Page:Armistice Day.djvu/187

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WHEN POPPIES BLOOM AGAIN
165

banker, cripple—soul and senses—from the commonplace to a common plane of higher things, of visions.

The columns sway, the dust sparkles, the arches rise and rise to dizzy heights of splendor on the vibrating wings of music. The voices of unseen choristers seem to be darting out of every niche and crevice and the nave becomes a vortex of rushing melody that carries us with it, on and on.

Then once again we are left desolate in the barren silence. Brahms's "Requiem" is over.

Requiem? Yes, we felt that. But for what? For whom? It was left for Laurence Binyon to tell us so poignantly in his poem which we found printed on the leaflet. We still remember some of the lines:

For the Fallen

"With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.
...There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.


"...They laughed, they sang their melodies of England,

They fell open-eyed and unafraid.