A Farewell.
By EDNA MEAD.
Look, Love! I lay my wistful hands in thine
A little while before you seek the dark,
Untraversed ways of War and its Reward,
I cannot bear to lift my gaze and mark
The gloried light of hopeful, high emprise
That, like a bird already poised for flight,
Has waked within your eyes.
For me no proud illusions point the road,
No fancied flowers strew the paths of strife:
War only wears a horrid, hydra face,
Mocking at strength and courage, youth and life.
If you were going forth to cross your sword
In fair and open, man-to-man affray,
One might be even reconciled and say,
"This is not murder; only passion bent
On pouring out its poison"—one could pray
That the day's end might see the madness done
And saner souls rise with the morrow's sun.
But this incarnate hell that yawns before
Your bright, brave soul keyed to the fighter's clench—
This purgatory that men call the "trench"—
This modern "Black Hole" of a modern war!
Yea, Love! yet naught I say can save you, so
I lay my heart in yours and let you go.