THE OLD ROAD TO PARADISE
Permission of the author and the publisher, Good Housekeeping, New York
Ours is a dark Eastertide, and a scarlet spring,
But high up at Heaven's gate all the saints sing,
Glad for the great companies returning to their King!
Oh, in youth the dawn's a rose, dusk an amethyst,
All the roads from dusk to dawn gay they wind and twist,
The old road to Paradise, easy it is missed!
But out on the wet battlefields few the roadways wind,
One to grief, one to death—no road that's kind—
The old road to Paradise, plain it is to find.
(St. Martin in his Colonel's cloak, St. Joan in her mail,
King David with his crown and sword—oh, none there be that fail—
Along the road to Paradise they stand to greet and hail!)
Where the dark's a terror-thing, morn a hope doubt-tossed,
