Robert Ernest Vernede | Akateeminen Kirjakauppa

INTRODUCTION. As the Valkyrie ride exultant up northern skies to Valhalla, bearing fallen heroes home, spurning fear, pain, and death beneath the hoof-strokes of their galloping horses, the President of the Peace Conference reclines in his opera-box-and yawns. The triumphant rush through the air the clash of sword and hollow reverberating clang of brazen buckler, the storm and wild joy of battle are in his ears-but he hears not. The sounds are not for him, nor are the shadows that take f o y and gather fast to the summons of that wild music. Not for him is the phantasmagoria of spectral squadrons wheeling and charging with flashing sabres and fluttering red 1unghi. s across the stony plain until they plunge headlong into that cloud of dust and smoke which closes like a curtain behind them. Not for him does the forlorn hope crouch behind the rocky outcrop of the hill, they and their boyish leader with the haunting eyes. Upon their stem faces the cold grey light of early dawn grows momentarily stronger-now, by Heaven, is the time -But no-swiftly in its t u q the picture fades away, and there, dreamlike, rise heavenward in its place the queer-pointed roofs of the city of a Fenghuangcheng. From a passing rift in the clouds the moon again looks maliciously down upon a solitary adventurer, a stranger in the land, bending over his peony-blossoms and admiring, not without melancholy, these last outposts planted by the vanishing Army of the Czar. All is quiet. Then a murmur, a faint ripple of song from a camp outside the walls. Broader and louder it spreads like the lapping of the waves of the rising tide. Nearer and yet more near louder, yet louder, swells the sound. It pours in through thebivouacs, across the high walls, into Fenghuangcheng itself, even as a Canadian forest-fire gathers strength from each obstacle and leaps at last upon the town. It is there-it surges over tlie garden with a roar and a crash The very guard at the gates are singing. Twenty-thirty thousand-men are singing, with what deep conviction, what fierce energy -Sons of Nippon, down with Russia-Down with Russia lay her low. The phantoms pass, and in their place, beneath the diamond brilliance of a South African sun, lies the great square of Pretoria, its vacant pedestal still waiting for its statue. Before the Parliament-house a platform, and on it Anglicans, Presbyterians, Wesleyans, praising God in unison. Ten thousand victorious British soldiers stand around, rank by rank, and sing. A song of triumph or of vengeance Not so. Listen to that mighty chorus, penetrating even to where bitter, desperate women have locked themselves into their lonely, darkened houses - Far-calld, our navies melt away-On dune and headland sinks the fire-Le, all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre Judge of the Nations, spare us yet, Lest we forget, lest we forget The curtain rises. The spell is broken The President breathes more freely and resumes the reverie on scientific progress and civic reform which had been interrupted by the glory of the marching music. But the audience have felt something within them respond to the passage of those luminous visions. Something assuring them that not in their day will sacrifice be replaced by satiety, heroism by ease, or danger by dullness and they are content to have it so for they understand that neither poetry, music, nor religion can long outlive war...