C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

La Charpie

By Sully Prudhomme (René François Armand Prudhomme) (1839–1907)

A SOMBRE night, a starless sky!

Jeanne sits, her heart with weeping sore,

The cloth unwinding patiently

For soldiers wounded in the war.

Her lover to the war is gone;

His kiss yet fresh—’twas but to-day:

Her brothers too! She sits alone:

They marched with him this morn away.

Now booms more closely on her ears

The cannon’s summons, stern and loud,

“Surrender! Famine!” Then she hears

Her City’s “No” in answer proud.

Her holy task at last is o’er;

Has it not brought her spirit rest?

When suddenly her humble door

By timid hand is softly pressed.

A stranger girl is standing there

Within the door, her eyes as blue

As heaven, her features pale, her hair

Of gold, her dress of sombre hue.

And these her words:—“Jeanne, have no fear,

The red cross on my arm I show;

My name and all that brings me here—

Oh, let me in!—you soon shall know.

“At home they call me Margaret;

I’ve wandered from the banks of Rhine

For him on whom my heart is set:

Oh, let me in! Your grief is mine;

“By the same fears our hearts are torn;

Oh, by our youth, our love, our pain,

We’re sisters now! leave hate and scorn

For deadly fight on yonder plain.

“Together we’ll our charpie weave:

For blood knows naught of colors two;

Those grow alike who love and grieve:

We’ll weep together, I and you!”

She, ere the words had left her lips,

The charpie threads asunder tore,

Working with trembling finger-tips

For soldiers wounded in the war.

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