Page:Canadian poems of the great war.djvu/83

Katherine Hale I, but a young Canadian, tell you this. The stories of our battles,—Neuve Chapelle, St. Julien, Festubert, and all the rest— They have been told already scores of times, Sung, written, painted, burned in words of flame. My words are homely as a tallow dip, As crude as that, but just as stoutly true. Christ has come back to earth in these great days, He has come back, as in the centuries past He suddenly appeared upon the streets Of old Judean towns. Let people talk Of ancient creeds and, dogmas as they will, That helps not, hinders not, the vital truth That one young man in his most ardent youth So loved life, felt life, understood its laws, So took pain to his heart, so took great love, And knew that pain and love are always one, And knew that death can be lived through to life, Till he commanded death, and death obeyed.

So comes the Comrade White, down silent pain. He comes to woods and battlefields to-day, (Sometimes I think he loves the woods the best) And finds free souls flung skyward, glad to go. Among the lonely and the pain-racked ones He comes—not death at all, but radiant life, Comes in the eyes of comrades, lives in hearts That give all, taking nothing in return. He is a rumor and a far white light, He is the singing bird, the children's flute That called us wooing forth to give our all. The floating glad things of the buoyant air, Young earth's warm children, music and delight, Live in His eyes: those deathless azure eyes, That smile upon the moment we thought hard, And turn our sacrifice to kindling light. They pass through radiant gates on whom He smiles.