Katherine Hale

“ 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!" ”

“ 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." ”