Page:Canadian poems of the great war.djvu/31

 Minnie Hallowell Bowen

Mrs Cecil Hale Bowen of Sherbrooke, Quebec. Minnie Henrietta Bethune Hallowell was born in Sherbrooke, February 4th, 1861, the second child of John Hallowell (of United Empire Loyalist descent) and Helen Maria Clark. For several years kept a private school. Active in women s organisations: since the begin ning of the war, President of the Sherbrooke Patriotic Associa tion.

THE TRENCHES

��T

��No man s land is a mass of bloom and the trenches are

filled with flowers.

HE long, grey seams upon the pleasant land Are furrows driven by Death across the loam

Through agony no soul can understand That iron Share went home.

That little, narrow path in Jordan s tide

Our best and dearest tread ; and in our dreams

Its great insistence not to be denied We see the long, grey seams.

What Hope in such dread sowing hidden lies ?

What Seed shall quicken in distress and pain? What Harvest from the crimson fields arise,

Drenched with such awful rain?

Take courage hearts that grieve and cannot sing Beholding War s relentless, bitter hours,

God s Hand has loosed the loveliness of Spring The trenches fill with flowers.

And every thought of love and faith and God, And every noble deed, unseen, untold

Wakes from the clinging fingers of the sod To bloom in rose and gold.

And all heroic courage and high thought Lifts fragrant chalices towards the light

Thus shall the splendid blossoming be brought Of everlasting Right!

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