Page:Canadian poems of the great war.djvu/113

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

John Daniel Logan

Sergeant J. D. Logan has recently returned from the Front, where he served as a member of the Nova Scotia Highland Brigade. Born in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, May 2nd, 1869, eldest son of Charles and Elisabeth Gordon (Rankin) Logan. Educated at Pictou Academy, Dalhousie University, and Harvard University. Is an A.M. and Ph.D. of Harvard. Was for four years Professor of English and Philosophy, in the State University of South Dakota. Has won distinction as the author of many original and scholarly treatises on academic subjects, as a literary and music critic, and as a poet.

INVOCATION

COME, Happy Dead, up from the phantomed places
Wherein you walk sin-cleansed, strong and serene.—
Come, smiling now as when your friendly faces
Were love-stars in the loneliness terrene!

The world is turmoil, and affrights my soul—
The times are mad, and men live mirthless days;
War's awful discords clang from pole to pole,
And the Bird of Life has ceased his matin-lays.

But I have joy vouchsafed from you who passed,—
Revisitings of your dear forms and faces.
So will I turn away to you at last,
And call you back to me from phantomed places.

Then come, O Happy Dead, come while I hear
My heart's mute linnets hesitantly tuning:
Steal up the unseen slopes to me, and clear
My songs of Death with tender, wise communing!

RENOUNCEMENT

KISS me good-bye!—
And think not, dear, i love thee less
In that I haste from thy soft charms
At War's reverberant alarms.
I am in bond to other faithfulness:
My country calls me—I must go
To foil my country's direst foe
On far-off fields incarnadined.
But thy too tender love is blind

109