Page:Armistice Day.djvu/85

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DE PROFUNDIS
63

II.

DE PROFUNDIS

BY BRENT DOW ALLINSON

(What the Regimental Chaplain Should Have Prayed)

Cometh the dawn: ye men who know
Infinite anguish, infinite woe,—
Blinded and scourged in a ghastly doom,
Yearning and staggering through the gloom
Of filthy war,—O Youth laid low,
Dreaming of clean things long ago,
Of Christmas eves and drifted snow,
Cursing the savage cannon-boom,—
Cometh the dawn!


All things end sometime here below,
Even hate and war; it must be so ...
The rotting flesh, the riven gloom,
Will vanish with the dreaded foe,
And peace will come and May winds blow,
And thrushes sing where lilacs bloom:
Cometh the dawn!