



Produced by Tiffany Vergon, Brendan Lane, Edward Johnson,
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team








THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

AN INTERPRETATION

By Coningsby Dawson

Author of "Carry On: Letters In Wartime," Etc.


With An Introduction By His Father, W. J. Dawson


"The glory is all in the souls of the men--it's nothing external."
 --From "Carry On"


1917


[Illustration: LIEUTENANT CONINGSBY DAWSON]




TO YOU AT HOME


   Each night we panted till the runners came,
     Bearing your letters through the battle-smoke.
   Their path lay up Death Valley spouting flame,
     Across the ridge where the Hun's anger spoke
   In bursting shells and cataracts of pain;
     Then down the road where no one goes by day,
   And so into the tortured, pockmarked plain
     Where dead men clasp their wounds and point the way.
   Here gas lurks treacherously and the wire
     Of old defences tangles up the feet;
   Faces and hands strain upward through the mire,
     Speaking the anguish of the Hun's retreat.
   Sometimes no letters came; the evening hate
     Dragged on till dawn. The ridge in flying spray
   Of hissing shrapnel told the runners' fate;
     We knew we should not hear from you that day--
   From you, who from the trenches of the mind
     Hurl back despair, smiling with sobbing breath,
   Writing your souls on paper to be kind,
     That you for us may take the sting from Death.




CONTENTS


TO YOU AT HOME. (Poem)

HOW THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN

IN HOSPITAL. (Poem)

THE ROAD TO BLIGHTY

THE LADS AWAY. (Poem)

THE GROWING OF THE VISION

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES. (Poem)

GOD AS WE SEE HIM




HOW THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN


In my book, _The Father of a Soldier_, I have already stated the
conditions under which this book of my son's was produced.

He was wounded in the end of June, 1917, in the fierce struggle before
Lens. He was at once removed to a base-hospital, and later on to a
military hospital in London. There was grave danger of amputation of
the right arm, but this was happily avoided. As soon as he could use
his hand he was commandeered by the Lord High Commissioner of Canada
to write an important paper, detailing the history of the Canadian
forces in France and Flanders. This task kept him busy until the end
of August, when he obtained a leave of two months to come home. He
arrived in New York in September, and returned again to London in the
end of October.

The plan of the book grew out of his