Ballads of Peace in War | Page 7

THE NORTH
Not from Mars and not from Thor?Comes the war, the welcome war,?Many months we waited for?To free us from the bondage?Of Winter's gloomy reign:?Valor to our hope is bound,?Songs of courage loud resound,?Vowed is Spring to win her ground?Through all our northern country,?>From Oregon to Maine.
All our loyal brave allies?In the Southlands mobilize,?Faith is sworn to our emprise,?The scouting breezes whisper?That help is sure today:?Vanguards of the springtime rains?Cannonade the hills and plains,?Freeing them from Winter's chains,?So birds and buds may flourish?Around the throne of May.
Hark! and hear the clarion call?Bluebirds give by fence and wall!?Look! The darts of sunlight fall,?And red shields of the robins?Ride boldly down the leas;?Hail! The cherry banners shine,?Onward comes the battle line,--?On! White dogwood waves the sign,?And exile troops of blossoms?Are sailing meadow seas.
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War in the North
Winter's tyrant king retires;?Spring leads on her legion choirs?Where the hedges sound their lyres;?The victor hills and valleys?Ring merrily the tune:?April cohorts guard the way?For the great enthroning day,?When the Princess of May?Shall wed within our northlands?The charming Prince of June.
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THE HAPPY TIME
Two gloomy scenes may be,?Or count you three:
A building hope all crushed at morn,?A bridal day in clouds of rain,?And night that keeps a mother's pain?For tidings of a child forlorn.
Of happy times count more,?Admit these four:
A flower of promise rich with day,?A son with victories that wear?A halo on his mother's way:?And friends whose hearts ring like a chime?Across the world at Christmas time.
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THE TIME OF TRUCE
Two young lads from childhood up?Drank together friendship's cup:?Joe was glad with Bill at play,?Bill was home to Joe alway.
On their friendship came the blight?Of a little thoughtless fight;?Then, alas! each passing day?Farther bore these friends away.
There was grief in either heart,?Bleeding deep from sorrow's dart,?When in thoughtfulness again?Each beheld the other's pain.
But the shades of night are furled?When the morning takes the world,?And the Christmas days of peace?Make our little quarrels cease.
Bill and Joe on Christmas Day?Met as in the olden way;?Bill put out his hand to Joe,--?It was Christmas Day, you know.
Bill and Joe are friends again,?And to them long years remain;?Time may take them far away,?They keep Christmas every day.
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BETHLEHEM
O ye who sail Potomac's even tide?To Vernon's shades, our Chieftain's hallowed mound;?Or who at distant shrines high paeans sound?In Alfred's cult, old England's morning pride;?Or seek Versailles, conceited as a bride,?With garish memories of kins strewn round;?Or lay your spirit's cheek on Forum ground,?For here a mighty Caesar lived and died:?To these and other stones, O ye who speed,?Since there, forsooth, a prince was passing great,?More zealous let your heart's adoring heed?The Child most Royal in a crib's estate.?No poor so poor, no king more king than He:?Come, better pilgrims, to this mystery.
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A VOW-DAY FLOWER
(POVERTY, CHASTITY, OBEDIENCE)
Three little leaves like shamrock,?And the trefoil's love-lit eyes,?Whether it takes the sunshine?Or the shadows from the skies.
And richer than rose or lily?Is the flower he wears today,?With triune bloom and fragrance?>From earth to heaven alway.
Poverty is the low leaf,?And one is chastely white,?And the red love of obedience?Goes up to God a light.
Grow, good flower, and keep him?Who wears your bloom today,?Shadow and sunshine bless him,?And the trefoil's heavenward way.
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THE TREE IN THE TENEMENT YARD
(For T. A. Daly)
America, Ireland and Italy,?All have known this poor old tree.
? * *
A rickety fence goes round the yard?And the noisy streets stand high:?The grassless ground is brown and hard,?And the cinder pathways, lined with shard,?Sees but a bit of sky.
Once the yard was fertile and fair,?And lilac bushes near:?And a Yankee counted with fretful care,?Under the solacing shadows there,?The gain of every year.
The crowded walls of trade arose?And gloomed the avenue:?But a Munster man at each day's close?Built in the tree his hope's rainbows,?And saw his dreams come true.
The years have thickened the darkened air,?But the tree is still on guard:?It comforts the young Italian there,?Who sees the future blossoming fair?>From the tree in the tenement yard.
? * *
America, Ireland and Italy?All have loved this poor old tree.
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OLD HUDSON ROVERS
(For Joyce Kilmer)
When the dreamy night is on, up the Hudson river,?And the sheen of modern taste is dim and far away,?Ghostly men on phantom rafts make the waters shiver,?Laughing in the sibilance of the silver spray.?Yea, and up the woodlands, staunch in moonlit weather,?Go the ghostly horsemen, adventuresome to ride,?White as mist the doublet-braize, bandolier and feather,?Fleet as gallant Robin Hood in an eventide.
Times are gone that knew the craft in the role of rovers,?Fellows of the open, care could never load:?Unalarmed for bed or board, they were leisure's lovers,?Summer bloomed in story on the Hyde Park Road.?Summer was a blossom, but the fruit was autumn,?Fragrant haylofts for a bed, cider-cakes in store,?Warmer was a cup they know, when the north wind caught 'em?Down at Benny Havens' by the West Point shore.
Idlers now-and loafers pass, joy is out of fashion,?Honest fun that fooled