Ballads of Peace in War | Page 6

soul, and contrite moans my cry!
Courage, my heart: bright patience to the end!?Few years remain; then goes the warring wall?Of sensely flesh, that men will throw to earth.?So be it; so the contrite soul shall wend?A homeward way unto the Captain's call,?Eternally to know contrition's worth.
14
LINDEN LANE
HOLY CROSS: MAY, 1917
(For Major Joseph W. O'Connor, '03)
Birds are merry and the buds?Come along with May:?Lonely is the linden land?For lads that went today.
What calls the May of song?But the fair young spring??Heard our boys another tune?Sterner voices sing.
Bugles blew by land and sea,?And the tocsin drum;?See, brave hearts go down the hill,?Shouting, "Hail, we come."
>From the towers that show the Cross,?Staunch the Flag waved out,?And the royal Purple shook?Joyous with the shout.
Heigh-ho! And a lusty cheer,?Down the linden lane:?The pine grove looked but cannot tell?If they'll come home again.
Few may take the homeward road?When the war is done:?Where they fall or when they come,?Hail, to the cause they won.
Till the buds and the merry birds?Come another May,?Cross and Flag aloft shall bless?Brave lads who went today.
15
THE BOUNDARIES OF A HOUSE
Along the north a mountain crest,?A row of trees runs towards the west;?The south is all a field for play,?For work the east has marked a way;?The night shows all the stars above,?And the long, long day, a mother's love.
16
ATTAINMENT
Let me go back again. There is the road,?O memory! The humble garden lane?So young with me. Let me rebuild again?The start of faith and hope by that abode;?Amend with morning freshness all the code?Of youth's desire; remap my chart's demesne?With tuneful joy, and plan a far campaign?For better marches in ambition's mode.
Ah, no, my heart! More certain now the skies?For joy abide: the cage of tree and sod,?Horizons firm that faith and hope attain,?Far realms of innocence in children's eyes,?And hearts harmonious with the will of God:--?These might I miss if I were back again.
17
THE PHILOSOPHERS
The best of true philosophers?Are the children, after all,--?The children with laughing hearts?And the serious field and ball:?They have a bowl and bubbles,?And hours where rainbows are;?They find, if ever the sun is hid,?In every dark a star.
But, O, the sorry men that make?The wise books of our day!?They cannot smile athwart a cloud,?When black thoughts lead astray;?They cannot add a simple sum,?But talk like drunken men,?And shut their eyes to keep out God?When spring comes in again.
Far simpler than the Rule of Three?Are the laws of earth and sky;?Yet fools will muddle all true thought,?And pride will have its cry;?The banners with their deadly words?Go reeling on unfurled,?And sin and sadness march along?To the heartbreak of the world.
18
The Philosophers
But the children are the wise men,?With the clearest heart and mind;?If two and one are three, they say,?Then truth is near to find;?If this be now that once was not,?If things must have a cause,?Then very simple is the sum?That God is in His laws.
The world's men that are fools enough,?They will not speak that way,?But with a cloud of muddled thought?They hide the light of day;?Yet laughing words and candid truth?Abide by field and hall,?Where the best of true philosophers?Are the children, after all.
19
PREPAREDNESS

I.
THE DRUMMER BOY
You never know when war may come,?And that is why I keep a drum:
For if all sudden in the night?From east or west came battle fright,?And you were sound asleep in bed,?And very soon to join the dead,?You then would gladly wish my drum?Would warn you that the war had come.
So that is why on afternoons?I tell the neighborhood my tunes:
Sometimes behind a fortress bench,?Or where the hedges make a trench,?I beat the drum with all my might,?While people look with awful fright,?Just as they would if war had come,?And heard the warning of my drum.
They must be thankful, I am sure,?Because they now may feel secure,?And rest so safe and sound in bed,?Without wild dreams of fearful dread;?For now they hear me all the day,?As round the yard I march and play,?To let them know if war should come?They'll get the warning of my drum.

20
Preparedness
II.
THE SAILOR
A sailor that rides the ocean wave,?And I in my room at home:
Where are the seas I fear to brave,?Or the lands I may not roam??At the attic window I take my stand,?And tighten the curtain sail,?Then, ahoy! I ride the leagues of land,?Whether in calm or gale.
Tree at anchor along the road?Bow as I speed along;
At sunny brooks in the valley I load?Cargoes of blossom and song;?Stories I take on the passing wind?From the plains and forest seas,?And the Golden Fleece I yet will find,?And the fruit of Hesperides.
Steady I keep my watchful eyes,?As I range the thousand miles,?Till evening tides in western skies?Turn gold the cloudland isles;?Then fast is the hatch and dark the screen,?And I bring my cabin light;?With a wink I change to a submarine?And drop in the sea of Night.
21
WAR IN