The Pilgrims of Hope | Page 5

hay and the herbs seemed to know me, And seek out my heart the dawn's sorrow to meet.
They passed, and day grew, and with pitiless faces The dull houses stared on the prey they had trapped; 'Twas as though they had slain all the fair morning places Where in love and in leisure our joyance had happed.
My heart sank; I murmured, "What's this we are doing In this grim net of London, this prison built stark With the greed of the ages, our young lives pursuing A phantom that leads but to death in the dark?"
Day grew, and no longer was dusk with it striving, And now here and there a few people went by. As an image of what was once eager and living Seemed the hope that had led us to live or to die.
Yet nought else seemed happy; the past and its pleasure Was light, and unworthy, had been and was gone; If hope had deceived us, if hid were its treasure, Nought now would be left us of all life had won.
O love, stand beside me; the sun is uprisen On the first day of London; and shame hath been here. For I saw our new life like the bars of a prison, And hope grew a-cold, and I parleyed with fear.
Ah! I sadden thy face, and thy grey eyes are chiding! Yea, but life is no longer as stories of yore; From us from henceforth no fair words shall be hiding The nights of the wretched, the days of the poor.
Time was we have grieved, we have feared, we have faltered, For ourselves, for each other, while yet we were twain; And no whit of the world by our sorrow was altered, Our faintness grieved nothing, our fear was in vain.
Now our fear and our faintness, our sorrow, our passion, We shall feel all henceforth as we felt it erewhile; But now from all this the due deeds we shall fashion Of the eyes without blindness, the heart without guile.
Let us grieve then--and help every soul in our sorrow; Let us fear--and press forward where few dare to go; Let us falter in hope--and plan deeds for the morrow, The world crowned with freedom, the fall of the foe.
As the soldier who goes from his homestead a-weeping, And whose mouth yet remembers his sweetheart's embrace, While all round about him the bullets are sweeping, But stern and stout-hearted dies there in his place;
Yea, so let our lives be! e'en such that hereafter, When the battle is won and the story is told, Our pain shall be hid, and remembered our laughter, And our names shall be those of the bright and the bold.
NOTE--This section had the following note in The Commonweal. It is the intention of the author to follow the fortunes of the lovers who in the "Message of the March Wind" were already touched by sympathy with the cause of the people.

SENDING TO THE WAR

It was down in our far-off village that we heard of the war begun, But none of the neighbours were in it save the squire's thick-lipped son, A youth and a fool and a captain, who came and went away, And left me glad of his going. There was little for us to say Of the war and its why and wherefore--and we said it often enough; The papers gave us our wisdom, and we used it up in the rough. But I held my peace and wondered; for I thought of the folly of men, The fair lives ruined and broken that ne'er could be mended again; And the tale by lies bewildered, and no cause for a man to choose; Nothing to curse or to bless--just a game to win or to lose.
But here were the streets of London--strife stalking wide in the world; And the flag of an ancient people to the battle-breeze unfurled. And who was helping or heeding? The gaudy shops displayed The toys of rich men's folly, by blinded labour made; And still from naught to nothing the bright-skinned horses drew Dull men and sleek-faced women with never a deed to do; While all about and around them the street-flood ebbed and flowed, Worn feet, grey anxious faces, grey backs bowed 'neath the load. Lo the sons of an ancient people! And for this they fought and fell In the days by fame made glorious, in the tale that singers tell.
We two we stood in the street in the midst of a mighty crowd, The sound of its mingled murmur in the heavens above was loud, And earth was foul with its squalor--that stream of every day, The hurrying feet of labour, the faces worn and grey, Were a sore and grievous sight, and enough and to spare had I seen Of hard