Part 19

VIII. SUNDAY MORNING

The streets are silent, and the church bells ring Across the city like the silver chime Of some forgotten memory. They bring The phantom of another, sweeter time, When war was all undreamed. They seem to say, "Come back, come back, across the years of strife "To One who reaches out a Hand today, "A Hand that brings your dead again to life!"

A little white-haired woman hurries past, A tiny prayer-book in one wrinkled hand; Her eyes are calm, as one who knows at last What only age may really understand; That, as a rainbow creeps across the rain, The God of Paris smiles above its pain!

SONGS FROM FRANCE

SCARS

Summer sweeps, like sad laughter, over France, Touching the fields with flower-tinted mirth; Bringing its wistful gladness to an earth That has been stabbed with sorrow's bitter lance; Bringing again the hint of old romance, Bringing again the magic of re-birth; Paying again the price that youth was worth-- OVER DIM WAYSIDE MOUNDS THE GRASSES DANCE!

Where there were shell holes summer sends, un- heeding, Blossoms to deck the broken country side; Where, in another season, heroes, bleeding, Fell for the cause of righteousness, and died, Green creeper twines its vivid arms, half-pleading, But there are scars that summer cannot hide!

FROM PARIS TO CHATEAU THIERRY

The road winds out its weary way, Where fields are torn with sorrow; It is a road of yesterday, That dreams no fair tomorrow.

It is silent, saddened road, A lonely road to follow; For in its dust red rivers flowed, And now, from every hollow, The crows rise up in sullen flight The crows that, blackly flying Against the skyline, speak of night, And bitterness, and dying.

It is a road that creeps around Farmhouses that lie broken; That pauses at each shallow mound, At every blood-stained token. A helmet by the way one sees; A pistol, bent and rusty; And hung between two shattered trees, A coat mildewed and musty. It is a sad, forgotten road, But oh, it tells the story Of youth that bore another's load Without a thought of glory! For every tattered homestead cries Of vengeance that descended; And memory that never dies, From hearts that stay unmended!

The road winds out its weary way, A lonely way to follow; And crows rise black against the day From every tree and hollow.

A RUINED CHURCH

They could not take the living God away, Although they left His altar blank and bare; Their ruthless hands could never rend and tear More than the walls, they could not hope to sway The utter faith that is the nation's heart; They could not bring a real destruction where Hymn music had been softly wont to play! They smothered beauty, and tore hope apart; But in the house of One who is supreme, The marks they left will now be sanctified; The broken walls, when war is but a dream, Will be a monument to those who died; And every shell-torn scar will stand for One Whose hands were scarred, the Christ men crucified!

I think, perhaps, the very morning sun, Will slant more gently through the broken tower-- And, in good season, that some tender flower Will bloom beside the ruined threshold, where Folk paused before they entered in to prayer....

CHILD FACES

Child faces saddened, older than they should be, And wiser than a lived-out span of years; One wonders what those self same faces would be, If they had never looked on pain--if tears Had never been their portion; if the morrow, Had never held the pallid ghost of care-- Child faces, graven deep with worlds of sorrow, Until the light of childhood is not there!

Child faces, once agleam with carefree laughter, Wide eyes, where smiles like baby rainbows grew; They are the heritage of ever after, They are the dreams that never will come true. They are the words of fate that have been spoken, And when the tumult of the war is gone, They will remind a world that hearts were broken, For, in their souls, France goes to meet her dawn!

AFTER HEARING MUSIC COMING FROM A DEVASTATED FARMHOUSE

Just a little wisp of song played softly in the twilight, Such a happy little song--and oh, the dusk is gray! Such a joyous little song, and oh, the night is coming-- Coming with the bitter chill that marks the death of day.

Almost like a dance it is, it holds no hint of sorrow, Almost like a waltz it is, to set the pulse a-thrill; Not a hint of tears in it--and oh, the night is coming-- Coming like a purple shroud across the purple hill! Sad the little farmhouse is, the doors swing on their hinges, All the windows look like wounds, pitiful and bare, And a shell has torn a gash in the broken roof of it, But the music lilts along like a happy prayer.

Do pale ghostly fingers play on a ghostly violin? (War has swept the countryside of the songs it knew!) Merry is the little tune--not a wistful questioning-- Merry with a rosy thrill of a dream come true.

Just a little wisp of song played softly in the twilight, Such a happy little song--and oh, the dusk is gray! Such a joyous little song, and oh, the night is coming-- Coming with the bitter chill that marks the death of day!

RETURN

Now that the tumult of the war is over, The fairy folk are coming back to France; They push their way through tangled grass and clover, To find the ring where once they used to dance. They come half-wistfully, the little people, Through broken town, and battered market place, They come past shell-torn church with shattered steeple, They come as smiles come to a tear-stained face.

They come with packs of dreams, with love and laughter, They come with songs rolled snugly up in sacks; They come with promises for ever after, Tied neatly into bundles on their backs! They bring the seeds of magic so that flowers, The flowers of new happiness and mirth, May bloom, once more, in sweet enchanted bowers, Above the heart-ache of a tortured earth.

Now that the angry powder smoke has vanished, The fairy folk are coming as of yore, The fairy folk that hate and war had banished... They pause beside a loosely swinging door, To set it right on hinges that were breaking, They lift an old rag doll with tender care, And hurry on--because their hearts are aching, For one-time childish faces that were there.

They cross forgotten meadows in the gloaming, Through forest aisles at even-time they creep; Where trenches were, their little feet are roaming, And where the heroes of the conflict sleep, They stop, a moment, wistful--and their singing Dies down into the semblance of a prayer; And tiny bells in far-off elf land ringing, Sound, like a silver promise, on the air.