# More songs by the fighting men. Soldiers poets: second series/Harold John Jarvis

HAROLD JOHN JARVIS
Corporal, The Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry
Dulce et Decorum est Pro Patria Mori
IF England calls to-day— The last long call of all, Valhalla's Trumpet-call: Then may I live until The Goal shines past the Hill And in the last grand rally Hear echoed God's Reveille In the Home Camp.
If England calls this day— If in the great, grim fight I fall—with eyes all bright With sacrificial flame Whispering Her great name: Let these weak verses show To all the friends I know— I gladly died.
​If England calls this day— Remembered not hardship Glad-borne in War's dread grip— Not the strain of training, Or a year's campaigning, But the joy of greeting Pleasures, tho' but fleeting, Entwined therewith.
If England calls this day— May those who gave their love, Who lifted me above The petty things of Earth, And taught me all the worth Of splendid aim in Life, Know I, 'mid all this strife, Remember them.
If England calls this day— The last sweet Twilight calm, When guns withheld their harm Awhile, and let me dream Of Things That might Have Been— Leaf-music in the trees, And treasured reveries, Shall die with me.
​If England calls this day— No craven heart would go From out a world loved so, As I love this. Each day More loved is Nature's sway Of Earth, its every joy Of Pain or Joy—yet I, So gladly die.
If England calls this day— With yet one aim unwon, Of all aims just the one Far dearer than the rest— To woo and win the best Thing that the World can give— The Gift of Love—To Live I would not wish.
If England calls this day— Then shall I die that She May live in Liberty— That She may still be great To rise above blind Hate Of Foes—Her Flag unfurled, God's England to the world, For aye to be.
​If England calls this day— The rose-clad days of June, That fled by all too soon, Shall be with me again In Memory—and when The daylight sudden closes, The perfume of June Roses Shall waft me hence.
If England calls this day— From those far Hills of Home, Beyond the sky's dim dome— Shall merge Valkyries fair, Swift riding thro' the air— Who know I shall be there, Treading the rose-strewn stair To that New Land.
If England calls this day— In the Valkyrie's touch Shall be forgotten much: Her flying, perfumed hair Shall speak of Roses rare— And climbing thro' the breeze, Remembered melodies Shall call me Home.
At a Wayside Shrine
THE column halts before a wayside shrine To change formation into battle line From double file. 'Tis even, and the sun Its daily circling race has wellnigh done. Behind me in the West, a dying glow Of gold still gleams, to cast a pale halo Upon the shrine.
How many men before To-night have halted at this spot, and wore The same grim, ready look that I see now Painted on every face from chin to brow, And in each eye? One and all are ready For come what may; each man now stands steady Waiting command.
And now the line will pass The shrine—itself as steady as the mass Of England's sons slow moving to the fray, Their Destiny now in the hands of—say, The dim Divinity within that shrine— A loving God (the stricken Christ His sign Of Love) or what?
​The shrine is rent and drilled With bullets—aye, and some of them have killed, Passing right thro' the thin mud walls, and past The Hanging Figure in the plaster cast, On to some human target, trudging by, (Dropping it low with sharp surpriséd cry) Even as I trudge by.
So have some died For Right—bravely as Christ the Crucified Died on Calvary's Cross; just as brave And just as sacrificially. To save The world He died, or so the worn-out creeds Of Church would teach—but they, but men, dared deeds And died as men. . . .
Because of Greater Love— That Love of Loves, all other loves above— The love of Home and Friends and Native Soil. That these might never be the Foeman's spoil, They gave their lives, their youth, their golden dreams And airy castles, built where Sunlight gleams, And Roses bloom . . .
​And gave them willingly As Christ gave His, that day on Calvary. A stricken Christ . . . a broken shrine . . . and men In khaki marching by. . . . How little less Divine these khaki-clads in their worn dress Than He, the Christ of God? For in each man The same soul burns.
And ere I leave the shrine, I look upon the Christ—then at the line Of men . . . back to His face and those closed eyes So open when one lingeringly looks As if into their depths. These men . . . those eyes . . . Loving, pain-haunted eyes, hard gazing down They seem, On these these other Christs in thin disguise Of khaki- brown.