men fought with men in open day; the cutlass was a king, Ship locked with ship as wrestlers strive within a narrow ring. Now through the waters, like a fish, beneath the blue marine, A vessel lithe and dangerous glides swiftly and unseen, A novel fiend, of bitter soul, that seeks to slay a foe By secret guile, the deadly craft strikes fiercely from below. Thus, weapons dire, of strange import, affright the land and sea, War's terrors multiply apace, and swell tumultously; But hearts of Britons grow more stern as fiercer grows the foe— The peril wakes the courage that shall lay the clanger low. A tremor stirs the nation, and its ancient spirit springs, Mounting to a higher region on broad, majestic wings; Flame the embers, idly sleeping, that inspire the patriot's soul To such deeds as write a legend upon fame's immortal soroll. Thus the war shall bo our saviour, and its havoc be our gain, Like a ga,le of healthful vigour sweeping o'er a fevered main, To a plane of nobler being shall the British people rise, G-aining strength and broader wisdom from fts own self-sacrifice. Ashburton, September, 1917.