Thereafter of our pride let naught be said, Saving on stone, inscribed with but one line: CANADA--VIMY RIDGE--1917 Our hearts the tablets of a secret shrine: Though henceforth we shall lift a higher head Because of Vimy and its glorious dead. ALFRED GORDON _From "Vimy Ridge and New Poems"-- By permission of the Author and of J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., Toronto_ THE SILENT TOAST (_Vimy Ridge, April, 1917_) They stand with reverent faces, And their merriment give o'er, As they drink the toast to the unseen host, Who have fought and gone before. It is only a passing moment In the midst of the feast and song, But it grips the breath, as the wind of death In a vision sweeps along. No more they see the banquet And the brilliant lights around: But they charge again on the hideous plain When the shell-bursts rip the ground. Or they creep at night, like panthers, Through the waste of No Man's Land, Their hearts afire with a wild desire And death on every hand. And out of the roar and tumult, Or the black night loud with rain, Some face comes back on the fiery track And looks in their eyes again. And the love that is passing woman's, And the bonds that are forged by death, Now grip the soul with a strange control And speak what no man saith. The vision dies off in the stillness, Once more the tables shine, But the eyes of all in the banquet hall Are lit with a light divine. FREDERICK GEORGE SCOTT _By permission of the Author and The Musson Book Company, Limited, Toronto_ PROSPICE The ancient and the lovely land Is sown with death; across the plain Ungarnered now the orchards stand, The Maxim nestles in the grain, The shrapnel spreads a stinging flail Where pallid nuns the cloister trod, The airship spills her leaden hail; But--after all the battles--God. Athwart the vineyard's ordered banks, Silent the red rent forms recline, And from their stark and speechless ranks There flows a richer, ruddier wine; While down the lane and through the wall The victors writhe upon the sod, Nor heed the onward bugle call; But--after all the bugles--God. By night the blazing cities flare Like mushroom torches in the sky; The rocking ramparts tremble ere The sullen cannon boom reply. And shattered is the temple spire, The vestment trampled on the clod, And every altar black with fire; But--after all the altars--God.