Page:Canadian poems of the great war.djvu/32

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��Minnie Hallowell Bowen

THE NEW YEAR, 1917 A.D.

Canada s National Service

HE New Year comes white-winged, unstained, a star Loosed from God s hand across a world of night !

What thoughts await its coming from afar? What deeds shall quicken in its unknown light?

All Time is God s to give and to withhold !

To men the power is given to use or waste To turn the passing splendour into gold,

Lasting and beautiful or bid it haste.

Dearer than jewels bought with holiest blood Are these few months God-given to our hand

By Him whose might held back the threatening flood There at the Marne, that we might arm and stand.

The grey tide swells apace the nations fall

Before its pitiless, embracing lust ! Here at the threshold of another year

Still with God s gift of time we face our trust!

The bells are ringing in the quivering towers The chimes are calling over glistening snow.

The year is dawning in its awful powers-

The hours are coming and the hours must go !

These few, small days may be the last that wait On our decision ! Riven ears may know

The iron thunders of approaching Fate

That closes Mercy s door and arms the Foe.

Dear blood, outpoured for love of God and Man, Has drenched the far-ofT altar with its red,

And heavenly fire that through the trenches ran Has wrapped the lives that suffered in our stead.

How can we give enough since they have died?

Since they have lived shall we not greatly live And know in life or death with holy pride

No wealth of service is too much to give?

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