A holy emblem of the hearts Which love and weep, and gladly give, That each true soldier who departs May mid the conflict hope to live, For when he does the cross behold, It cheers his soul and makes him bold.
Ah, let it go where’er he goes, With all its kindly ministries! Through this from million hearts there flows A stream of warmest sympathies; And must he give his all, even then, It is to him his last true friend.
Speed on, Red Cross, thou heaven-sent, Into the lands of pain and woe, Until their madness shall be spent, And thou shalt stand amid the glow Of that new dawn of Brotherhood, A symbol of man’s highest good!
“Rest, rest, perturbed Earth! O, rest, thou doleful mother of mankind!” Wordsworth
I have not seen thy beauty for the pall Of horror, hanging over all the world, I have not heard thy music for the din Of battle-lines against each other hurled.
And now thy face is covered with a shroud Of purest white, and thou wilt take thy rest; The winds will sing their evening lullabies, With memories of love and feathered nest.
And mothers, at the dusk, will list thereto, And think of croonings in the years gone by, When little boys sat by the window-panes, And gazed with wonder on the moonlit sky.
And now, perchance, they lie beneath thy shroud, Or destined soon to join the sleeping host,-- War’s sacrifice, O God, how man doth sin! How in the utter darkness he seems lost!
How far from nature has he erred and strayed, A prey to greed, and arrogance of kings! Shall he at last, a prodigal, return To dwell in peace ’neath the “Almighty’s wings?”
The doleful mother of mankind doth wait, And when her children come, anew she dons Her spring-attire, and smiles forgivingly, And breathes her peace upon her weary sons.
And then again I’ll feel the throb of joy, And glory in the wonders of thy face, Yea, revel in thy thousand harmonies, And wander satisfied along thy ways.
Full tired of war and worry do I turn To nature in her sweet midwinter dreams, To purple twilights, when the day’s last beams Like flick’ring candles on the snowdrifts burn, While star and crescent, in the deepest blue, Shed peace on fields and woods and frozen lakes; And from the creeping shadows soon awakes Life’s fairy-world, the one as boy I knew In unfeigned joy that varied with each scene Of winter’s whiteness, or midsummer’s green.