FORGOTTEN DEAD, I SALUTE YOU.

New Zealand Tablet, 13 November 1919, Page 9

FORGOTTEN DEAD, I SALUTE YOU.

Dawn has flashed up the startled skies, Night has gone out beneath the hill Many sweet times before our eyes June makes and unmakes divinely still The daily magic of the rose. The gentle history of the rain Has been unfolded, traced, and lost By the sharp fingertip of frost; Birds in the bracken build again; . The hare makes soft her secret house The great winds' tourney comes and goes, Tilting and tossing in tho boughs; The moon has waxed fierce and waned dim— Ho knew tho beauty of all those Last year, and who remembers him? None shall remember him: he lies In earth of some strange-sounding place, Tho wind his only chant, the rain The only tears upon his face. He holds no place in memories Of living men ; yet such as he Have made it possible and sure For other lives to have, to For men to sleep content, secure. Ho gave, as Christ, the life he had, The only life desired or known; For strangers this forgotten dead "Went out into tho night alone. There was his body broken for you, There was his blood divinely shed That huddled now with weed and stone In some dark field lie lost and dim: Eat, drink, and often as you do, For whom he died, remember him. Muriel Stuart.