Retinue and other poems / by Katharine Lee Bates [electronic text]

Lyrics of the War

—1914—

MARCHING FEET

THESE August nights, hushed but for drowsy peep Of fledglings, tremble with a strange vibration, A sound too far for hearing, sullen, dire, Shaking the earth. Even within the swaying veils of sleep We are haunted by a horror, a mistrust, A muffled perturbation, Vaguely aware Of prodigies in birth, Of brooding thunders unbelievable, Fierce forces that conspire Against mankind. We start awake;

The purple glooms, all sweet With dewy fragrance, bear Our eyelids down, but still we feel the beat, Dull, doomful, irretrievable, Of Europe's marching feet, Enchanted, blind, By wizard music led Over crushed blossoms, through the mocking dust, To baths of blood and fire. Beyond the seas, in these hushed hills we dread That hollow, rhythmic tread Of nation against nation, That ancient, bitter thrust Of war against a world that might be fair As any golden star that rides the air. We cannot rest for marching feet that must Harvest and home forsake, Inexorably called to take The road of desolation, Trampling on hearts that break.

Fodder for Cannon

BODIES glad, erect, Beautiful with youth, Life's elect, Nature's truth, Marching host on host, Those bright, unblemished ones, Manhood's boast, Feed them to the guns.

Hearts and brains that teem With blessing for the race, Thought and dream, Vision, grace, Oh, love's best and most, Bridegrooms, brothers, sons, Host on host Feed them to the guns.

TO OUR PRESIDENT

HOPE of the Nations, lift thy stricken heart. Thyself art Sorrow, and to thee the cry Of battle-anguish comes more piercingly Than even in those months of sneer and smart, When thou so steadfastly didst bear thy part, True Champion of Peace. And now, when high The war-storm rages, when horne's darlings die By mangled thousands, lift thy stricken heart For a white shield of mercy, torch that throws Its reconciling gleam across the seas. O thou in love and grief pre-eminent, Divine shall be thy comfort to appease These bleeding Christian armies, sudden foes That slaughter in a fierce astonishment.

—1915—

WILD EUROPE

WILD Europe, red with Woden's dreadful dew, On fire with Loki's hate, more savage than Beasts that we shame by likening to man, Was it toward this the toiling centuries grew?

Was it for this the Reign of Love began In that young heretic, that gracious Jew, Whose race His followers flout the ages through? Is Time at last a mere comedian,

Mocking in cap and bells our pompous boast Of progress? Nay, we will not bear it so. A million hands launch ships to succor woe; The stars that shudder o'er the slaughtering host

Rain blessing on the Red Cross groups that go Careless of shrapnel, emulous for the post Where foul diseases wreak their uttermost Of horror. Saintship walks incognito

As scoffing Science, but Christ knows His, ownSway as it may, the wargod's fell caprice, The victories of Love shall still increase Until at last, from all this wail and moan,

Rises the song of brotherhood to cease No more, no more, —the song that shall atone Even for this mad agony. The throneThat war is building is the throne of Peace.

WHEN THE MILLENNIUM COMES

WHEN the Millennium comes Only the kings will fight, While the princes beat the drums, And the queens in aprons white,

Arnica bottle in hand, Watch their Majesties throw, With a gesture vague and grand, Their crowns at the dodging foe, Poor old obsolete crowns That Time hangs up in a row.

When the Millennium comes And the proud steel navies meet, While the furious boiler hums, And the vengeful pistons beat, The sailors will stay on shore And cheer with a polyglot shout The self-fed cannon that roar Till metal has fought it out, But the warm, glad bodies of boys Are not for the waves to flout.

When the Millennium comes, Love, the mother of life, Will have worked out all the sums Of our dim industrial strife,

And every man shall be lordOf his deed and his dream, and the loreOf war shall be abhorredAs a dragon-tale of yore,Myth of the Iron Age,A monster earth breeds no more.

THE MORNING PAPER

Carnage! Humanity disgraced! Time's dearest toil effaced! Poison gases and flame Putting Nero to shame! Bayonet, bomb and shell! Merry reading for hell! The wickedness! the waste!

Courage! To gain their fiery goal, Some crumbling, blood-soaked knoll,

How fearlessly they fling Their flesh to suffering, Offer their ardent breath To gasping, shuddering death! O miracle of soul!

THE CRY

MULTITUDINOUS the cry beating on the smokeveiled sky. Since the first war-wrath burst on immortal Belgium, — Roar of cannon, shriek of shells, toll of earthward-crashing bells, Thunder of the bomb exploding, careless where its tortures come.

Under all, the dreadful moan of the battlefield, far-strown With those cleft bodies left like a wreck of broken spars.

Oh, the Raphaels, Davids lost in that welter!Oh, life's cost, As a giant tread had crushed into dark a sky of stars!

And for every dying throb of those millions, women sob; East or west, a mother's breast is the same to cherish sons; From the Ganges, Danube, Rhone, sorrow wails her antiphone To the doomful, mad torpedo, the colossal slaughter-guns.

There's no silence left on earth for the dream that brings to birth Beauty, grace, no fair space on this crimsoned, tattered chart, Not one walled and cloistered spot where on every air come notGroanings of a hurt creation, troubling all the job of art.

But a hope has gone abroad, a hope that crowns the sword; Faces shine with divine courage for a gain high-priced. Peace shall be the prize of strife, death shall yet deliver life, That this cry may nevermore beat upon the heart of Christ.

The HORSES

"Thus far 80,000 horses have been shipped from the United States to the European belligerents."

WHAT was our share in the sinning, That we must share the doom? Sweet was our life's beginning In the spicy meadow-bloom, With children's hands to pet us And kindly tones to call. To-day the red spurs fret us Against the bayonet wall.

What had we done, our masters, That you sold us into hell?

Our terrors and disasters Have filled your pockets well. You feast on our starvation; Your laughter is our groan. Have horses then no nation, No country of their own?

What are we, we your horses, So loyal where we serve, Fashioned of noble forces All sensitive with nerve? Torn, agonized, we wallow On the blood-bemired sod; And still the shiploads follow. Have horses then no God?

ONLY MULES

"The submarine was quite within its rights in sinking the cargo of the Armenian,—1,422 mules valued at $191,400."

No matter; we are only mules And slow to understand

We drown according to the rules Of war, we contraband

War reckons us as shot and shell, As so much metal lost. And mourns the dollars gone to swell The monstrous bill of cost.

Would that we had been wrought of steel And not of quivering flesh! Of iron, not of nerves that feel, And maddened limbs that thresh

The sucking seas in stubborn strife For that dim right of ours To what no factory fashions, life, No Edison endowers.

Our last wild screams are choked; you know It does not matter, for We're only mules that suffered so, And contraband of war.

THE SUBMARINE THAT SANK THE "LUSITANIA"

SPINDRIFT white shall her victims stand On the ivory quay, untrod By living feet, when she nears Ghoststrand, To point her out to God.

THE BABIES OF THE "LUSITANIA"

THOSE rosy, dimpled darlings cast So roughly to the sea, Wondering their bathtub was so vast, Reaching for breast and knee,

Too innocent to understand What hate and murder are, But puzzled that the dandling hand Had let them drop so far,

Swallowing like milk the bitter foam, Dismayed to miss their breath,

Our little guests from Heaven went home In the great arms of Death.

O Land of Toys and Christmas Trees, Dear Land of Fairy Tales, How will your heart be panged for these When war's red frenzy pales!

God pity Germany in all The grieving years to be When through her cradle-songs shall call Drowned babies from the sea.

OUR CROWN OF PRAISE

A PRAISE beyond all other praise of ours This nation holds in jealous trust for him Who may approve himself, even in these dim, Swift days of destiny, the soul that towers Above the turmoil of contending powers, A beacon firm, while seas of fury brim The world's long-labored fields and vineyards trim, Remembering forests and unconscious flowers.

Our nation longs for such a living light, Kindred to stars and their eternal dreams, A steadfast glow whatever breakers roll, Cleaving confusions of the stormy night With gracious lusters and revealing gleams, —Longs for the shining of a Lincoln soul.

HOW LONG?

How long, O Prince of Peace, how long? We sicken of the shame Of this wild war that wraps the world, a roaring dragon-flame Fed on earth's glorious youth, high hearts all passionate to cope —O Chivalry of Hope!— With the cloudy host of the infidel and the Holy Earth reclaim.

For each dear land is Holy Land to her own fervent sons

Who fling in loyal sacrifice their lives before the guns, But when they meet their foes above the battlesmoke, they laugh, And all together quaff The cup of welcome Honor pouts for her slain champions.

Oh, if a thousandth part of all this treasure, purpose, skill, Were poured into the crucible transforming wrong and ill, By the white magic of a wise and generous brotherhood, To righteousness and good, The world would be divine again, with eery war-cry still.

Poor world so worn with wickedness, bedimmed with rage and fear, Sad world that sprang forth singing from God's hand, a golden sphere,

O yet may Love's creative breath renew thee, fashioned twiceA shining Paradise,Unsullied in the astral choir, with Joy for charioteer.

How long shall bomb and bullet think for human brains? How long Shall folk of the burned villages in starving, staggering throng Flee from the armies that, in turn, are mangled, maddened, slain, Till earth is all one stain Of horror, and the soaring larks are slaughtered in their song?

Oh, may this war, this blasphemy that blots the globe with blood, Slay war forever, cleanse the earth in its own mighty flood Of tears, tears unassuageable, that will not cease to fall

Till Time has covered all Our guilty century with sleep, and the new eras bud!

How long? The angels of the stars entreat the clouded Throne In anguish for their brother Earth, who stands, like Cain, alone, And hides the mark upon his brow, the while their harps implore The Silence to restore Peace to this wayward Son of God, whose music is a moan.

Come swiftly, Peace! Oh, swiftly come, with healing in thy feet; Bring back to tortured battlefields the waving of the wheat; Bring back to broken hearths, whereby the wistful ghosts will walk, Blithe hum of household talk, Till childhood dare to sport again and maiden hood be sweet,

Though thou must come by crimson road, with grief and mercy come, Not with the insolence of strength, the boast of fife and drum; Come with adventure in thine eyes for the splendid tasks that wait, To weld these desolate Crushed lands into the fellowship of thy millennium.

O Peace, to rear thy temple that no strife may overawe! O Purity, to fashion thee a palace without flaw! Galilee, To build the state on thee, And shape the deeds of nations by thy yet untested law!

—1916—

WHAT IS CHRIST?

I

OH, what is Christ, that we should call on Him? Wasted Armenia, in her utter woe, Dies in the mocking desert, calling so. Hyænas tear her children limb from limb. The clouds, soft dimpled once with cherubim, Now screen the flight of Lucifers that strow Their fiery seed where clustered households know 'Twixt sleep and death one flaring interim Of agony, brief as the broken prayer. What prayer? What Christ? Himself He could not save. From first to last, when hath He saved His own? Stephen's young body, battered stone by stone,

Edith Cavell in her most holy grave, For His helpless host of martyrs witness bear.

II

Thought casts the challenge. Faith must lift the glove. Most true it is Christ doth not save the flesh. God's dreamy Nazarene, caught in the mesh Of ignorance and malice, whitest dove Net ever snared, took little care thereof. Not His to plead with Pilate, nor to thresh Those priestly lies. He died, to live afresh Spirit, not body; not the Jew, but Love. Love, the one Light in which all lusters meet, Ultimate miracle, far goal of Time! Even to-day, when all seems lost, they feel, Those nations that like hooded sorrows kneel, Their prayer's deep answer, loathing war as crime, Longing to gather at Love's wounded feet.

CHILDREN OF THE WAR

SHRUNKEN little bodies, pallid baby faces, Eyes of staring terror, innocence defiled, Tiny bones that strew the sand of silent places, — This upon our own star where Jesus was a child.

Broken buds of April, is there any garden Where they yet may blossom, comforted of sun, While their sad Creator bows to ask their pardon For the life He gave them, life and death in one?

Spared by steel and hunger, still shall horror blazon Those white and tender spirits with anguish unforgot; Half a century hence the haggard look shall gaze on The outrage of a mother, shall see a grandsire shot.

Man who wings the azure, lassoes the hoof sparkling, Fire-maned steeds of glory and binds them to his car, Cannot man whose searchlight leaves no horizon darkling Safeguard little children upon our golden star?

THE LEAST OF THESE

THE wolf of want is howling At doors no angel keeps. Young Mary smiled on her Holy Child, But many a mother weeps.

The Kings of the East brought treasures Uncounted and unpriced. Who bears a gift to arms that lift A little famished Christ?

MOTHER

"MOTHER! Mother!" he called as he fell In the horror there Of a bursting shell That strewed red flesh on the air.

Far away over sea and land: The knitting dropt From an old white hand, And a heart for an instant stopt.

But it was Death, dark mother and wise, All-tenderest, Who kissed his eyes And gathered him to her breast.

MIST

ON the mountain side they fashion, Those rifting shreds of storm, A figure of strange passion, A winged and sworded form.

Majestic, wild, colossal, With angry arm thrown high; Those swaying shoulders jostle The glory from the sky.

Then flows the happy hour. That tyrant of the mist Turns to a wavering tower And melts in amethyst,

Foretelling thus the cycle — O speed it, Holy Dove!—When the Archangel Michael Shall vanish into Love.

THE U-BOAT CREW

ALAS, alas for those blond boys who stalk Their prey in ambush of the shuddering seas, Whiling the wait with merry, tender talk Of some dear knot of flower-clad cottages

Beyond the Rhine! The merchantship draws on; Their swift torpedo strikes its mark; the sea Moans with the dying; for a victory won They thank the pagan god of Germany.

Happier to die the hideous, smothering death, Too deep for mercy, in their own snared trap, Than live to learn how time interpreteth The cause they served; the tragical mishap

Of pride that pledged The Day and brought The Night; —Than live to loathe their Fatherland, a name So high, so fallen, that betrayed their bright Young loyalty to savageries of shame.

THE RED CROSS NURSE

ONE summer day, gleaming in memory, We drove, my Joy and I,

Through fragrant hawthorn lanes Gold-fringed with wisps of rye Brushed off the harvest wains, From that old, gladsome town of Shrewsbury, Throned on twin hills and girdled by a loop Of the brown Severn, out to Battlefield. Henry the Fourth with his usurping sword Smote here the haughty Percies, And after builded here, as due to Him Who made rebellion stoop And lesser traitors to chief traitor yield, A church. Decayed, restored, Its centuries afford. To stranger eyes, enshadowed by the view Of that ridged burial plain from which it grew, No sight more sacred than a crude Image of visage dim, Hewn by some ancient tool from forest wood, Our Lady of the Mercies.

Even so long ago amid the slaughter, Hushed now beneath its coverlet of flowers,

Groped this imperfect dream Of Pity, pure, divine. Madonna, look to-day upon thy daughter And know her by the crimson cross, the sign Of love that shall at last, at last redeem This war-torn world of ours.

TO CANADA

OUR neighbor of the undefended bound, Friend of the hundred years of peace, our kin, Fellow adventurer on the enchanted ground Of the New World, must not the pain within Our hearts for this wide anguish of the war Be keenest for your pain? Is not our grief,That aches with all bereavement, tenderest forThe tragic crimson on your maple-leaf?

Bitter our lot, in this world-clash of faiths, To stand aloof and bide our hour to serve; The glorious dead are living; we are wraiths, Dim watchers of the conflict's changing curve,

Yet proud for human valor, spirit true In scorn of body, manhood on the crestOf consecration, dearly proud for you,Who sped to arms like knighthood to the Quest.

From quaint Quebec to stately Montreal, Along the rich St. Lawrence, o'er the steep Roofs of the Rockies rang the bugle-call, And east and west, deep answering to deep, Your sons surged forth, the simple, stooping folk Of shop and wheatfield sprung to hero size Swiftly as e'er your Northern Lights awoke To streaming splendor quiet evening skies.

Seek not your lost beneath the tortured sod Of France and Flanders, where in desperate strife They battled greatly for the cause of God; But when above the snow your heavens are rife

With those upleaping lusters, find them there, Ardors of sacrifice, celestial sign, Aureole your Angel shall forever wear, Praising the irresistible Divine.

THE CONQUEROR

Not the Prussian, the forsworn, By whose fury overborne, Martyred Belgium, you lie Bruised with all injury. Through your peace red paths he clove, Burning, slaying, making spoil Of your shining treasure-trove, Ancient wisdom, beauty, toil; Drenching hearth and shrine and sod With the blood that cries to God.

Futile all that savage force.Time in his aeonian course Still shall clarion your fame. Yours the triumph;his the shame.

On your honor he made war, But his guns have battered down Only forts. Inheritor Of unparalleled renown, Belgium, your name shall be Brighter than Thermopylæ.

None could scorn you, had you said: "Hopeless are the odds, and dread Will the fiery vengeance fall On our homes. In vain we call For help that still delays. We yield." But unflinching from your fate, Up you flung your slender shield, Bore the onset, held the gate For the priceless hour, and saved Liberty, yourself enslaved.

No; thrust down to serfdom, still Your unmasterable will, Your high fortitude and faith Outwear exile, anguish, death.

On his strip of coast your king Holds your glorious flag unfurled; Your great priest, unfaltering, Peals the truth across the world. With your neck beneath the sword, You are victor, you are lord.

—1917—

TO PEACE

THE cup, the ruby cup Whence anguish drips, At last is lifted up Against our lips.

Though we, till seas run dry, Your lovers are, How can we put it by, Red cup of war?

We champion your task; Your wounds we bind;

Behind the battle mask Our eyes are kind.

Upon this foaming edge Of blood and flame, With shuddering lips we pledge Your name.

OUR PRESIDENT

GOD help him! Ay, and let us help him, too, Help him with our one hundred million minds Molded to loyalty, so that he finds The faith of the Republic pulsing through All clashes of opinion, faith still true To its divine young vision of mankind's Freedom and brotherhood. May all the winds, North, south, east, west, waft him our honor due!

For he is one who, when the tempest breaks In shattering fury, wild with thunder-jars

And javelins of lightning that transform All the familiar scene to horror, makes A hush about him in the heart of storm, Remembering the quiet of the stars.

THE NEW CRUSADE

LIFE is a trifle; Honor is all; Shoulder the rifle; Answer the call. "A nation of traders"! We'll show what we are, Freedom's crusaders Who war against war.

Battle is tragic; Battle shall cease; Ours is the magic Mission of Peace. "A nation of traders"! We'll show what we are,

Freedom's crusaders Who war against war.

Gladly we barter Gold of our youth For Liberty's charter Blood-sealed in truth. "A nation of traders"! We'll show what we are, Freedom's crusaders Who war against war.

Sons of the granite, Strong be our stroke, Making this planet Safe for the folk. "A nation of traders"! We'll show what we are, Freedom's crusaders Who war against war.

Life is but passion, Sunshine on dew.

Forward to fashion The old world anew! "A nation of traders"! We'll show what we are, Freedom's crusaders Who war against war.

SOLDIERS TO PACIFISTS

NOT ours to clamor shame on you, Nor fling a bitter blame on you, Nor brand a cruel name on you, That evil name of treason, You who have heard the ivory flutes, Who float white banners, brave recruits Of Peace, seeking to pluck her fruits In bud and blossom season.

A sterner bugle calls to us; More direful duty falls to us; God grants no garden-walls to us Till the scarred waste be delivered

From dragon passions that destroy All sanctitudes of faith and joy; We, too, are on divine employ; By sword shall sword be shivered.

Cherish your bud, star-eyed of bloom, Dawn-flower of hope, belied of gloom, While, surges of the tide of doom, The gathering nations thunder Against a red, colossal throne; Cherish it, that the seed be sown At last even where that monstrous stone Crushes life's roots asunder.

Follow your flutes the fairy way; Wing-sandaled, climb the airy way, The wonderful, unwary way, Too lovely for derision; While we, your comrades at the goal, Step to the drum-beat and unroll The flag of Freedom, every soul Obedient to its vision.

THE GERMAN-AMERICAN

HONOR to him whose very blood remembers The old, enchanted dream-song of the Rhine, Although his house of life. is fair with shine Of fires new-kindled on the buried embers;

Whose heart is wistful for the flowers he tended Beside his mother, for the caryen gnome And climbing bear and cuckoo-clock of home, For the whispering forest path two lovers wended;

Who none the less, still strange in speech and manner,With our young Freedom keeps his plighted faith, Sides with his children's hope against the wraith Of his own childhood, hails the Starry Banner

As emblem of his country now, to-morrow;A patriot by duty, not by birth. The costliest loyalty has purest worth. Honor to him who draws the sword in sorrow!

NEW ROADS

FAR road for words that rush, Arrowing space, Swifter than meteors flush Star-road in race. Wireless! Tireless, leaping the wave! Roger Bacon laughs in his grave.

One road, o'er-steep to climbSince world began, Winged in our wonder-time, Sun-road for man. Air-ship! Fair ship, soaring the blue! Galileo had burned for you.

Dread road for Freedom's sons, Sworn to release

Life from the threat of guns, Red road to peace. New knights! true knights! gleam of God's blade! Lincoln leads in the Last Crusade.

THREE STEPS

THREE steps there are our human life must climb. The first is Force. The savage struggled to it from the slime And still it is our last, ashamed recourse.

Above that jagged stretch of red-veined stone Is marble Law, Carven with long endeavor, monotone Of patient hammers, not yet free from flaw.

Three steps there are our human life must climb. The last is Love, Wrought from such starry element sublime As touches the White Rose and Mystic Dove.

Poor world, that stumbles up with many a trip, A child that clings To the great Hand, whose lifting guardianship Quickens in wayward feet the dream of wings!

HIS BIT

GALLANTLY swung the old carpenter up to his door, Drums and fifes in his tread, But softly he crossed the braided mats on the floor, Gently he stroked her head.

"More folks were there at the station than ever I knew, Bidding the lad good-by. Here's a daisy he picked at the platform's edge for you, Kissing it on the sly.

"He'll do his part, our boy, on the fighting line"; — She caught the flower to her lips—"And you with your knitting, and I have signed up for mine, Work on the wooden ships.

"Oh, but it's hard to be old when the bugles call, Yet I hav'n't lost my chance. I'll be in the shipyard the day the first trees fall, Before the boy's in France."

WAR PROFITS

THE horns of the moon are tipped With pearl. Her lover, wooed By charms and won, Endymion, Inherits quietude. White the gleam Of the dream On his eyes.

The horns of the sun are dipt In ruddy flame that flings Adventurous young Icarus To earth on ruined wings. But he flew, But he knew Winds and skies.

Lucifer's horns have a crust Of gold and topaz gem On points that thrust to yellow dust The heart that covets them. Heed! take heed! For by greed Glory dies.

BABUSHKA

THOU whose sunny heart outglows Arctic snows; Russia's hearth-fire, cherishing Courage almost perishing;

Torch that beacons oversea Till a world is at thy knee; Babushka the Belovèd, What Czar can exile thee?

Sweet, serene, unswerving soul, To thy goal Pressing on such mighty pinions Tyrants quake for their dominions And devise yet heavier key, Deeper cell to prison thee, Babushka the Belovèd, Thyself art Liberty.

Though thy martyr body, old, Chains may hold, Clearer still thy voice goes ringing Over steppe and mountain, bringing, Holy mother of the free, Millions more thy sons to be. Babushka the Belovèd, What death can silence thee?

RUSSIA

WHAT sudden voice peals to the Caucasus, To Finland and the bitter Caspian,To those Siberian prisons whither man Shall seek as to a shrine, that mutinous, Divine word Liberty? Impetuous She rises, Holy Russia, shakes the ban From her stooped shoulders of colossal span, A youth in diamond mail, miraculous.

Is this the foretaste of a harvest worth All agony of its encrimsoned sod? Are dreams come true? Does this wild roar of wars, That wellnigh breaks the shuddering heart of earth, Sound in the hearing of the far-off stars A golden voice of Freedom, voice of God?

OUT OF SIBERIA

SHAKERAGS, cripples, gaunt and dazed, Prison-broken hosts on hosts, Torture-scarred and dungeon-crazed, Down the convict road they pour, More and more and myriads more, Terrible as ghosts.

Shuffling feet that miss the chain, Shoulders welted, faces hoar, Sightless eyes that stare in vain, Writhen limbs and idiot tongue—They are old who were so young When they passed before.

Grimy from the mines, a stain And a horror on the white Sweep of the Siberian plain, These, grotesque and piteous, these Fill the earth with jubilees, Flood the skies with light.

While each squalid tatter spins At the sport of wind and snow, Russia hails her paladins, And with cheer or sob proclaims Long unspoken hero names, Names they hardly know.

They unto themselves are vague, Even as they tear the bread That their famished fingers beg; They themselves are specters, who Melt into their retinue Of unnumbered dead.

From the shackles, from the whips, Over frozen steppes they stream, Quavering songs on ghastly lips, Haggard, holy caravan, Saviours of the soul of man, Martyrs of a dream;

Martyrs of a dream fulfilled, Givers who have paid the price,

Homing now to hearths long chilled, Guests exalted over all At glad Freedom's festival, Saints of sacrifice.

TO ITALY

BRIGHT valor, smitten by so shrewd a blow, Drooping thy golden wing like wounded plover, What great, grieved faces o'er the battle hover, Patriot Mazzini; Fra Angelico, Forsaking his own seraphs for thy woe; Savonarola, still his country's lover Despite the flames; longing for walls to cover With such a fresco, Michael Angelo.

Pity in those sweet eyes of Raphael For all Madonnas whose young sons lie slain; Chagrin in Dante's, that his far-famed hell Fades to a fantasy but weak and vain By scenes no wildest dream could parallel, Vast agony of thy Venetian plain.

JERUSALEM

AT last, at last the Crescent Falls back before the Cross. Great spirits, incandescent With longing and with loss, Gleam from the clouds, crusaders Who knew no requiem While Saladin's invaders Possessed Jerusalem.

King David harps for Zion A glad, celestial psalm; The face of the young lion Is toward the sacred palm; New Europe's noblest nation Has won the diadem Of him who brings salvation To thee, Jerusalem.

Isaiah, Hosea, Amos, Who cried against thy sin,

Whose vision saw thy famous Bright bulwarks beaten in And made a cup of trembling, God's house a broken gem, On all the winds assembling Comfort Jerusalem.

The Christ, Messiah proven, Whose Gentile armies free Thy walls, not battle-cloven, But won with jubilee; As when thy people, pressing, Would touch His garment's hem, Enters with love and blessing Thy gates, Jerusalem.

Arise and shine, O City, The joy of all the earth! Show poverty God's pity; Teach misery God's mirth. Be thou to all the nations A light, ay, even to them Who wrought thy tribulations, Holy Jerusalem!

OUR FIRST WAR-CHRISTMAS

HARD to wait for the postman's tramp Up the snowy walk, for the hand that gropesDeep in his pack, while the children tease For the rainbow-ribboned packages, And women wax faint with their fearful hopes For those tattered, grimy envelopes With the foreign stamp, — Word, dear word from overseas, From the fleet, the trench, the camp.

Oh, not jewels nor curious toys Of art and fashion, no gift most rare Can gladden those eyes that weep in the hush Of lonely nights, can bring the flush To faces white with their silent prayer,

Like the letters, precious beyond compare, From our soldier-boys, Letters to laugh over, cry over, crush To the lips, our Christmas joys.

TO HEAVY HEARTS

HEAVY hearts, your jubilee Droops about the Christmas Tree. Sudden sighs cut off the laughter, For a haunting pain comes after All your gallant glee, — Pain for your soldiers far away to-night, (O cloud that darkens on the Christmas star!) Sons, husbands, those who wreathed your world with light, Far, far, so far. Be comforted! They never were so near. In life's deep center of self-sacrifice You meet with vision clear. There in love's purest paradise The touch of soul on soul is close and dear.

Not to-night shall soft cheeks glow Where the Druid mistletoe Weaves its charm, while hollies twinkle; For the lads in some grim wrinkle Of the earth crouch low. Hard is their Christmas in the aching trench, Or in the listening darkness mounting guard, Haggard with cold and sick with creeping stench, — Hard, hard, so hard. Be comforted! That hardness is their pride. Salute the strength that can endure the stress Of such a Christmastide. Our earth made beautiful shall bless Their stern young manhood nobly testified.

Silver chimes are on the air, Sweet and blithe—too blithe to bear; And what singing hearth rejoices, Missing the belovèd voices That were merriest there? The booming cannon are their Christmas bells;

(O Holy Child, how many a homeless waif!) Their carols are the hiss and crash of shells. God keep them safe!Be comforted! For safe they are within His quiet hand, your soldiers who fulfil In steadfast discipline, Like those calm stars, His patient will That is the peace beneath all battle-din.

THE PURPLE THREAD

"The priests distributed various coloured silken threads to weave for the veil of the sanctuary; and it fell to Mary's lot to weave purple."

—The Book of the Bee, ch. XXXIV.

I

THE chosen maidens, Weavers of the Veil, Kneeling in crescent, from the High Priest took Their wisps of silk in slender hands that shook Lifting the colors to their lips rose-pale With holy passion, —colors like the frail

Spring flowers of Carmel, blue as that glad look Of dancing iris, scarlet as a nook Of wild anemones, or gold as sail Seen from its summit 'neath the Syrian moon. But Mary caught her breath in one swift sob Of pain uncomprehended ere it fled, Leaving her heart with some strange fear a-throb, For the wise priest, as one conferring boon,Had meted out to her a purple thread.

II

O mothers of the race, ye blessèd ones Who weave with cherubim the veil before The Holy Place of God, the mystic door Of life, proud mothers of belovèd sons, To-day you send them forth to front the guns, Waving your boys farewell with smiles that pour Strength into their young souls. Your prayers implore The Mercy Seat; your love, an angel, runs

Before them with wild, shielding arms outspread. O Weavers of the Veil, however varies The silk assigned, exceeding great reward Is yours, for you —O you, most sacred Maries, To whom is given grief's royal, purple thread — Make beautiful the temple of the Lord.

FREEDOM'S BATTLE-SONG

RED, white, blue, the flag that leads us on, Stripes as red as blood well shed by many a hero gone. Now 'tis ours to storm the towers of tyranny and wrong, Freedom's sons who front the guns with Freedom's battle-song. Fly the flag from dome and steeple, Fly the flag from home and school,

Flag of Freedom's birth, While we battle that the rule Of the people By the peopleFor the peopleShall prevail o'er all the earth.

Red, white, blue, the flag that leads us on, White as peace for whose release our fighting gear we don; Peace enchained, crushed, profaned, shall yet in beauty stand, Yet shall bless with fruitfulness her desolated land. Fly the flag from dome and steeple, Fly the flag from home and school, Flag of Freedom's birth While we battle that the rule Of the people By the people For the people Shall prevail o'er all the earth.

Red, white, blue, the flag that leads us on, Blue as skies whose starry eyes shall see our victory won. Freedom's sons and champions, to her our hearts are true, We who fight for Human Right, and the Red, White, Blue. Fly the flag from dome and steeple, Fly, the flag from home and school, Flag of Freedom's birth, While we battle that the rule Of the people By the people For the people Shall prevail o'er all the earth.