Page:Poems of the Great War - Cunliffe.djvu/199

 Fond days that are joys mid our weeping Are set mid your meadows and bowers ;

Our loves that lie dead in your keeping You fondle with grass and with flowers.

Ah, yours was the beauty that blessed us;

The kiss when our troubles were dumb ; The hand that in childhood caressed us —

Oh, ]\Iothcr ! you need us. We come ! Love-gifts from our hell or our heaven

Take, take them and purge with your pain ; All, all our love's best take, and leaven

Our life till 'tis lovely again, —

And true to your height, Mother, tender

And true to the best in us all ! We have pined here alone in your splendor ;

But we speed to your pain lest you fall. Ask : we give ! Is it life or the other?

Is it death ? Take us whole. We are come For the sake of our dream of you, Mother,

Whose love we have longed for at home !

Oh, Lord of our fathers before us,

We have turned from the light of Thy word, We and this Mother who bore us :

Dread Go<l, we were proud : we have erred.

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