Katherine Hale

Name: The White Comrade, and Other Poems
Author: Katherine Hale

Summary

“The White Comrade, and Other Poems”, is a work by Katherine Hale. It explores elements such as Neuve Chapelle, snowflakes and flame.

Quotes from The White Comrade, and Other Poems (Katherine Hale)

Katherine Hale, The White Comrade, and Other Poems

“ And slowly, slowly conquered the strong pain.
And René saw the khaki melt away
Until the Comrade seemed all wrapt in white
As though sheer light had woven a robe for him,
And his strong eyes gleamed like an azure flame,
And he held René through the bitter night,
Until the stretcher-bearers came at dawn.
"So the White Comrade often comes, my friends,"
He said to us, and smiling, mused awhile.
"These fields are not so difficult in death;
Whether we live or die it all seems one.
He has come back to us because we die
As He did, long ago, for love of man." ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Katherine Hale, The White Comrade, and Other Poems

“ 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. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Katherine Hale, The White Comrade, and Other Poems

“ The utmost dower of womanhood,
All mystery—all pain.
SOUL OF THE EARTH
I saw a tired soldier vainly searching
For room to bury deeply the new dead.
"The old dead they are there, forever perching
About the space we need," he grimly said.
"The old dead, slaughtered, just beneath the sod
Of Earth that once was well-beloved of God."
I heard a woman desperate in her wooing
Of empty space and echoing aisles of air,
Calling upon the gods of her undoing
To stem the fearful flood of her despair.
"Somewhere in France he lies so deep," she said.
"That Earth must make me answer for my dead." ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Katherine Hale, The White Comrade, and Other Poems

“ 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. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Katherine Hale, The White Comrade, and Other Poems

“ 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. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Katherine Hale, The White Comrade, and Other Poems

“ 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. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Katherine Hale, The White Comrade, and Other Poems

“ 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. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Katherine Hale, The White Comrade, and Other Poems

“ 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! ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

Katherine Hale, The White Comrade, and Other Poems

“ 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. ”

Katherine Hale

Summary

Quotes from The White Comrade, and Other Poems (Katherine Hale)

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