Part 42

THE HEALERS

In a vision of the night I saw them, In the battles of the night. 'Mid the roar and the reeling shadows of blood They were moving like light,

Light of the reason, guarded Tense within the will, As a lantern under a tossing of boughs Burns steady and still.

With scrutiny calm, and with fingers Patient as swift They bind up the hurts and the pain-writhen Bodies uplift,

Untired and defenceless; around them With shrieks in its breath Bursts stark from the terrible horizon Impersonal death;

But they take not their courage from anger That blinds the hot being; They take not their pity from weakness; Tender, yet seeing;

Feeling, yet nerved to the uttermost; Keen, like steel; Yet the wounds of the mind they are stricken with, Who shall heal?

They endure to have eyes of the watcher In hell, and not swerve For an hour from the faith that they follow, The light that they serve.

Man true to man, to his kindness That overflows all, To his spirit erect in the thunder When all his forts fall,--

This light, in the tiger-mad welter, They serve and they save. What song shall be worthy to sing of them-- Braver than the brave?

Laurence Binyon

THE RED CROSS NURSES

Out where the line of battle cleaves The horizon of woe And sightless warriors clutch the leaves The Red Cross nurses go. In where the cots of agony Mark death's unmeasured tide-- Bear up the battle's harvestry-- The Red Cross nurses glide.

Look! Where the hell of steel has torn Its way through slumbering earth The orphaned urchins kneel forlorn And wonder at their birth. Until, above them, calm and wise With smile and guiding hand, God looking through their gentle eyes, The Red Cross nurses stand.

Thomas L. Masson

KILMENY

(A SONG OF THE TRAWLERS)

Dark, dark lay the drifters, against the red west, As they shot their long meshes of steel overside; And the oily green waters were rocking to rest When Kilmeny went out, at the turn of the tide. And nobody knew where that lassie would roam, For the magic that called her was tapping unseen, It was well nigh a week ere Kilmeny came home, And nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.

She'd a gun at her bow that was Newcastle's best, And a gun at her stern that was fresh from the Clyde, And a secret her skipper had never confessed, Not even at dawn, to his newly wed bride; And a wireless that whispered above like a gnome, The laughter of London, the boasts of Berlin. O, it may have been mermaids that lured her from home, But nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.

It was dark when Kilmeny came home from her quest, With her bridge dabbled red where her skipper had died; But she moved like a bride with a rose at her breast; And "Well done, Kilmeny!" the admiral cried.

Now at sixty-four fathom a conger may come, And nose at the bones of a drowned submarine; But late in the evening Kilmeny came home, And nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.

There's a wandering shadow that stares at the foam, Though they sing all the night to old England, their queen, Late, late in the evening Kilmeny came home, And nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.

Alfred Noyes

THE MINE-SWEEPERS

Dawn off the Foreland--the young flood making Jumbled and short and steep-- Black in the hollows and bright where it's breaking-- Awkward water to sweep. "Mines reported in the fairway, Warn all traffic and detain. Sent up Unity, Claribel, Assyrian, Stormcock, and Golden Gain."

Noon off the Foreland--the first ebb making Lumpy and strong in the bight. Boom after boom, and the golf-hut shaking And the jackdaws wild with fright. "Mines located in the fairway, Boats now working up the chain, Sweepers--Unity, Claribel, Assyrian, Stormcock, and Golden Gain."

Dusk off the Foreland--the last light going And the traffic crowding through, And five damned trawlers with their syreens blowing Heading the whole review! "Sweep completed in the fairway. No more mines remain. Sent back Unity, Claribel, Assyrian, Stormcock, and Golden Gain."

Rudyard Kipling_