TO WOMEN.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 204, 2 October 1914, Page 6

TO WOMEN.

Your hearts are lifted up, your hearts That have foreknown the utter priee, Your hearts burn upward as a flame Of splendour and of sacrifice. For you,, you too to battle go, Not with the inarching drums and cheers, But in the watch of I solitude And through the boundless night of fears. Swift, sAvifter than those hawks of Avar, Those threatening wings that pulse the air, Far as the vanward ranks are set, You are gone before them, you are there! And not a shpt comes blind with death, And not a stab of steel is pressed Home, but invisibly it tore And entered first a woman's breast. Amid the thunder of the guns, The lightning of the lance and sword, Your hope, your dread, your throbbing pride, Your infinite passion is outpoured. From hearts that are as one high heart, Withholding naught from doom and bale, Burningly offered up —to bleed, To bear, to break, but not to fail. —LAURENCE BIN YON.