Page:Armistice Day.djvu/208

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186
ARMISTICE DAY

November brings another anniversary, is to remind us of the supreme need of justice in the relations of men and nations, and of the duty that still belongs to us—not less than it belongs to others—to give our best thought and effort to the establishment of peace upon true foundations.


TWO SILENCES

BY ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER

(London, Armistice Day)

The sirens wailed and moaned;
A battery intoned
Litanies loud and brief.
Abruptly then—the hush of death!
Life seemed to rob
The tomb of silence. Far around
The blossom-laden cenotaph
A nation held its breath
In gratitude and grief.
And still there was no sound,
Save for a child's unconscious laugh,
A girl's low sob.


Then our hands, groping, met,
Dearest; our eyes grew wet;

And our own silence, in that vaster one,