The New Joan, and Other Poems

BY KATHERINE HALE Author of Gnu Knitting , The White Comrade , Etc.
McCLELLAND, GOODCHILD & STEWART, PUBLISHERS :: :: :: TORONTO
COPYRIGHT, CANADA, 1917 BY McCLELLAND, GOODCHILD & STEWART, LIMITED TORONTO
PRINTED IN CANADA
CONTENTS
These are chiefly songs of women's work, but there is a Christmas song for soldiers. The music of life is stilled to-day. Only the bugle note is heard. To the men in the trenches it means action, organized and perfected; to us at home it repeats the call. These songs are bound in crimson for that is the colour of courage; and in gold which signifies the strength and the joy of life which is work.
A soldier's soul returns the centuries down— Radiance again! Love's gleaming mystic mate, She who was burned for witchcraft and for state In the old market-place of Rouen town.
To-day I met her spirit on the Earth, And felt a joyous light dark spaces fill; I knew this troubled planet called her still Upon the wheel of reincarnate birth.
Behold a legion of all-souls, she said, Who ride again for country and for King, And with them, as the ardent sun with spring, See the enchanted ones that life calls dead.
Woman and man, renewing faith's old tryst, Breast, shuddering, the deeps of this last war, And high above them gleams the stranger-star, Silver in blood-red skies—the grail of Christ.
O you who see a vision in the night, And you who ride high-hearted, woman-man, I call you by the name of The New Joan. So passed she, clad in armour, clad in light.
Give me a new soul, God of all things free, Help me to dream the golden dream of youth, Till gazing deep into the eyes of Truth The dream returns in life that is to be.