Page:Canadian poems of the great war.djvu/23

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��Grace Blackburn

Miss Blackburn is the fifth daughter of the late Josiah Blackburn, for nearly forty years proprietor and editor of the Free Press London, Ontario. She was born in London and educated in the Public and High Schools of her native city, and later in Hellmuth College. She is literary and dramatic critic of the Free Press.

EPIC OF THE YSER

EAD with his face to the foe!

From Hastings to Yser

Our men have died so.

The lad is a hero

Great Canada s pride:

We sent him with glory,

For glory he died

So ring out the church-bells ! Float the flag high !



Then I heard at my elbow a fierce mother-cry.



On the desolate plain

Where the dark Yser flows

They ll bury him, maybe,

Our Child of the Snows :

The message we sent them

Through fire and through flood

He signed it and sealed it

To-day with his blood

United we stand ! Our Empire is One !



But this woman beside me ? . . The boy was her son !

IN A FRENCH HOSPITAL

AWN at last! Open the window, Sister, And let me see the sky. . . yes, open wide. How gray it is and blue. And look! that flush. . . As though the first beam of the glancing sun Fell on a garden ; as though across the world I caught the gladness of a rose in bloom.

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