Page:Canadian poems of the great war.djvu/110

 A

��Florence Randal Livesay

Mrs J. F. B. Livesay of Winnipeg, Manitoba. Author of Songs of Ukraina, etc. Born at Compton, Quebec, and educated at Campion Ladies College (now King s Hall). Was a journalist for some years. Taught in South Africa for a year after the Boer War. Married Mr Livesay in 1908. Her translations in verse of Ruthenian folk songs have won for her well-merited distinction.

AT VIMY RIDGE

IT Vimy Ridge, that April dawn, The thunder of the guns boomed on ...

The foe looked from embankments high. ..

So might Goliath David spy

And scorn the thing he looked upon.

David, my country! gainst Goliath s brawn Pit stark valour thro Hell s gates that yawn, To enter, victors, or to die

On Vimy Ridge !

You who the onset of a day long gone At Langemarck bore, at Langemarck shone Like to a star in death s dark sky, Heard you that jubilant, ringing cry,

At Vimy Ridge?

��D

��A DAFFODIL FROM VIMY RIDGE

AFFODIL, springing from field so grim, Daffodil, kiss me, kiss me from him

And give me his message! Answer me! Say How did he fall on that piteous day?

Was it on crest of the highest hill? Where is he lying. . . Daffodil?

What does it matter? The parapet past Is he not hero first i the breach last?

O tender compassion of sun and of rain! For this we have blossomed on Vimy again

�� �