Bid them be patient, and some day, anon, They shall feel earth enwrapt in silence deep-- Shall greet in wonderment the quiet dawn, And in content may turn them to their sleep.
From Mr. Kauffman’s book of poems, “Little Old Belgium.” Henry Altemus Company, Publishers, Philadelphia. Copyright, 1914. Reproduced in this book by special permission.
At a pillaged hamlet near Termonde, I asked a dying peasant woman into which of the houses still standing I should assist her--which was her home? She pressed a withered hand to her bayonet-pierced side and answered: “The Germans have taken one home from me; but, without knowing it, they have given me another. I am going there now.”
My house that I so soon shall own Is builded in a silent place, Not uncompanioned or alone, But shared by almost all my race; No landscape from its windows rolls A picture of the earth’s increase; But, oh, for all our stricken souls, Within its sturdy walls is--Peace.
The other house I used to love Before they burnt it overhead; My slaughtered man; the memory of Our daughter screaming in the red Embrace of Uhlans at my door, Her shrieks all silenced by their shout Of drunken fury--that was war, And my new home will shut it out.
I shall not see the German hands That tear the baby from the breast; I shall not hear the plundering bands Laughing at murder: I shall rest. There Joy shall never riot in Nor robber sorrow find his way; Those shutters bar the call of Sin, And Duty has no debt to pay.
So much I shall be heedless of, Serene, secure, dispassionate; _There_ is not anything to love; _There_ is not anything to hate. So in my house I shall forget All of the orgies and the strife, And find, past memory and regret, The Resurrection and the Life.
Against the shabby house I pass each day (The town is strange, and all so new to see) Pink hollyhocks made friendly sport of me, With nod and smile and endless courtesy Enlive the lonely sameness of my way. Slim little maids in rosy morning frocks, They make a splash of color on the gray-- The sun so bright--a pity not to play, But this old world is sadly work-a-day, And I must hasten on, my hollyhocks!
I like to think that somewhere, overseas, Perhaps in some neglected garden place, Shy flowers from home lean out with wayward grace-- Blue iris and the valley lilies’ lace-- Reminding them of happier times than these, ... Of happy times that are so soon to be, When they come marching home to us--our men-- The world’s work done, the land made clean again!