Page:More songs by the fighting men, soldier poets, second series, 1917.djvu/137

R. Howard Spring We who, unheeding, watched the little pools

Of rippling light that underlay the trees,

And saw the clear young arrows shoot the gloom

Of chambers darkly curtain'd with no surprise,

Kneel to the regal miracle which lends

To death the august mystery life forbade.

And now upon these fields are gathered up

In one great blood-red rose of sacrifice

All unremembered buds of love and faith

That shy young lives erst offered Freedom's crowns

And to this fierce consuming altar fire,

That speaks a God-ward world in tongues of flame,

Each spark of heart's devotion lends its strength,

Each candle-point of truth its warmth and light.

The Bells

[In Germany church bells are being melted down for war purposes.]

HAT have we done

That sacrilegious hands should tear us down

From the high belfry above the little town,

Whence now for fifty years to King and clown

We speak of life and death? What have we done?

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