"MARCHING TO ACTION"

New Zealand Tablet, 5 December 1918, Page 13

"MARCHING TO ACTION"

The English Bookman. recently published these stanzas by C. A. McCartney, Lieut. K.RA, Dim-seen before me lies the wav, Dark stretch the fields to left and right; It wants another hour to day, Yet all the eastern sky is bright, So quick the flashes leap and die ; And we go marching silently, Our faces to the eastern sky. How fiercely leaps the battle roar! Yet overhead and all about The night is silent as of yore, And rank on rank the stars ehinei out. With one that flames exceeding bright, A lamp of God, a living light, A benediction on the night. And near me on a grassy hill, I see that Form raised up to bless; The Face that knows and pities still Two thousand years of bitterness, And dark against the troubled sky, One moment seen and then passed by. Those Arms outstretched to draw me nigh. O Way, dim seen, my feet must tread— O Cross beside, O Star before— The Spirits of the holy dead Speak to me as they spake of yore: “Lo, this is what we sought afar, The End to which all questions are The Way, the Cross, and then the Star.”