THE STRANGER
It happened in a blood-red hell ringed round with golden weather;
Walking in khaki through a trench he came,
When life was death, and wounded men and great shells screamed together:
I did not know his name.
But so white-faced and wan, we talked a little while together
Amongst dead men, and timbers black with flame.
“What would you do with life again,” asks he, “if one could give it?”
“No use to talk when life is done,” I say.
“But, by the living God, if He should grant me life I’d live it
Kinder to man, truer to God each day.”
Flame and the noise of doom devoured the words, and for a while
Senseless I lay.... Then,
Oh, then as in a dream I saw the stranger with a smile
Moving towards me over the dead men.
Red, red were his hands and feet and a great hole in his side,
Yet glory seemed to blaze about his head;
“Kinder to man, truer to God,” he whispered, and then died;
Falling down, arms outspread.
Ere darkness fell upon me with the faintness and the pain,
I saw a mangled body lying prone
Upon the earth beside me. But what I can’t explain
Is—The stretcher-bearers found me quite alone.
But, howsoe’er it happened, it matters not at last,
Since God’s dear Son came down to earth and died
In bloodshed, and the darkness of clouds that groaned aghast;
With pierced hands and a great wound in His side.
It is not in my heart to hate the pleasant sins I leave.
Earth’s passion flames within me fierce and strong.
But this is like a shadow ever rising up to thieve
Sin’s pleasures, and the lure of every pattern lust can weave,
And charm of all things that can do Him wrong.