As The 100th Anniversary Of The First Year Of World War I (Remember The War To End All Wars) Continues ... Some Remembrances-Poet’s Corner  

PRINCETON, MAY, 1917


_Here Freedom stood by slaughtered friend and foe,
And, ere the wrath paled or that sunset died,
Looked through the ages; then, with eyes aglow,
Laid them to wait that future, side by side._

(Lines for a monument to the American and British soldiers
of the Revolutionary War who fell on the Princeton
battlefield and were buried in one grave.)

Now lamp-lit gardens in the blue dusk shine
  Through dogwood, red and white;
And round the gray quadrangles, line by line,
  The windows fill with light,
Where Princeton calls to Magdalen, tower to tower,
  Twin lanthorns of the law;
And those cream-white magnolia boughs embower
  The halls of "Old Nassau."

The dark bronze tigers crouch on either side
  Where redcoats used to pass;
And round the bird-loved house where Mercer died,
  And violets dusk the grass,
By Stony Brook that ran so red of old,
  But sings of friendship now,
To feed the old enemy's harvest fifty-fold
  The green earth takes the plow.

Through this May night, if one great ghost should stray
  With deep remembering eyes,
Where that old meadow of battle smiles away
  Its blood-stained memories,
If Washington should walk, where friend and foe
  Sleep and forget the past,
Be sure his unquenched heart would leap to know
  Their souls are linked at last.

Be sure he waits, in shadowy buff and blue,
  Where those dim lilacs wave.
He bends his head to bless, as dreams come true,
  The promise of that grave;
Then, with a vaster hope than thought can scan,
  Touching his ancient sword,
Prays for that mightier realm of God in man:
  "Hasten thy kingdom, Lord.

"Land of our hope, land of the singing stars,
  Type of the world to be,
The vision of a world set free from wars
  Takes life, takes form from thee;
Where all the jarring nations of this earth,
  Beneath the all-blessing sun,
Bring the new music of mankind to birth,
  And make the whole world one."

And those old comrades rise around him there,
  Old foemen, side by side,
With eyes like stars upon the brave night air,
  And young as when they died,
To hear your bells, O beautiful Princeton towers,
  Ring for the world's release.
They see you piercing like gray swords through flowers,
  And smile, from souls at peace.

_Alfred Noyes_