IT was strange indeed, that journey! Never yet had I crossed the sea Or looked on another people than the folk that had fostered me, And my heart rose up and fluttered as in the misty night We came on the fleet of the fishers slow rolling in the light Of the hidden moon, as the sea dim under the false dawn lay; And so like shadows of ships through the night they faded away, And Calais pier was upon us. Dreamlike it was indeed As we sat in the train together, and toward the end made speed. But a dull sleep came upon me, and through the sleep a dream Of the Frenchman who once was my master by the side of the willowy stream; And he talked and told me tales of the war unwaged as yet, And the victory never won, and bade me never forget, While I walked on, still unhappy, by the home of the dark-striped perch. Till at last, with a flash of light and a rattle and side-long lurch, I woke up dazed and witless, till my sorrow awoke again, And the grey of the morn was upon us as we sped through the poplar plain, By the brimming streams and the houses with their grey roofs warped and bent, And the horseless plough in the furrow, and things fair and innocent. And there sat my wife before me, and she, too, dreamed as she slept; For the slow tears fell from her eyelids as in her sleep she wept. But Arthur sat by my side and waked; and flushed was his face, And his eyes were quick to behold the picture of each fair place That we flashed by as on we hurried; and I knew that the joy of life Was strongly stirred within him by the thought of the coming strife. Then I too thought for a little, It is good in grief’s despite, It is good to see earth’s pictures, and so live in the day and the light. Yea, we deemed that to death we were hastening, and it made our vision clear, And we knew the delight of our life-days, and held their sorrow dear.
But now when we came unto Paris and were out in the sun and the street, It was strange to see the faces that our wondering eyes did meet; Such joy and peace and pleasure! That folk were glad we knew, But knew not the why and the wherefore; and we who had just come through The vanquished land and down-cast, and there at St. Denis e’en now Had seen the German soldiers, and heard their bugles blow, And the drum and fife go rattling through the freshness of the morn— Yet here we beheld all joyous the folk they had made forlorn! So at last from a grey stone building we saw a great flag fly, One colour, red and solemn ’gainst the blue of the spring-tide sky, And we stopped and turned to each other, and as each at each did we gaze, The city’s hope enwrapped us with joy and great amaze.