Perhaps our greatest reward came when on April twenty-sixth the English troops reached us. We had been completely cut off by the enemy barrage from all communication with other sectors of the line. Still, through the wounded gone back, word of our stand had drifted out. The English boys fought and force-marched and fought again their terrible way through the barrage to our aid, and when they arrived, weary and worn and torn, cutting their bloody way to us, they cheered themselves hoarse; cheered as they marched along, cheered and gripped our hands as they got within touch of us. Yell after yell went upward, and stirring words woke the echoes. The boys of the Old Country paid their greatest tribute to us of the New as they cried: "Canadians--Canadians--that's all!" HAROLD R. PEAT _From "Private Peat"--Copyright, 1917. Used by special permission of the Publishers, The Bobbs-Merrill Company_ FROM "A CANADIAN TWILIGHT" Oh, to have died that day at Langemarck! To have perished nobly in a noble cause! . . . . . . . . . . For in the years to come it shall be told How these laid down their lives, not for their homes, Their orchards, fields and cities: "They were driven To slaughter by no tyrant's lust for power; Of their free manhood's choice they crossed the sea To save a stricken people from its foe. They died for Justice--Justice owes them this: That what they died for be not overthrown." [A]BERNARD FREEMAN TROTTER _From "A Canadian Twilight and Other Poems of War and Peace"--By permission of McClelland & Stewart, Ltd., Publishers, Toronto_ FOOTNOTE: [A] Bernard Freeman Trotter, Second Lieut. Eleventh Leicesters, was killed in action in France, May 7, 1917. WE WERE MEN OF THE FURROW We were men of the furrow, men of the hammer and spade; Men of the plain and the forest, children of commerce and trade; Men of the day and the distance; men of the mothering earth; Laying the lines of a nation nurturing fair from the birth. Taking our freedom for granted, we, who had ever been free; Speaking the tongue of our fathers, confident, composite, we; Welcoming all in our borders, laying our wealth at their feet, Querying not of their motives, holding their honour complete. Little thought we of the war-cloud, little of drilling and drill; We were for peace with our neighbours--peace (and a pocket to fill); Only one neighbour we counted, only one neighbour we knew; Him--though we watched him--we trusted; trusted, and felt he was true.