POETRY.
God, Who made boys for His delight, Goes in earth's hour of grief and glory And calls the boys in from the night; When they come trooping from the war Our skies have many a new gold star.
Heaven's thronged with gay and careless faces, New-waked from dreams of dreadful things. They walk by green and pleasant places, And by the crystal water-springs Forget the nightmare field of slain And the fierce thirst and the strong pain.
Forget ! God smiles to see them merry,
For His own on was once a boy; They never shall be old and weary,
But of their youth will have great joy, And in the playing-fields of Heaven
Shall run and leap, new-washed, new-shriven.
Now Heaven's by golden boys invaded, 'Seeped from the winter and the storm. Stainless and simple as He made it, God keeps the boy's heart out of harm. The old wise Saints look down and smile, They are so young and without guile.
Oh, if the sonless mothers weeping, The widowed girls, could look inside The country that hath them in keeping Who went to the great war and died, They would rise and put their mourning off, Praise God, and say: " He has enough."
KATHARINE TYNAN.
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