• TO OLGA AT THE FRONT
YOUR loveliness so gay and so caressing
turned all eyes towards you as you went your way. Your goodness conquered all hearts like the blessing of sunshine on a bright and tranquil' day.
Like a tall cherry tree we saw you growing in beauty that no envious blast could wrong. Songs you would sing for our delight, not knowing that your own life was nothing but a King.
In flower of womanhood I might have found you beside your child, a mother and a wife. .
Now with an army greatcoat wrapped around you I see you in this place of storm and strife.
Your eyes to-day seemed graver and severer, but, as they met mine, I could see them glow. To me you are even lovelier, even dearer • than in those cloudless days of long ago.
You were a playmate then ; now I can greet you as a true comrade fit to work and fight, Better in this wild arctic waste to meet you than in the daisied meadows of delight Hate for our foe as by a flame is lighted by your maternal pride and tenderness, In it I now behold our Jives united, and I shall guard it as my happiness.
(From the Russitei of A. Kovalenkov, by V. de S. Pinto.)
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