| |
| BEFORE I knew, the Dawn was on the road, | |
| Close at my side, so silently he came | |
| Nor gave a sign of salutation, save | |
| To touch with light my sleeve and make the way | |
| Appear as if a shining countenance | 5 |
| Had looked on it. Strange was this radiant Youth, | |
| As I, to these fair, fertile parts of France, | |
| Where Cæsar with his legions once had passed, | |
| And where the Kaiser’s Uhlans yet would pass | |
| Or e’er another moon should cope with clouds | 10 |
| For mastery of these same fields.—To-night | |
| (And but a month has gone since I walked there) | |
| Well might the Kaiser write, as Cæsar wrote, | |
| In his new Commentaries on a Gallic war, | |
| “Fortissimi Belgæ.”—A moon ago! | 15 |
| Who would have then divined that dead would lie | |
| Like swaths of grain beneath the harvest moon | |
| Upon these lands the ancient Belgæ held, | |
| From Normandy beyond renowned Liège!— | |
| |
| But it was out of that dread August night | 20 |
| From which all Europe woke to war, that we, | |
| This beautiful Dawn-Youth, and I, had come, | |
| He from afar. Beyond grim Petrograd | |
| He’d waked the moujik from his peaceful dreams, | |
| Bid the muezzin call to morning prayer | 25 |
| Where minarets rise o’er the Golden Horn, | |
| And driven shadows from the Prussian march | |
| To lie beneath the lindens of the stadt. | |
| Softly he’d stirred the bells to ring at Rheims, | |
| He’d knocked at high Montmartre, hardly asleep, | 30 |
| Heard the sweet carillon of doomed Louvain, | |
| Boylike, had tarried for a moment’s play | |
| Amid the traceries of Amiens, | |
| And then was hast’ning on the road to Dieppe, | |
| When he o’ertook me drowsy from the hours | 35 |
| Through which I’d walked, with no companions else | |
| Than ghostly kilometer posts that stood | |
| As sentinels of space along the way.— | |
| Often, in doubt, I’d paused to question one, | |
| With nervous hands, as they who read Moon-type; | 40 |
| And more than once I’d caught a moment’s sleep | |
| Beside the highway, in the dripping grass, | |
| While one of these white sentinels stood guard, | |
| Knowing me for a friend, who loves the road, | |
| And best of all by night, when wheels do sleep | 45 |
| And stars alone do walk abroad.—But once | |
| Three watchful shadows, deeper than the dark, | |
| Laid hands on me and searched me for the marks | |
| Of traitor or of spy, only to find | |
| Over my heart the badge of loyalty.— | 50 |
| With wish for bon voyage they gave me o’er | |
| To the white guards who led me on again. | |
| |
| Thus Dawn o’ertook me and with magic speech | |
| Made me forget the night as we strode on. | |
| Where’er he looked a miracle was wrought: | 55 |
| A tree grew from the darkness at a glance; | |
| A hut was thatched; a new château was reared | |
| Of stone, as weathered as the church at Cæn; | |
| Gray blooms were coloured suddenly in red; | |
| A flag was flung across the eastern sky.— | 60 |
| Nearer at hand, he made me then aware | |
| Of peasant women bending in the fields, | |
| Cradling and gleaning by the first scant light, | |
| Their sons and husbands somewhere o’er the edge | |
| Of these green-golden fields which they had sowed, | 65 |
| But will not reap,—out somewhere on the march, | |
| God but knows where and if they come again. | |
| One fallow field he pointed out to me | |
| Where but the day before a peasant ploughed, | |
| Dreaming of next year’s fruit, and there his plough | 70 |
| Stood now mid-field, his horses commandeered, | |
| A monstrous sable crow perched on the beam. | |
| |
| Before I knew, the Dawn was on the road, | |
| Far from my side, so silently he went, | |
| Catching his golden helmet as he ran, | 75 |
| And hast’ning on along the dun straight way, | |
| Where old men’s sabots now began to clack | |
| And withered women, knitting, led their cows, | |
| On, on to call the men of Kitchener | |
| Down to their coasts,—I shouting after him: | 80 |
| “O Dawn, would you had let the world sleep on | |
| Till all its armament were turned to rust, | |
| Nor waked it to this day of hideous hate, | |
| Of man’s red murder and of woman’s woe!” | |
| |
| Famished and lame, I came at last to Dieppe, | 85 |
| But Dawn had made his way across the sea, | |
| And, as I climbed with heavy feet the cliff, | |
| Was even then upon the sky-built towers | |
| Of that great capital where nations all, | |
| Teuton, Italian, Gallic, English, Slav, | 90 |
| Forget long hates in one consummate faith. | |
| |
