I
LIKE a gaunt, scraggly pine | |
| Which lifts its head above the mournful sandhills; | |
| And patiently, through dull years of bitter silence, | |
| Untended and uncared for, begins to grow. | |
| |
| Ungainly, labouring, huge, | 5 |
| The wind of the north has twisted and gnarled its branches; | |
| Yet in the heat of midsummer days, when thunder-clouds ring the horizon, | |
| A nation of men shall rest beneath its shade. | |
| |
| And it shall protect them all, | |
| Hold everyone safe there, watching aloof in silence; | 10 |
| Until at last one mad stray bolt from the zenith | |
| Shall strike it in an instant down to earth. | |
| |
II
There was a darkness in this man; an immense and hollow darkness, | |
| Of which we may not speak, nor share with him, nor enter; | |
| A darkness through which strong roots stretched downwards into the earth | 15 |
| Towards old things; | |
| Towards the herdman-kings who walked the earth and spoke with God, | |
| Towards the wanderers who sought for they knew not what, and found their goal at last; | |
| Towards the men who waited, only waited patiently when all seemed lost, | |
| Many bitter winters of defeat; | 20 |
| Down to the granite of patience | |
| These roots swept, knotted fibrous roots, prying, piercing, seeking, | |
| And drew from the living rock and the living waters about it | |
| The red sap to carry upwards to the sun. | |
| |
| Not proud, but humble, | 25 |
| Only to serve and pass on, to endure to the end through service; | |
| For the ax is laid at the root of the trees, and all that bring not forth good fruit | |
| Shall be cut down on the day to come and cast into the fire. | |
| |
III
There is silence abroad in the land to-day, | |
| And in the hearts of men, a deep and anxious silence; | 30 |
| And, because we are still at last, those bronze lips slowly open, | |
| Those hollow and weary eyes take on a gleam of light. | |
| |
| Slowly a patient, firm-syllabled voice cuts through the endless silence | |
| Like labouring oxen that drag a plow through the chaos of rude clay-fields: | |
| "I went forward as the light goes forward in early spring, | 35 |
| But there were also many things which I left behind. | |
| |
| "Tombs that were quiet; | |
| One, of a mother, whose brief light went out in the darkness, | |
| One, of a loved one, the snow on whose grave is long falling, | |
| One, only of a child, but it was mine. | 40 |
| |
| Have you forgot your graves? Go, question them in anguish, | |
| Listen long to their unstirred lips. From your hostages to silence, | |
| Learn there is no life without death, no dawn without sun-setting, | |
| No victory but to Him who has given all." | |
| |
IV
The clamour of cannon dies down, the furnace-mouth of the battle is silent. | 45 |
| The midwinter sun dips and descends, the earth takes on afresh its bright colours. | |
| But he whom we mocked and obeyed not, he whom we scorned and mistrusted, | |
| He has descended, like a god, to his rest. | |
| |
| Over the uproar of cities, | |
| Over the million intricate threads of life wavering and crossing, | 50 |
| In the midst of problems we know not, tangling, perplexing, ensnaring, | |
| Rises one white tomb alone. | |
| |
| Beam over it, stars. | |
| Wrap it round, stripes—stripes red for the pain that he bore for you— | |
| Enfold it forever, O flag, rent, soiled, but repaired through your anguish; | 55 |
| Long as you keep him there safe, the nations shall bow to your law. | |
| |
| Strew over him flowers; | |
| Blue forget-me-nots from the north, and the bright pink arbutus | |
| From the east, and from the west rich orange blossoms, | |
| But from the heart of the land take the passion-flower. | 60 |
| |
| Rayed, violet, dim, | |
| With the nails that pierced, the cross that he bore and the circlet, | |
| And beside it there, lay also one lonely snow-white magnolia, | |
| Bitter for remembrance of the healing which has passed. | |
