Page:Canadian poems of the great war.djvu/125

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��Wilson MacDonald PEACE

LOW, flag, in the soft wind; blow, bugle, blow;

The day we dreamed of through the years is here.

Lowered is Mar s red spear ;

And the shot-peopled air,

Tired of the wild trumpet s blare,

Tired of the upturned, glassy eyes of men,

Is quiet again.

Discord has fled with her gigantic peals,

And, at her heels,

Walks the old silence of the long ago.

Flow, flag, in the soft wind; blow, bugles, blow.

The upturned faces of the world today

Are like the laughing waves of a sea in May.

Tears are a lost art of a hateful dream ;

Laughter is King, is King.

Blow, bugles, blow ; let the wild sirens scream,

Let the mad music ring,

Until the very flowers shall nod and sing.

I hear the lusty cheers of youth whose years

Were blown to the crag s black edge ;

I see the Hours quaff up a mother s tears

As the sun drinks dew upon a Devon hedge.

No more shall the sad wires transmit the dole

That gnaws into the soul.

And that vast company we call the dead

Shall know the flag of Peace flies overhead

Because of the new lightness of our tread.

In Flanders now the birds find their first wonder

Since that loud August thunder

That shattered the blue skies like broken glass.

The wonder now is that the thing is dead

That passed, with crimson tread,

Over the silken floor of fragrant grass

The screaming, blatant woe

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