Page:A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919.djvu/317

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317

AUXILIARIES


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?


THE RED CROSS NURSE

THE battle-smoke still fouled the day, 
 With bright disaster flaming through;
Unchecked, absorbed, she held her way—
 The whispering death still past her flew.


A cross of red was on her sleeve;
 And here she stayed, the wound to bind,
And there, the fighting soul relieve,
 That strove its Unknown Peace to find.


A cross of red . . . yet one has dreamed
 Of her he loved and left in tears;
But unto dying sight she seemed
 A visitant from other spheres.


The whispering death—it nearer drew,
 It holds her heart in strict arrest . .
And where was one, are crosses two—
 A crimson cross is on her breast!
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