Page:Poems of the Great War - Cunliffe.djvu/264

 238 MAY SINCLAIR

��FIELD AMBULANCE IN RETREAT

Via Dolorosa, Via Sacra

��A STRAIGHT flagged road, laid on the rough earth, A causeway of stone from beautiful city to city. Between the tall trees, the slender, delicate trees, Through the flat green land, by plots of flowers, by black canals thick with heat.

II

The road-makers made it well

Of fine stone, strong for the feet of the oxen and of the great Flemish horses.

And for the high wagons piled with corn from the harvest.

And the laborers are few ;

They and their quiet oxen stand aside and wait

By the long road loud with the passing of the guns, the rush of armored cars and the tramp of an army on the march forward to battle ;

And, where the piled corn-wagons went, our drip- ping Ambulance carries home

Its red and white harvest from the fields.

�� �