Romagne sous Montfaucon! The little towns
That scatter from the Somme to the Moselle,
Some silent sentry on their high-backed downs,
Harks still to every far white church's bell—
The humble little church of misty hills,
Set where the white roads cross, with ruined fane,
Where, through the window gaps with war-scarred sills,
A battered Christ looked out into the rain—
Silent, all silent to the passer-by,
Those lonely mounds, or rows of crosses white,
Beyond the need of bitter words they lie,
But are they silent to their friends to-night?
Can we stand whole before a crackling fire—
We, who have gone in peace year after year
Singing and jesting, working again for hire—
Deaf to the message they would have us hear?
Not while the red of poppies in the wheat,
Not while a silver bugle on the breeze,
Not while the smell of leather in the heat,
Bring us anew in spirit overseas.
Still shall we hear the voice that fell behind,
Where eddying smoke fell like a mountain wraith,
And in the din, that left us deaf and blind,
We sensed the muttered message clear—"Keep Faith."
