Her son, she knew, would go,
And with true mother's instinct,
She knew, beyond a doubt,
The branch of warfare he would choose.
It happened in September;
'I think I'll take a little trip to Europe,
William said, quite casually one night,
As he was straightening pictures on the wall,
'Into the flying service, I suppose.
You know, I always liked the wind.'
Within six months, his mother read his story in the press.
Somewhere in France, he was flying,
Flying with such vim and such abandon,
That honours showered upon him.
The next news that his mother read,
As she sat beneath the mountain skies,
In the greenish yellow springtime of the mountain woods,
Was the story of his death,
His death among the clouds,
A death in company with his friend, the Wind.
She cabled Europe,
Asking cremation for the body of her son,
The ashes to be sent her
In an urn. . . .
After two months, there reached her bungalow,
On forest sprinkled slopes,
The Sacred Box.
That afternoon, the mother left the house,
And started on an upward climb.
The way was steep;
Huge boulders barred the path,
And spume of rapid drenched the rocky trail.
A porcupine slunk back behind a ledge of stone,
95
