POETRY.
" V.A.D."
WE in the busy ward
Stay not to dream; for God has closed our eyes Lest, fronted by your giant sacrifice, 0 brothers maimed and pale, The hearts that seek to serve you, faint and fail I We, handmaids of your pain, pass onward And speak not of your glory; God has hung His silence on our lips, lest praises sung. Scare your mirth-makings, And break your happy talk of trivial things.
This be our sacrifice, You who have 'given all for one great Dream! Steadfast enduring at the sober task Of days and nights that seem Carey-winged and glamourlesa—we .not ask For flashing visions of an earlier day;
And—if it serve you, brothers—dreamless be our way 1
Hither have brought us Those years wherein we chased the flying moon,
Sought the blue roses, sailed the seas of June—
Into this quiet shade Where Vision sleeps, and Youth to rest is laid.
Through song and laughter, through the woods of Spring (Our youth had taught us) We came with dancing step and lute playing Most tender-sweet, Only for this—to kneel and wash your feet.
. . . . . . . s O Sacrament uegnessed beside the lowly bed!
Not you, not you alone Wait on our care. Perchance there waiteth One (And yet we cannot see) Who for our sake bath walked among the dead; Whose Feet His daughters wash, as once in Bethany.
Yet, if He will, His Hand be on onr eyes, that we go sightless still.
MARY-ADAIR MACDONALD.
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