Page:Canadian poems of the great war.djvu/174

 Robert Norwood

Threatens, His lightning cleaves the clouds apart

To show an awful Face

The Judge is in His place

Of Judgment! Oh, the love

That we have lost! Above,

Beneath and all around us sounds the cry

Of Rachel weeping over little hands

And little feet! Her babes are dead! You, I,

Alone are guilty; for while error stands

Must all the starry Christs be crucified!

Nay, do not hang your head :

Though Christs be crucified,

And Rachel s babes be dead,

One river floweth wide

Out of the urge of God ;

Of that eternal stream

Its mother-bosom broad

With vision and with dream

Are you, Comrade and I !

Yea, all its ancient shores

That river runneth by

Have we touched. Where it pours

Past leagues of desert sand,

Jungles and miry places,

Palms of an unknown land,

Ferns and their fronded faces,

Have we gone forth from God !

Where slimy serpents crawl,

And crocodiles are torpid in the sun;

Where snarling tigers sprawl,

And elephants come slowly one by one

Down the yellow ridges

Of the banyan s broken bridges

To the river where the little shells are strawed;

Where chattering monkeys leap,

And the flamingo struts among the reeds;

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