Page:A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919.djvu/185

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REFLECTIONS
185

And strive
With him, that we may save our fortitude alive.
Theirs be the hard, but ours the lonely bed.
Nought were we spared—of us, this word shall not be said.
Never of us be said
We failed to give God-speed to our adventurous dead.
Not in self-pitying mood
We saw them go,
When they set forth on those spread wings of pain:
So glad, so young,
As birds whose fairest lays are yet unsung
Dart to the height
And thence pour down their passion of delight,
Their passing into melody was turned.
So were our hearts uplifted from the low,
Our griefs to rapture burned;
And, mounting with the music of that throng,
Cutting a path athwart infinity,
Our puzzled eyes
Achieved the healing skies
To find again
Each wingèd spirit as a speck of song
Embosomed in Thy deep eternity.
Though from our homely fields that feathered joy has fled
We murmur not. Of us, this word shall not be said.


THE RED CHRISTMAS

"In these days even our wedding bells ring with sombre and muffled sound."—Mr. Asquith, in the Speaker's Library, November 25, 1915.

O TAKE away the mistletoe
And bring the holly berry,
For all the lads are gone away
And all the girls look sad to-day,
There's no one left with them to play,
And only birds and babes and things unknowing
Dare be merry.
Then take away the mistletoe
And bring the holly berry.