Arthur Graeme West
Oh, I came singing down the road
Whereon was nought perplext me,
And Pan with Art before me strode,
And Walter Pater next me.
I garnered my “impressions” up,
Lived in each lovely feature,
“I burned with a hard gemlike flame”
And sensitized my nature.
We wandered up and down La Beauce
Along the castled river,
Where rarely came the deathly frost
To frighten us to a shiver.
Till at a corner of the way
We met with maid Bellona,
Who joined us so imperiously
That we durst not disown her.
My three companions coughed and blushed,
And as the time waxed later,
One murmured, pulling out his watch,
That he must go — ’twas Pater.
And very soon Art turned away
Huffed at Bellona’s strictures,
Who hurried us past dome and spire
And wouldn’t stay for pictures.
But old Pan with his satyr legs
Trotted beside us gamely,
Till quickening pace and rougher road
Made him go somewhat lamely.
The rents in the La Bassée road,
The cracks between the cobbling,
The wet communications trench,
They set poor Pan a-hobbling.
He couldn’t stand the shells and mud,
The sap-head or the crater,
He used to say the very rats
“Went some’ow agin Natur.”
When we were back behind Bethune
In comfortable billets,
We two would greet the advancing Spring
As she sailed up the rillets.
And lie ’neath the fantastic trees
To hear the thrushes quiring,
Till young Bellona smelt us out
And startled Pan with firing.
My heart bled for the kindly god
Who’d sought so long to serve me,
And so I sent him back again:
He prayed “Might heaven preserve me.”
I went unto the martial maid,
Who laughed to see me lonely,
“We’re rid of them at last,” she said,
“Now I’ll be honoured only.”
And still we fare her road alone
In foul or sunny weather:
Bare is that road of man or god
Which we run on to-gether.
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Analysis (AI Assisted)
This poem plays with contrasts—art and war, beauty and destruction, lightheartedness and duty. It starts with a carefree, almost whimsical tone. The speaker is walking easily down a road, untroubled, with Pan and Art for company, and Walter Pater, the critic and aesthete, strolling alongside. These figures represent beauty, creativity, and a life of refined perception. The mention of Pater’s famous phrase, *“I burned with a hard gemlike flame,”* makes it clear that the speaker has been immersed in an artistic, aesthetic way of living, one that values experience for its beauty rather than its use.
Then everything changes. Bellona, the Roman goddess of war, appears. She doesn’t ask to join—she *imperiously* imposes herself, a force that can’t be ignored. And the others react just as you’d expect. Pater, the refined intellectual, makes an excuse and disappears. Art, unwilling to submit to the harshness of war, huffs and leaves. Pan, the god of nature and mischief, sticks around longer, trotting along beside them, but war wears him down. He limps as the ground gets rougher, as the roads become riddled with shell holes and trenches. The horror of the battlefield—mud, craters, destruction—proves too much for him. His complaint about even the rats going “agin Natur” shows how completely unnatural this world of war is. Eventually, he, too, is sent away.
The speaker, who started with a life full of art and beauty, is left alone with Bellona. And she laughs at his loneliness. There’s a sense that war demands total devotion—there’s no room for divided loyalties, no space for beauty or leisure, just the single-minded march forward. The poem ends with them still walking together, in all weather, on an empty road. The speaker, once surrounded by culture and creativity, now moves forward alone, bound to war, stripped of everything else.
The poem’s strength is in how it moves from light to dark, using mythological and literary figures to make the contrast between art and war more vivid. The tone shifts from playful to grim, and the moment when Pan is finally forced to leave feels like the last bit of warmth disappearing. The final lines are stark—there’s no triumph in choosing war, just the reality that, once it takes over, it leaves no room for anything else.