The Project Gutenberg EBook of Unhappy Far-Off Things, by Lord Dunsany

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Title: Unhappy Far-Off Things

Author: Lord Dunsany

Release Date: October 21, 2004 [EBook #13820]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNHAPPY FAR-OFF THINGS ***

Produced by Tom Harris

UNHAPPY FAR-OFF THINGS

by Lord Dunsany

1916

Preface

I have chosen a title that shall show that I make no claim for this
book to be "up-to-date." As the first title indicates, I hoped to
show, to as many as might to read my words, something of the extent
of the wrongs that the people of France had suffered. There is no
such need any longer. The tales, so far as they went, I gather
together here for the few that seem to read my books in England.

Dunsany.

A Dirge Of Victory (Sonnet)

Lift not thy trumpet, Victory, to the sky,
Nor through battalions nor by batteries blow,
But over hollows full of old wire go,
Where among dregs of war the long-dead lie
With wasted iron that the guns passed by.
When they went eastwards like a tide at flow;
There blow thy trumpet that the dead may know,
Who waited for thy coming, Victory.

It is not we that have deserved thy wreath,
They waited there among the towering weeds.
The deep mud burned under the thermite's breath,
And winter cracked the bones that no man heeds:
Hundreds of nights flamed by: the seasons passed.
And thou last come to them at last, at last!

The Cathedral Of Arras

On the great steps of Arras Cathedral I saw a procession, in silence,
standing still.

They were in orderly and perfect lines, stirring or swaying slightly:
sometimes they bent their heads, sometimes two leaned together, but
for the most part they were motionless. It was the time when the
fashion is just changing and some were newly all in shining yellow,
while others still wore green.

I went up the steps amongst them, the only human thing, for men and
women worship no more in Arras Cathedral, and the trees have come
instead; little humble things, all less than four years old, in great
numbers thronging