Helena Jane Coleman

“ Pray that every British heart
In the years that are to be,
Play the honest British part,
Holding life more reverently
For the sacred lives they gave,
And the deathless liberty
They are dying now to save. ”

“ Than falls to the lot of woman,
In these great days with the world ablaze
And Britain's face to the foeman;
In these great days when the hour has struck
Calling for every ounce of pluck—
God help me not to curse my luck
That I was born a woman! ”

“ Can love disown?
Can truth be overthrown?
Say not for us they died;
They touched that dimly-visioned height
The ever-enlarging soul of man
Has yet to climb; their feet outran
The world's slow gait ”

“ That joy waits where the white road bends,
And every face you meet is a friend's.
'Tis when you're young that dreams come true,
And never a cloud but the sun shines through,
When life holds out both hands to you. ”

“ Thy sons have proved them of the breed
Their gallant British fathers were,
They sprang to arms at Britain's need,
Young lions truly bred of her;
Their faces glowed with inner light,
As rank by rank they swept from sight ”

“ Trampling thrones and empires under;
Temples lately love-forsaken
They have entered and retaken,
Earth itself their tread has shaken—
Marching men, marching men,
Sleeping gods your shouts awaken! ”

“ Bright and windy is the weather,
But there's no one to untether
And go speeding to the open far away
Where the ragged clouds are flying,
And the sunset gold is dying,—
Empty, listless, she is lying,
Idly rocking, idly rocking
In the bay.
How she'd leap to answer him
When he took the paddle slim
And they'd race as laughing victors to the fray!
They would climb the waves together,
Riding buoyant as a feather—
Or a bird that slants a wet wing to the spray ”

“ Should death take thee into keeping,
Sharer of the soulless ground,
Yet stand fast with sword uplifted,
Wheat from chaff is surely sifted;
Though thou leave all earth behind thee
Never fear but love will find thee ”

“ They ever did before.
But there are eyes in Canada
That cannot see for tears,
And there are hearts in Canada
Grown weary with their fears,
The nesting-birds of Canada,
They pipe to deafened ears. ”

“ A woman's heart—the children's soft uproar,
Mercifully unconscious at their play—
And mine own arméd will, I keep at bay
The haunting fear that waits beside my door,
The furtive ghost that must forever more
Companion me upon the narrowing way ”

“ And do their exiled hearts beat faster
Roaming in thought their native sod?
Dream they of Canada crowned and golden,
Flushed with her Autumn diadem?
In years to come when time is olden,
Canada's dream shall be of them ”

“ The whitened bones beside the den,
The fierce eye gleaming red within.
And some were singing as they went,
Full, clarion-clear their voices rang,
With Youth still in their hearts unspent
In wistful happiness they sang. ”

“ Go climbing up to crown the radiant hills;
Not when the budding balm-o'-gilead spills
Its spices on the air, and lilacs bring
Old dreams to mind, and every living thing
The brimming cup with fresh enchantment fills. ”

“ And they shall lie apart, alone,
Through all the coming centuries;
Dwelling in silences so vast
No thought to that high tower may climb;
An austere beauty holds them fast
Beyond the boundaries of time. ”

“ Into a tenderness unstained of tears;
'Tis this that we would fold you in,
Our spirits' next and nearest kin.
Think not, Beloved, that you have suffered change
To us, it is the world that has grown strange
We are more wholly yours, indeed,
As the swift tides of earth recede ”

“ He stood full six foot, one.
Yet all the while the child looked out
With mild appealing eyes,
Unconscious he was visible
Beneath the man's disguise,
Nor dreaming what the look evoked
In hearts grown mother-wise. ”