Then she kissed my burning lips,

With her mouth like a scented flower,
And I thrilled to the finger-tips,

And I hadn't even the power

To say: "God bless you, dear!"
And I felt such a precious tear

Fall on my withered cheek,
And darn it! I couldn't speak.

And so she went sadly away,

And I know that my eyes were wet.
Ah, not to my dying day

Will I forget, forget!

Can you wonder now I am gay?

God bless her, that little Fleurette!

From Rhymes of a Red Cross Man by Robert W. Service, author of The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses, Ballads of a Cheechako, and Ballads of a Bohemian. Copyright by Barse and Hopkins, New York.

The Pyres

Hermann Hagedorn

Hermann Hagedorn, Jr., was born in New York City in 1882. He has been associated closely with the literary life of Harvard University since his graduation there in 1907, his commencement poem, "A Troop of the Guard,” bringing him into prominent notice. He is the author of several plays.

On account of the many flights of the imagination in this poem, it will be best to read it from the book or manuscript. Keep the pictures clear. Develop the music of the selection, and add the mystery and depth of the infinite in the line, "Stars, make room!"

PYRES in the night, in the night!

And the roaring yellow and red.

"Trooper, trooper, why so white?"

"We are out to gather our dead.

We have brought dry boughs from the bloody wood And the torn hill-side;

We have felled great trunks, wet with blood

Of brothers that died;

We have piled them high for a flaming bed,
Hemlock and ash and pine for a bed,

A throne in the night, a throne for a bed;
And we go to gather our dead.

"There where the oaks loom, dark and high, Over the sombre hill,

Body on body, cold and still,

Under the stars they lie.

There where the silver river runs,

Careless and calm as fate,

Mowed, mowed by the terrible guns,

The stricken brothers wait.

There by the smoldering house, and there

Where the red smoke hangs on the heavy air,

Under the ruins, under the hedge,

Cheek by cheek at the forest-edge;
Back to breast, three men deep,
Hearing not bugle or drum,

In the desperate trench they died to keep,
Under the starry dome they sleep,
Murmuring, 'Brothers, come!'

"This way! I heard a call

Like a stag's when he dies.

Under the willows I saw him fall.

Under the willows he lies.

Give me your hand. Raise him up.
Lift his head. Strike a light.

This morning we shared a crust and a cup.
He wants no supper to-night.

Take his feet. Here the shells

Broke all day long,

Moaning and shrieking hell's

Bacchanalian song!

Last night he helped me bear
Men to hell's fêting.
To-morrow, maybe, somewhere,
We, too, shall lie waiting."

Pyres in the night, in the night!
Weary and sick and dumb,
Under the flickering, faint starlight
The drooping gleaners come.
Out of the darkness, dim

Shadowy shadow-bearers,
Dragging into the bale-fire's rim
Pallid death-farers.

Pyres in the night, in the night!
In the plain, on the hill.
No volleys for their last rite.

We need our powder-to kill.
High on their golden bed,
Pile up the dead!

Pyres in the night, in the night!

Torches, piercing the gloom!

Look! How the sparks take flight!
Stars, stars, make room!

Smoke, that was bone and blood!

Hark! The deep roar!

It is the souls telling God

The glory of WAR!

Reprinted by permission of the author from The Outlook.

The Road to Babylon

Margaret Adelaide Wilson

Margaret Adelaide Wilson was born at Portland, Oregon, and educated at Bryn Mawr. She has been writing verse and stories for magazines since 1906.

Strive to make effective the delicate affection voiced in this poem. It is as if some mother thinks of her grown-up son still as a little child.

"How far is it to Babylon?

-Threescore miles and ten.

Can I get there by candle-light?

Yes, and back again."

And while the nurse hummed the old, old, rhyme,

Tucking him in at evening time,

He dreamed how when he grew a man

And traveled free, as big men can,

He'd slip out through the garden gate
To roads where high adventures wait,
And find the way to Babylon,

Babylon, far Babylon,

All silver-towered in the sun!

School Poetry for Oral Expression

He's traveled free, a man with men ;
(Bitter the scores of miles and ten!)
And now face down by Babylon's wall
He sleeps, nor any more at all
By morning, noon, or candle-light
Or in the wistful summer night
To his own garden gate he'll come.

-Young feet that fretted so to roam

Have missed the road returning home.

ΙΟΙ

Reprinted by permission of the author and Charles Scribner's Sons. Copyright, 1920, by Charles Scribner's Sons.

He Whom a Dream Hath Possessed

Shaemas O'Sheel

Shaemas O'Sheel was born in New York, in 1886. He was educated at Columbia University. He has published "The Blossoming Bough" and "The Light Feet of Goats."

This is a direct, stalwart proclamation. It should be delivered with a certain exaltation. It is triumphant, and should be uttered with a sense of infinite confidence, superior to all times, and all things. The tone should be full and strong.

HE whom a dream hath possessed knoweth no more of doubting,

For mist and the blowing of winds and the mouthing of words he scorns;

Not the sinuous speech of schools he hears, but a knightly shouting,

And never comes darkness down, yet he greeteth a million morns.

He whom a dream hath possessed knoweth no more of roaming;