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[1914]
WOMEN of France, bring ye the harvest in. | |
| Willing, you would have helped to reap the grain | |
| Beside your men; now, where they left, begin | |
| That labour with your glory and your pain. | |
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| The Man of State has said to you: Complete | 5 |
| The gathering of crops that lie supine. | |
| And fields will smile beneath the children’s feet, | |
| Who seek their mothers by the wheat and vine. | |
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| Kneeling to work, where service offers prayer, | |
| Bind ye the sheaves on wide, deserted farms; | 10 |
| And, with your gestures of bereaved despair, | |
| Load high the grain with tense, lamenting arms. | |
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| One, in the vineyard—silent, who had sung— | |
| Plucks the pale grape, and dreams on yonder cloud, | |
| New from the East. What sign has Heav’n out-flung? | 15 |
| White victory-wings, or the dead lover’s shroud? | |
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| She who has vowed her strength to make a man, | |
| Unborn as yet, strong to replace his sire, | |
| Gleans in the sun and will not stop to scan | |
| Over the valley, smoke of foemen’s fire. | 20 |
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| The harvest shall come in, the grapes be prest— | |
| By one who still may call on Christ to save | |
| Her soldier, and by one whose aching breast | |
| Fed the cold mouth, dust-clotted in some grave. | |
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| O faithful to your blessed womanhood! | 25 |
| Bread for another’s child, though yours be stark: | |
| Wine for remembrance of belovèd blood: | |
| The day for strain and sweat—tears for the dark. | |
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| So!—until France lay down the votive sword, | |
| And, having spent her souls to fight and win, | 30 |
| She garner peace,—proclaim the vaunted word: | |
| Women of France have brought the harvest in. | |
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