Page:Canadian poems of the great war.djvu/77

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��Katherine Hale GREY KNITTING

OMETHING sings gently through the din of battle, Something spreads very softly rim on rim And every soldier hears, at times, a murmur Tender, incessant, dim.

A tiny click of little wooden needles, Elfin amid the gianthood of war ; Whispers of women, tireless and patient, Who weave the web afar.

Whispers of women, tireless and patient, This is our heart s love/ it would seem to say, Wrought with the ancient tools of our vocation, Weave we the web of love from day to day.

And so each soldier, laughing, fighting, dying Under the alien skies, in his great hour, May listen, in death s prescience all-enfolding, And hear a fairy sound bloom like a flower

I like to think that soldiers, gaily dying

For the white Christ on fields with shame sown deep,

May hear the tender song of women s needles,

As they fall fast asleep.

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��THE HEARTS OF MOTHERS

HE hearts of mothers are hid things

In these the days of woe,

And troops of strange thoughts move therein

Silently to and fro.

They are not thoughts of yesteryear, Or thoughts of you and me And that which we have done, or do, By air, or land, or sea.

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