Giant Hours with Poet Preachers

by William L. Stidger

And even amid the terrible thunder of war the "Lark" sings, as Service reminds us in his poem of that name, sings and points to heaven:

"Pure heart of song! do you not know
That we are making earth a hell?
Or is it that you try to show
Life still is joy and all is well?
Brave little wings! Ah, not in vain
You beat into that bit of blue:
Lo! we who pant in war's red rain
Lift shining eyes, see Heaven too!"

Rhymes of a Red Cross Man.

To close this study of Service, which has run from the hard battle ground of the Alaskan trails to the harder battle ground of France; which has run from a study of white peaks and white lives, to high peaks and high hopes, through sin and death to heaven and the Father himself, I quote the closing lines of Service's "The Song of the Wage Slave," which will remind the reader in tone and spirit of Markham's "The Man with the Hoe":

"Master, I've filled my contract, wrought in thy many lands;
Not by my sins wilt thou judge me, but by the work of my hands.
Master, I've done thy bidding, and the light is low in the west,
And the long, long shift is over—Master, I've earned it—Rest."

[Illustration: RUPERT BROOKE.]

IX

RUPERT BROOKE
[Footnote: The poetical selections from the writings of Rupert Brooke
appearing in this chapter are used by permission, and are taken from
The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke, published by John Lane Company,
New York.]

PREACHER OF FRIENDSHIP, LOVE, COUNTRY, GODS, AND GOD

Wilfred Gibson expressed it for us all; voiced the sorrow and the hope in the death of Rupert Brooke, a victim of the Hun as well as that other giant of art, the Rheims Cathedral; expressed it in these lines written shortly after Rupert Brooke died: