Page:More songs by the fighting men, soldier poets, second series, 1917.djvu/123

Rudolphe Louis Nègroz Mother! toward you my gratitude now goes

As to a goddess of some ancient fane,

Worshipped for fruitful blessings, incense rose,

While the stone altar held the dove just slain

In simple, penitential sacrifice,

And the great congregation, humbled, bowed,

Acknowledged thus the wondrous gifts whose price

They could not pay but in surrender proud

To gratitude's humility.—But you

Claim nothing slain in your cult, except

What I would less than value—all the true,

Enduring things in me have upward leapt,

Striving to do your honour. So do I

In humble pride my voice lift heaven-high.

, Sept., 1917. 119