Page:Canadian poems of the great war.djvu/34

The highest in man answered then awoke
The inner things of life ! War s strange dismay
Dimmed not the flame that made a holy ground
As if the spirit pierced the crumbling clay
Hearing the Resurrection trumpet sound!

BLOW, loveliness of morn across the hills!
Waken the dew-drenched earth! These drops are red!
The older day is gone—its dreams are dead
Lost in the darkness. Long-forgotten ills
Left in the upward climb raise horrid heads
From out primeval slime—their threatening fangs
Menace the soul. The lonely star that sheds
Heaven s radiance, pale in the deep ether hangs,
Promise of day to be. Blow winds of morn!
Cleanse the sick earth from foulness and dismay!—
The flowers forget to bloom—no roses blow—
Only the Rose of Sacrifice is born
Rooted in sorrow, like the stars aglow—
Is this the Night? Behold! it is the Day!

AFTER this—life God s life! The battlefield
Leaves pitiful wrecks—poor torn bodies men
Pulsing with warm life once alive and then
After that lightning stroke no earthly shield
Can ward from any of us—dead and cold—
Still without comfort—voiceless—set apart
From touch of love. That agony is old
As life and death, but new with every heart.

Yet, in what glory went the parting soul
In that high hour of sacrifice to meet
Its Maker! In what holiness the feet
Swept upward to the Great Light of the Goal
That followed Calvary s immortal sign,
The crimson token, deathless and divine!