I KNEW that you had suffered many things, For I could see your eyes would often weep Through bitter midnight hours when others sleep; And in your smile the lurking scorn that springs From cruel knowledge of a love, once deep, Grown gradually cold, until the stings Pierce mercilessly of a past that clings Undying to your lonely path and steep. So, loved and honoured leader, I would pray That hidden future days may hold in store Some solace for your yearning even yet, And in some joy to come you may forget The burdened toil you will not suffer more, And see the War-time shadows fade away. FRANCE, _1918_. “VENGEANCE IS MINE” (IN MEMORY OF THE SISTERS WHO DIED IN THE GREAT AIR RAID UPON HOSPITALS AT ÉTAPLES) WHO shall avenge us for anguish unnamable, Rivers of scarlet and crosses of grey, Terror of night-time and blood-lust untamable, Hate without pity where broken we lay? How could we help them, in agony calling us, Those whom we laboured to comfort and save, How still their moaning, whose hour was befalling us, Crushed in a horror more dark than the grave? Burning of canvas and smashing of wood above-- Havoc of Mercy’s toil--shall He forget Us that have fallen, Who numbers in gracious love Each tiny creature whose life is man’s debt? Will He not hear us, though speech is now failing us-- Voices too feeble to utter a cry? Shall they not answer, the foemen assailing us, Women who suffer and women who die? Who shall avenge us for anguish unnamable, Rivers of scarlet and crosses of grey, Terror of night-time and blood-lust untamable, Hate without pity where broken we lay? WAR (THE GREAT GERMAN OFFENSIVE, MARCH--MAY 1918) A NIGHT of storm and thunder crashing by, A bitter night of tempest and of rain-- Then calm at dawn beneath a wind-swept sky, And broken flowers that will not bloom again. An age of Death and Agony and Tears, A cruel age of woe unguessed before-- Then peace to close the weary storm-wrecked years, And broken hearts that bleed for evermore. FRANCE. THE LAST POST THE stars are shining bright above the camps, The bugle calls float skyward, faintly clear; Over the hill the mist-veiled motor lamps Dwindle and disappear. The notes of day’s good-bye arise and blend With the low murmurous hum from tree and sod, And swell into that question at the end They ask each night of God-- Whether the dead within the burial ground Will ever overthrow their crosses grey, And rise triumphant from each lowly mound To greet the dawning day. Whether the eyes which battle sealed in sleep Will open to reveillé once again, And forms, once mangled, into rapture leap, Forgetful of their pain.