Page:Patriotic pieces from the Great War, Jones, 1918.djvu/194

190 That isn't brave, that isn't French!" At last

She led her frightened brood across the way

To where there stood a roadside Calvary

Bearing its sad indomitable Christ—

Strange how the shells will spare just that! I saw

So many ... There they knelt, poor innocents,

Hands folded and eyes closed. I stole across

And stood behind them. "We must say our prayer—

Our Father which art in heaven," she began,

And all the little sobbing voices piped,

"Hallowed be Thy Name." From down the road

The Belgian soldier had come near. I felt

Him standing there beside me in the dusk.

"Thy kingdom come—

"Thy will be done on earth

As it is In heaven." The irony of it

Cut me like steel. I barely kept an oath

Behind my teeth. If one could name this earth

In the same breath with heaven—what is hell?

Only a little child could pray like this.

"Give us this day our daily bread—" A pause.

There was no answer. She repeated it

Urgently. Still the hush. She opened wide