Page:Canadian poems of the great war.djvu/190

 Sheila Rand

Shrill was its note, but yet so gay

I looked in wonder toward the smoke-veiled South,

And there, a mile away,

Panted the hero of a May Day treat.

The train came swiftly down the country side.

I snapped a poplar branch and on it tied

My pocket-handkerchief, and waved.

A hundred pennants answered my salute.

Oh, I felt so glad

To see that joyous, noisy, living crowd !

Just then the train shrieked out its warning hoot,

And one, more daring than the rest, a lad,

His cap in hand, leaned out

And tried his best to shout

Some message as the train rushed onward to the North.

Did his voice carry? No, that could not be,

I was too far to catch those wind-blown words ;

Perhaps the wheels of that gay, thundering train

Echoed and echoed them again,

Until I could not choose but hear;

Perhaps the birds

Chirped them in oft-repeated song.

How e er it was, I understood the boy

Whose message was not long,

But long enough for me to sense eternal pain

She s in the war at last, old Italy? ...

Hark how the wheels repeat, old Italy!

My eyes are blind with tears. Alas,

Another nation s bleeding at the breast!

Italians count their dead.

Restless, beside a little stagnant pool,

A Killdee whistles like a man distressed,

Killdee f Killdee, now Italy is red!

A black crow caws in flight,

Italy s in the fight!

And over all the Prairie is a crimson dye!

�� �