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28 H. W. BLISS
��"ANY FRIEND TO ANY FRIEND"
Ev'n as I thought of you your soul had sped,
Friend of old, happy, far-off boyhood days,
And, as across the sea I turned my gaze,
The soil of France with your brave blood was red !
Blame not the shears that slit the thin yarn thread.
Though life be lost, immortal is the praise !
Would I were with you crowned with victory's
bays, O Happy Warrior 'midst our English dead !
Yea ! God of Battles, what a time to die ! Thy Courts are echoing to the tuck of drum. The wide days flame with comet souls that fly Triumphant, at a bound, from Earth to Heaven, The nights ablaze, with their white passage riven, As, trailing clouds of glory, swift they come.
— H. W. Bliss.
�� �
