This is the Truth as I hear it— _The clouds are rolling away_, _And Spirit will talk with Spirit_ _In the swift approaching day_. _War from the world shall be driven_, _From evil shall come forth good_; _And men shall make ready for Heaven_ _Through living in Brotherhood_. ‘FLOWERS OF FRANCE’ DECORATION POEM FOR SOLDIERS’ GRAVES, TOURS, FRANCE, MAY 30, 1918 _Flowers of France in the Spring_, _Your growth is a beautiful thing_; _But give us your fragrance and bloom_— _Yea_, _give us your lives in truth_, _Give us your sweetness and grace_ _To brighten the resting-place_ _Of the flower of manhood and youth_, _Gone into the dust of the tomb_. This is the vast stupendous hour of Time, When nothing counts but sacrifice and faith, Service and self-forgetfulness. Sublime And awful are these moments charged with death And red with slaughter. Yet God’s purpose thrives In all this holocaust of human lives. I say God’s purpose thrives. Just in the measure That men have flung away their lust for gain, Stopped in their mad pursuit of worldly pleasure, And boldly faced unprecedented pain And dangers, without thinking of the cost, So thrives God’s purpose in the holocaust. Death is a little thing: all men must die; But when ideals die, God grieves in Heaven. Therefore I think it was the reason why This Armageddon to the world was given. The Soul of man, forgetful of its birth, Was losing sight of everything but earth. Up from these many million graves shall spring, A shining harvest for the coming race. An Army of Invisibles shall bring A glorified lost faith back to its place. And men shall know there is a higher goal Than earthly triumphs for the human soul. They are not dead—they are not dead, I say, These men whose mortal forms are in the sod. A grand Advance-Guard marching on its way, Their Souls move upwards to salute their God! While to their comrades who are in the strife They cry, ‘Fight on! Death is the dawn of life.’ We had forgotten all the depth and beauty And lofty purport of that old true word Deplaced by pleasure—that old good word _duty_. Now by its meaning is the whole world stirred. These men died for it; for it, now, we give, And sacrifice, and serve, and toil, and live. From out our hearts had gone a high devotion For anything. It took a mighty wrath— Against great evil to wake strong emotion, And put us back upon the righteous path. It took a mingled stream of tears and blood To cut the channel through to Brotherhood. That word meant nothing on our lips in peace: We had despoiled it by our castes and classes. But when this savage carnage finds surcease A new ideal will unite the masses. And there shall be True Brotherhood with men— The Christly Spirit stirring earth again.