Chapter VI: The World

It is a new world that my feet must tread,
New, though the hurrying ages call it old,
While fields that yesterday were cloth-of-gold
Are all dissolving, like a film half-fled.

The wondrous 'stage' of life, its mimic joys;
The deft accomplishment, the bubble fame;
Statecraft bedecked as a career, a name;
Art as a servitor that wealth employs--

These were the worlds our mothers counted new,
These were the ways we still had kept our own,
Until Eternal Law from His high throne
Melted our world in sudden fire, and dew.

And now through mists of dew, through leaping flame
We ride again upon an ancient quest,
That we may bring Love home, no longer guest
But Love Triumphant, ever to remain.

See the bright banner a new Day outflings;
It shall be ours to hold it high and white.
Again a Voice! And out of dawning light
The deathless soul of Joan through us sings.

_Spirit of Life, radiant and glad and free,
Come, as of old, be born again of me.
Through me recover that which man has lost,
Mine was the making, mine the precious cost.
Out of my body come the sons of men,
Into my keeping give their souls again,
And let me make this world God's little room
Wherein Love's splendours live again and bloom._

CHRISTMAS SONG

_To You--Beloved--in the Trenches_

Christmas! Is it merry?
"Smokes and bully-beef!"
Not one blood-red berry
Not one holly-leaf.

Stockings filled with pleasure
That a day destroys--
Boxes crammed with treasure
Ah! Trench-children's toys!

"Things" that in the passing
Bring a ray of light,
"Joy!" with death amassing
All this Christmas night.

"Stories!" Yes! and "Laughter!"
And the heart held high;
Silence following after
And the soul's still cry.

Yet another feast day
In the mud of France--
"Hearts," we can at least say,
"Onward goes the dance."

"There is no cessation
To this small affair,
On with war's vocation
In the hell-fire's flare."

* * * *

It is true as spoken
With the one word more:
We have found a token
By hell's open door.

Through Death's crimson gateway
We have seen a sign
That has made this Birthday
Still a night divine.

Through the first sweet silence,
Darkness, close and near,
Has disarmed hell's violence--
Night has whispered clear.

"Though all Earth be broken
Two things live above,
These--God's ancient token--
Quiet stars--and Love.

"Stars for life's last reaping,
Stars in heaven's bright dome,
Love for your safe keeping
Love to lead you home."

LONDON

_A Canadian soldier, returned to "Blighty" speaks_

The day we came to London! Oh, how strange
To see the City-of-the-World like this!
Our dreams had been of London. Not 'the sights'
But that young London that young hearts explore;
The Music Halls, the roads, the sleepy Inns,
Where old Romance is felt anew each day.
This was to be our London.

Thus we came:
We came as cattle come, when packed too tight
In some barbaric car of ancient mould;
We came not driven with whips, nor massed in crowds,
But driven by bitter pain and almost dead
From faintness of our wounds. We came
From siege and rapine, plunder and hell-fire,
From thunders never ceasing, from swift death,
From screams and cries, and parting gasp of souls,
And from supremest vision given to man.
This way we came to London.

Oh, my friends,
We touched white cliffs upon a summer day,
Pain-blinded, minds befogged, we rode along
That ancient-traversed way of all the world.
And, slowly, as the evening shadows fell
We reached old Paddington. Were driven out
In shabby cabs, through misty, half-lit ways,
Into a great wide Place, from whence small streets
Wondered zig-zag with no apparent plan,
_Yet knew we were at home._

I still can feel
The cab stop for a moment, and a face
Peer in the open window. 'Twas a mask
Set in a flowered hat. With awful eyes
She stared, and asked, and answered in a flash:
"Ah, well! You're nearly dead, poor dears, but I--
I, who am here forever, come again."

And then we drifted on, and soft grey walls
Held us a moment to dissolve in mist.
Once at a turn I saw the Abbey rise
And once the outstretched arms of giant trees.
Sometimes a light, but always murmurous noise
Not so much hoof-beat, motor-hum or cry,
As vibrancy of voices, far and near,
A myriad-mingled sound of many men.
This, and a strange new vision of the heart,
A love just dawning, an age-old surprise,
A sudden turning to those splendid arms
That are forever open. Thus we came
Broken by war, home to her splendid arms.

THE MOTHER

My son sails high
His ocean, azure air:
He in the shining sky--
And swift Death everywhere.

His ardent youth
Explores a strange new sea
As if even Death, forsooth,
Were rare good company.

And my dear heart,
Each moment that you fly
Is a dull eon apart
In my soul's agony.

This autumn wind
Treacherous, hungry,--chill,
Those laughing wings may find
And rend, and still.

The earth-force, strong,
Ready to lure your bark,
May hum a homing-song
And draw you to the dark.

O golden Fire,
Whose course is never run,
Outshine all dark desire
And keep my son.

A SPRING DAY

O, March, he is a loud-foot lad,
Nor pipes as April can,
But this green day he brings again,
An olive-branch to man.

His emerald hours are promises
Set in the snow-white days;
And slowly moves Earth's miracle
Along the hidden ways.

As peace is paler than red war,
The crocus than the rose,
So Life comes whispering up the land
A word that whitely glows.

And not in azure Arcady
Or where great battles ring,
Is felt the everlasting hope
That is the heart of Spring;

But in the spirit of the race
That holds a vision clear,
And plucks the flower of fadeless dream,
Through soldier as through seer.

JUNE, 1917

The road runs green again, my friend,
That yesterday lay white,
And shadows deep as violets
Are washed away in light.

For northward mounts the eagle sun,
And Spring in silver sheen
Has set some blood-red flowers aflame
Along the road grown green.

The bugle's note, the robin's note,
A trio make with June,
And laughing Life, and ardent Death,
They will be wedding soon.

But O, the splendor of the way!
And O, the magic sheen
That hath enmeshed God's flower-of-love
Along the road of green!

Warwick Bro's & Rutter, Limited,
Printers and Bookbinders, Toronto, Canada.

End of Project Gutenberg's The New Joan and Other Poems, by Katherine Hale