"I long to die, just now, before they come!"
This I told Edward with what strength I had.
And he laughed softly, and I held his hand,
Looked at him long, until the blinding noon
Came to bend down between us, and his face,
Tender and brown and kindly, seemed enwrapt
In a white light, mysterious and strong,
Turning the khaki silver. And the hand
Holding me fast was part of the great light.
I closed my eyes. And now the boys had come,
Lifted me up, taken me quite away
To a camp hospital where Nigel lay
Wounded as I was, out of all vain hope
Of further fighting for a long half year.
The stretcher-bearers story? It was this:
That a strange glow had rested on the shrubs
'Neath which I lay—just a broad patch of light
To show there was a human being there
In need of human aid. And so they came.
"You were half gone, my friend," they said to me,
"It was a wonder that we saw you there!
Strange that the sun so centred on that spot!"
And Nigel, when I told him, said "I think
You were mistaken, but I dare not say
What is revealed to any man these days.
You know the angels that appeared at Mons!
Many have seen bright angels on the field.
I have not seen, but then my eyes are dim,
My vision turns back home so constantly.
If I were dying I should think of her,
She is my Christ, my angel and my hope.
Before each battle I make prayers to her,
And so the earthly love is still my goal.
There are two Comrades, Love and Loneliness,
Perhaps Christ enters when we touch the last.
Loneliness waiteth long, until we give
The last glad hold we have on life, and I—
I have not given yet my hold on life."
* * * * *
And now in this green England that we saw
Radiant and smiling in our early dreams,
We two are marking time, looking at hills
And these small village streets, and playing cards
And telling yarns, and idling in the sun.
And as we limp about and wait, sing songs,
Exchange the tales of trench and hot assault
And hear again the whistling shrapnel call,
Muse in the firelight, laugh at old alarms,
And wait impatient to be off again,
Sometimes we two, amid the comrades here,
Sometimes we two go silent. Then look up
To see if we can find in others' eyes
A knowledge that has grown with us from out
The fields of France, when in those awful nights
Some of us heard a rumor, saw a Form.
* * * * *
And so, my friends, this word I bring to you
Hot from the hell of conflict whence I come,
Where life and death, binding men's spirits close,
Have sealed a certain knowledge on our souls.
Christ has come back to earth in these great days,
I, but a young Canadian, tell you this.
The stories of our battles,—Neuve Chapelle,
St. Julien, Festubert, and all the rest—
They have been told already scores of times,
Sung, written, painted, burned in words of flame.
My words are homely as a tallow dip,
As crude as that, but just as stoutly true.
Christ has come back to earth in these great days,
He has come back, as in the centuries past
He suddenly appeared upon the streets
Of old Judean towns. Let people talk
Of ancient creeds and dogmas as they will,
That helps not, hinders not, the vital truth
That one young man in his most ardent youth
So loved life, felt life, understood its laws,
So took pain to his heart, so took great love,
And knew that pain and love are always one,
And knew that death can be lived through to life,
Till he commanded death, and death obeyed.
So comes the Comrade White, down silent pain.
He comes to woods and battlefields to-day,
(Sometimes I think he loves the woods the best)
And finds free souls flung skyward, glad to go.
Among the lonely and the pain-racked ones
He comes—not death at all, but radiant life,
Comes in the eyes of comrades, lives in hearts
That give all, taking nothing in return.
He is a rumor and a far white light,
He is the singing bird, the children's flute
That called us wooing forth to give our all.
The floating glad things of the buoyant air,
Young earth's warm children, music and delight,
Live in His eyes: those deathless azure eyes,
That smile upon the moment we thought hard,
And turn our sacrifice to kindling light.
They pass through radiant gates on whom He smiles.
THE AWAKENING
How like a giant stretching in the sun,
We have slept through the ages; even we
Whom the gods moulded for a people free,
And made tremendous for the race not run.