Part 20

NOW THAT THE TUMULT OF THE WAR IS OVER, ONCE MORE THE COUNTRY WAKENS TO ROMANCE; FOR, THROUGH THE TANGLE OF THE GRASS AND CLOVER, THE FAIRY FOLK ARE COMING BACK TO FRANCE.

THE PHOENIX

The ruined wheat fields lying in the sun Will smile again, e'er many seasons pass; The crooning breeze will sway the golden grass, The way it did before a blazing gun, Mowed down the meadow poppies in red heaps; And battered villages will rise anew, And homes will stand where one-time gardens grew, And, in dim forests where an army sleeps, The little birds will sing their evening songs, The way they did before a blasting rain, Of shrapnel cut their tiny nests in twain; For France will rise, triumphant, from her wrongs--

Yes, France will rise once more in faith, and pave Her roads anew with shattered stones of life, Her songs will rise, once more, above the strife-- But what about the hearts that gave--and gave!

A PRAYER ON EASTER FOR OUR BOYS KILLED IN ACTION

Dear God, they will not come again, those lads of ours, Who went to fight with honor's foe across the sea-- Who died with eyes set straight ahead, amid the showers Of shrapnel, as they cleared a path to victory, They will not come again... And it is Easter weather, And all the world is waking to the call of life, But they lie sleeping, Over There, our lads, together, Who died before their hearts could know the end of strife.

Dear God, they will not come again, those lads of ours, Who left this land so gallantly to do their best-- And so I ask that You will send gay springtime flowers, To deck each shell-torn meadow where their bodies rest. I ask that You will let them hear the joyous singing, Of some deep-throated bird whose heart tones throb and swell; God, let them feel the thrill that Easter time is bringing, That death is only life asleep--and all is well! AMEN.

INDEPENDENCE DAY--1919

Over the mists of a century they come, and their tramping feet Are light as the dust on the broad highway, or the wind that sways in the wheat; Out of the haze of the years between their shadowy hands stretch wide To welcome the heroes home again who have fought for their cause and died.

They went to battle at Concord Bridge, and they fell on Bunker Hill; The odds were great, but they struggled on with a stubborn Yankee will; They lay in the fields at Lexington when the sun in the west was red, And the next year's violets grew on the spot where their valiant blood was shed.

But they won in the end--with their broken guns and without much food to spare, Won at the end of a bitter war, by means that they knew were fair; And some of them wandered back to their plows, and some lay wrapped in the loam, And slept the sleep of the fearless heart that has fought at home--for home!

Fought for their homes, at home, they did--but these other boys today Fought for the homes of stranger folk three thousand miles away; FOUGHT FOR THE HONOR OF THE WORLD, and were not afraid to die In a muddy trench, in a foreign land, and under a foreign sky!

They fought on the Marne, at Belleau Wood; they swept through the mad Argonne; Chateau-Thierry was theirs to take; they took it and then surged on; And now that the fight they fought is won, though they lie in a far-off grave, Their souls come back to the land they loved--the land that they LEFT to save.

And so, through the damp of the sorry sea, through the wreck of the shell-torn plain, They are coming back to homes they loved--they are coming back again! And light as the wind that sways in the wheat, or the dust on the broad highway, They march to their rendezvous with the ones who died in the yesterday.

SHADOWS

You come to me at twilight, when the others, Are laughing in the fullness of their joy; When glad-eyed women folk, when wives and mothers, Are welcoming some other bronze-cheeked boy. You come to me, all silent, in the gloaming, A shadow form, with curly shadow hair-- And, dear, I somehow feel that you are roaming Between two shadow worlds--the Here and There.

They ask me, do those others, why I wander Down dewy lanes, alone, at eventide-- They do not know my heart's a shadow--yonder... They do not know that part of me has died. They do not know that your dear presence stands Just out of reach with misty, wide-flung hands!

L'ENVOI

Only we two, dear... and the candlelight, Seems to be softer than it was before, Country and city, vivid dream lands, war-- Dear, they are very far from us to-night!

Woven of promise from life's golden loom, Pale threads of light have bound us heart to heart; Laughter and sorrow--they are things apart-- ALL OF OUR WORLD IS IN THIS LITTLE ROOM.

Outside the branches sway, and winter weather Sweeps, with a cry of triumph, through the land Dear, it is springtime, when you touch my hand-- Only we two, and magic, here together!