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Rh THE LAND

BY MAXWELL STRUTHERS BURT

not afraid, O Dead, be not afraid:

We have not lost the dreams that once were flung

Like pennons to the world: we yet are stung

With all the starry prophecies that made

You, in the gray dawn watchful, half afraid

Of vision. Never a night that all men sleep unstirred:

Never a sunset but the west is blurred

With banners marching and a sign displayed.

Be not afraid, O Dead, lest we forget

A single hour your living glorified;

Come but a drum-beat, and the sleepers fret

To walk again the places where you died:

Broad is the land, our loves are broadly spread,

But now, even more widely scattered lie our dead.

O Lord of splendid nations, let us dream

Not of a place of barter, nor "the State,"

But dream as lovers dream—for it is late—

Of some small place beloved; perhaps a stream

Running beside a house set round with flowers;

Perhaps a garden wet with hurrying showers,

Where bees are thick about a leaf-hid gate.

For such as these, men die nor hesitate.

The old gray cities, gossipy and wise,