Katherine Hale

“ Among the lonely and the pain-racked ones
He comes—not death at all, but radiant life,
Comes in the eyes of comrades, lives in hearts
That give all, taking nothing in return.
He is a rumor and a far white light,
He is the singing bird, the children's flute
That called us wooing forth to give our all.
The floating glad things of the buoyant air,
Young earth's warm children, music and delight,
Live in His eyes: those deathless azure eyes,
That smile upon the moment we thought hard,
And turn our sacrifice to kindling light. ”

“ Did your feet move to drums?
The men from near and far,
Crees and Sarcees,
And a Blackfoot brave or two,
Made rhythm of a dance that moves like rhyme
To the rush of wind, and rattles swung in time
To the constant, constant, constant beat of drums.
No Indian woman dances in the light;
Silent they sit together out of sight.
But to-night I think this artist from the East,
Who had come to paint the natives hereabout,
Found a splendid flare of crimson on the feast
And moved near the open door,
Where the firelight on the floor
Caught the red of beads upon your moccasins. ”

“ One pulse-beat in the world's great heart of flame.
Perhaps a whistling youth on days of sun,
One among shadows on this night of nights,
Moving with other shadows all night long.
One leaving little loves far, far behind,
One pressing on with thousands of his kind
To answer that great question life had asked
Each one upon his hilltop back at home.
We three marched near together through old France,
Together trenched those days at Neuve Chapelle,
And saw the heavens part and fires descend,
And felt the roar of such a cannonade
As all the world of battles had not known. ”

“ CHRISTMAS SONG To You—Beloved—in the Trenches
Christmas! Is it merry?
"Smokes and bully-beef!"
Not one blood-red berry
Not one holly-leaf.
Stockings filled with pleasure
That a day destroys—
Boxes crammed with treasure
Ah! Trench-children's toys!
"Things" that in the passing
Bring a ray of light,
"Joy!" with death amassing
All this Christmas night.
"Stories!" Yes! and "Laughter!" ”

“ To roaring fires at night and whiskey-haunted songs,
The soft green forest fell.
It died robustly as it lived,
And had its will of singing and of strife,
An ardent, powerful, various sort of life;
A more heroic fate
Than this of late—
A trail up to the playground of the North,
A bracken-haunted, snaky road,
A soft surprise to strangers, a delight. ”

“ May listen, in death's prescience all-enfolding,
And hear a fairy sound bloom like a flower—
I like to think that soldiers, gaily dying
For the white Christ on fields with shame sown deep,
May hear the tender song of women's needles,
As they fall fast asleep. ”

“ See the enchanted ones that life calls dead."
"Woman and man, renewing faith's old tryst,
Breast, shuddering, the deeps of this last war,
And high above them gleams the stranger-star,
Silver in blood-red skies—the grail of Christ." ”

“ Flashing through the snowflakes and the veiled sun;
Every woman cheered you, some few women wept,
Graybeards longed to join you, peaceful babies slept;
But the land that bore you her own counsel kept.
Only, through the snowflakes sped a rift of light,
Keen as pointed sword-blade and intensely bright—
Like the Lord's hand resting on the ranks of right. ”

“ The undertone in nature's pagan rune;
And like a wave lashed to the dying moon,
When old desire is haunting its old prey,
Thy strength subdues the forces that would slay,
And soft withdrawal brings, all starry-strewn. ”

“ Great mirror-like floors and a green velvet lawn,
Where we beckon with laughter,
With music, with dancing,
Sad youth—that is gone.
A FABULOUS DAY
Oh, the days of the week they are constantly seven! ”

“ There are two Comrades, Love and Loneliness,
Perhaps Christ enters when we touch the last.
Loneliness waiteth long, until we give
The last glad hold we have on life, and I—
I have not given yet my hold on life. ”

“ To the men in the trenches it means action, organized and perfected; to us at home it repeats the call. These songs are bound in crimson for that is the colour of courage; and in gold which signifies the strength and the joy of life which is work. ”

“ Come alive with men, and monsters
Of such an alien breath.
(Oh, the long blue road
And the stealthy pad of feet
And the first patient ox-cart
With its sail-like sheet!)
BUFFALO MEAT A Daughter-in-law Writes
It takes a letter sixty days to go—
An Indian boy runs down the trail to-night.
What shall I write to you?
My mind is full of gossip of a town
That you have never dreamed of.
So—shall I tell you of our shacks,
Huddled behind the tall stockade?
Our guns, with muzzles set against the prairie?
What if I write the truth!
Your son is now a savage ”

“ Drank the long draughts of ozone keen and bright,
Felt our whole bodies grow as if new-born,
Our minds kept pace and fed on wider thoughts.
Each man I think who was in truth a man,
Felt the old life slip from him in those days
And a new purpose take the place of self. ”

“ As the white flower of a night-blooming cereus,
Silently, deep in some forest of sleep,
Might have done.
Who are they? What dreams must be theirs,
Who have found such a magical camp unawares?
CRIMSON POOL
Even you, dark pool—
Even you feel death.
On your soft brown surface
There are deep reflections
Of a fiery breath.
To the waiting forest
Death does not come creeping
As it comes to men ”

“ SNAKE ISLAND
"Ages ago," my Indian says
(As we are fishing in a cove
Of this green island, with its trees and shacks) ,
"Here was wild grass and many snakes.
After a while they disappear,
For soon the white man comes, and makes
Houses like these to live in!" ”

“ Oh, the cries, and martyrdoms, and fatal morns,
Scarlet nights and fiery wine and bitter scorns,
Dancing in a rose of joy from a field of thorns—
Rapture from a land of thorns!
CALVÉ IN BLUE
Here is blue fire
That burns mere youth away
And leaves sheer passion. ”

“ PRINTED IN CANADA
Contents
The White Comrade
The Awakening
The Hearts of Mothers
Soul of the Earth
I used to Wear a Gown of Green
The Departure
THE WHITE COMRADE A Canadian soldier, wounded at Ypres, speaks
So this green land is England! ”

“ A skilled opponent, Madame makes few mistakes
Like that a moment since,
When suddenly the dog howled—and we lost a trick.
She has a flashing wit,
Dinners at Rideau Hall are incomplete without her.
As someone said the other day,
"These elderly, elaborate folk
Are like a passing pageantry,
Gorgeous and of another day."
Silent the cards fall.
Again the far-off dog howls at the moon.
An hour later, "Chateau Laurier" she told the chauffeur. ”

“ The fields of France, when in those awful nights
Some of us heard a rumor, saw a Form.
* * * * *
And so, my friends, this word I bring to you
Hot from the hell of conflict whence I come,
Where life and death, binding men's spirits close,
Have sealed a certain knowledge on our souls.
Christ has come back to earth in these great days,
I, but a young Canadian, tell you this.
The stories of our battles,—Neuve Chapelle,
St. Julien, Festubert, and all the rest—
They have been told already scores of times,
Sung, written, painted, burned in words of flame. ”

“ I was as young as you ... It seems like yesterday.
Hardships! I loved it all!
Even the wolves, baying far out of sight,
Failed to disturb our rest
When we were safe at home.
The Indians were quite friendly—
And the eternal glamour of the snow!
And yet to-night, just when I heard that sound,
Sharpened by frost,
I felt an old pain strike me,
The knife-like thrust, before a child is born.
I was alone that night.
My husband had been called to Edmonton,
My Indian maid had let her family in
Looking for whiskey. ”

“ Author of "Gnu Knitting", "The White Comrade", Etc.
McCLELLAND, GOODCHILD & STEWART,
PUBLISHERS :: :: :: TORONTO
COPYRIGHT, CANADA, 1917
BY McCLELLAND, GOODCHILD & STEWART, LIMITED
TORONTO
PRINTED IN CANADA
CONTENTS
THE NEW JOAN
The Vision
I. The Child
II. The Law
III. The Kitchen
IV. The Land
V. The Battlefield
VI. The World
CHRISTMAS SONG
LONDON
THE MOTHER
A SPRING DAY
JUNE, 1917
These are chiefly songs of women's work, but there is a Christmas song for soldiers. The music of life is stilled to-day. Only the bugle note is heard. ”

“ To-night, my mind went back a moment strangely—
I always thought he had the sweetest face
Of any of my seven ... But then he was the first!"
She raised her glittering hand
And found the speaking tube, to modify her chauffeur's pace.
"And that, my dear, was fifty years ago," she said.
"The prairie was a very different place—
I never thought, then, I should come to Bridge!"
SPANISH PILOTS
To Agnes C. Laut
These were the ragged peon crews,
Half-bloods of Aztec women,
Of Spaniards and adventurers
Who were not seeking heaven! ”