Once as I on sick-bed lay I woke crying for my mother. But she was eight hundred miles away, Leagues and leagues of sea between, And the land all frozen hard and gray. She was so very old, I ween She could not have moved a mile that day; For the land was frozen stiff and gray, And the menacing seas rolled all between. NATURE IN WAR-TIME If flowers could speak And leaves and plants knew words, In what strange phrase of chiding would they seek To tell their anger at this clash of swords! The blossom that was made for joy and praise, High bending grasses, and the trees so tall Tremble for terror in the forest ways. I see them shake and shake, as live men fall. Shrapnel crushes them in its fierce caress; The black guns chant a pæan of their skill. But little recks the world in its distress The sorrow that is silent on the hill. COURAGE I I'd once a friend--what joy to say!-- Who when he took a holiday Would climb the towering Dolomites And strive with Fear upon the heights; Tied to a rope, down dangling sheer, He'd talk to God through clouds of Fear. O give me friends like that, I say, And such a gallant holiday. II I'd another friend, in another pale, Who spent a holiday in jail. He fought for what his heart deemed right, And they shut him up in walls of night. Yet merrily his heart did sing Like a mating bird that hails the Spring. AUNT ZILLAH SPEAKS I never look upon the sea And hear its waves sighing, But I must hie me home again To still my heart's wild crying. All my years like drowned sailors, All my days that used to be, Seem drifting in the silver spray And mourning by the sea. But when I take a holiday I go where flowers are growing, Where thrushes sing and skylarks wing And happy streams are flowing; And the great hills clothed with bracken, As far as I would flee, Fling their towering crests to the stars on high To hide me from the sea. TALKING TO GOD A fighting man lay down for ease In the shade of two tall forest trees Deep dinted with bullet and shell. And one tree said to the other, "Is not this worn soldier our brother! And has he not vowed to defend This strip of green glade till the End! Let us thank the kind Father in Heaven For this kinship of man He has given." The trees talked to God all the night, And they thrilled with a soaring delight. SACRIFICE When Jesus was crucified The German roamed in his forests, And the blood of the Frenchman surged in the veins Of the Roman who pierced His side. And we, the British, we were not,-- Though a dream that He cherished. And for each and all Christ died. PROPHECY