Page:A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919.djvu/151

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Art thou no more, O Maiden Heaven-born,

O Peace, bright Angel of the windless morn?

Who comest down to bless our furrow'd fields,

Or stand like Beauty smiling 'mid the corn:

Mistress of mirth and ease and summer dreams,

Who lingerest among the woods and streams

To help us heap the harvest 'neath the moon,

And homeward laughing lead the lumb'ring teams:

Who teachest to our children thy wise lore;

Who keepest full the goodman's golden store;

Who crownest Life with plenty, Death with flow'rs;

Peace, Queen of Kindness—but of earth, no more.

Not thine but ours the fault, thy care was vain;

For this that we have done be ours the pain;

Thou gavest much, as He who gave us all,

And as we slew Him for it thou art slain.

Heav'n left to men the moulding of their fate:

To live as wolves or pile the pillar'd State—

Like boars and bears to grunt and growl in mire,

Or dwell aloft, effulgent gods, elate.

Thou liftedst us: we slew and with thee fell—

From golden thrones of wisdom weeping fell.

Fate rends the chaplets from our feeble brows;

The spires of Heaven fade in fogs of hell.

She faints, she falls; her dying eyes are dim;

Her fingers play with those bright buds she bore

To please us, but that she can bring no more;

And dying yet she smiles—as Christ on him

Who slew Him slain. Her eyes so beauteous

Are lit with tears shed—not for herself but us.