Page:Canadian poems of the great war.djvu/159

 /. Lewis Milligan

The crimson wine of life spilt on the green Where now we sip in sylvan solitude. Yet here and now the lightning and the crash, Those screaming heralds of destruction are Compounded ; and the fiery sons of Mars Are buckling on their armour for the fray ! O why disturb our century of peace, Where is the foe that we so swift prepare?

Yonder in shattered Belgium sits the Hun In iron state, glutted and dyed with gore ; The Atlantic rolls between us, we are far Beyond his ruthless reach ; and yet so nigh Has human kinship brought us in this strife That e en the ball that smites a man to earth Pierces some breast far over leagues of foam. How small the world is made by suffering! Kind sympathy with instant healing wings Spans the circumference of our stricken star. Ah, mortified were we, dead limbs indeed, If at this hour we did not share the pain Of those who dare defend their liberty, And lose the world to save a nation s soul.

��D

��THE BELLS OF FLANDERS

O you hear the bells soft chiming From the blessed Yules of yore? Sweeter far than poet s rhyming Is their message, but their chiming Is re-echoed now no more !

For the belfries all are shattered

And the bells lie dumb in rust; All the souls that loved them scattered, And their homes and hearths are battered Into unresponsive dust.

�� �