It matters not who recited, in a voice that rocked unsteadily once or twice upon the raft of a sob, “Flanders Fields.”
Her personality was lost in the:
“If ye break faith with us who die!”
Ah! no. There must be no breaking of faith. The life of every American boy and girl alive on that fair November, the eleventh, when the sun shone as if knowing that it marked a New Epoch, mocking the brown leaves upon the ground--while Peace Europa cooed in her blanket--must be nobler for all time--a fair and loving monument to those who would not come back.
But--but the note of pathos melted into melody when it came to considering the new: to standing upon the threshold of that better World, bought with a price, brushed by the feet of youth and of hopeful young nations--weary old ones--to-day.
Not three candles alone, as on that white beach, where aviators landed by the Council Fire, were lit to-night, but one for each country of the Allies, to typify joy rekindled well-nigh all over the war-scarred earth.
And when little Flamina, Nébis, the Green Leaf upon a later branch of America’s great tree--whose leaves must be truly now for the healing of the nations--stepped forward, with flashing eye, to light the green candle of Italy, there was a long-drawn breath between a song and a sob in the breast of each maiden present.
“Va fuora d’ltalia, ta fuora ch’e l’orro,
Va fuora d’ltalia, va fuora o stranier!”
caroled Flamina--the big, dilating pupils of her eyes as black stars in a sepia-brown sky--while she chanted Italy’s hymn of liberty--the national hymn.