Page:The Old Road to Paradise.djvu/31

POEM FOR A PICTURE

(Children at play on a French Battlefield)

"When I was a child,"
 You shall tell one day,
Children, on these blackened fields
 Gallantly at play,
"All the quiet sky
 Burst in death aflame;
One day, I was young,
 Then . . . The Horror came."

"When I was a child . . ."
 Wind-tossed leaves of war,
Is there childhood still for you,
 Wise in horror-lore,
Who have heard your sisters' screams
 Shattering your play,
Seen your mothers past their dead
 Led to shame away?

Ragged, helpless, maimed,
 Hungry, left alone
Where the smoking roof-beams lie
 By the wrecked hearth-stone,

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