Page:Canadian poems of the great war.djvu/26

Grace Blackburn

With dark hair streaming down over her empty breasts. The Sleepers there, in the graves, they sleep, it is finished ; But the Woman . . . merciful, obliterating death, Death even, has abandoned this victim. Lust and war Have had their way with her and stalked on. . Leaving her there by the roadside, outraged, abandoned. Her feet are hurt by the stones in her passing In her hands are the marks of infinite labours But the wound in her side, the deep, deep heart wound, Is the wound of all wounding . . . slowly it bleeds,

far inward. Feet! Hands! And side! Five wounds has the

Woman. . . The Christ had none other.

BEHOLD the Twilight, the Doom of the gods accomplished! Hard old gods ; gods that have tightened the world in a grip Like the grip that stifles the breath of the stream In its boisterous throat and chokes back its laughter The touch that palsies the petals of flowers So that they whiten and languish : gods that have darkened the sun As counsel is darkened, and misted the wisdom of stars. There had been disclosure, announcement, foreknowledge; The gods, even the gods themselves had seen it and started: Then sudden it happened Fate stood in the path The morning cock crowed ! They flung out the banners! Vaster than France or Flanders, vast as the universe Is the field of the conflict. Transmarine and transmontane

It sweeps across the world. Not a peasant’s hut