Call me friend or foe,
Little care I!

I go with all who go
Singing to die.

Call me friend or foe.

Taking to give,

I go with all who go

Dying to live.

Glenn Ward Dresbach

SONGS OF THE PLAINS

I

I saw a grown girl coming down
The field with water for the men.
Her hair fell golden in the wind—
She stopped and bound it up again.

Her thin dress by the wind was pressed
(Was it in passion or in play?)
Against the full growth of her breast.
The men looked up. She looked away.

II

You saw me staring at the girl

And then you stared at me.

Why did you come so close, and kiss
My lips so passionately?

I would not have you quite so young
Or quite so shy as she!

III

A gypsy passed me with a song
Where men went out to sow,

And he went down the winding road
Where the maples grow.

And still his song came back to me
When he was far away:

"The Flask holds but a pint of wine-
Tomorrow is Today!

"My love has made a tent for me

From stars above the hill

Go break your heart, and build yourself
A stone house, if you will!"

IV

I would build myself a house
On this mountain-top today,
Not to shun the world, or feel
It was shutting me away,
But that I might come at times
Little things had baffled me,
And look out, at set of sun,
On immensity.

John Drinkwater

SUNRISE ON RYDAL WATER

Come down at dawn from windless hills

Into the valley of the lake,
Where yet a larger quiet fills

The hour, and mist and water make
With rocks and reeds and island boughs
One silence and one element,
Where wonder goes surely as once

It went

By Galilean prows.

Moveless the water and the mist,

Moveless the secret air above,

To E. de S.

Hushed, as upon some happy tryst
The poised expectancy of love;
What spirit is it that adores

What mighty presence yet unseen?
What consummation works apace
Between

These rapt enchanted shores?

Never did virgin beauty wake
Devouter to the bridal feast
Than moves this hour upon the lake
In adoration to the east.

Here is the bride a god may know,
The primal will, the young consent,
Till surely upon the appointed mood
Intent

The god shall leap and lo,

Over the lake's end strikes the sun-
White flameless fire; some purity
Thrilling the mist, a splendor won

Out of the world's heart. Let there be
Thoughts, and atonements, and desires;
Proud limbs, and undeliberate tongue;
Where now we move with mortal care
Among

Immortal dews and fires.

So the old mating goes apace,

Wind with the sea, and blood with thought, Lover with lover; and the grace

Of understanding comes unsought When stars into the twilight steer,

Or thrushes build among the may, Or wonder moves between the hills, And day

Comes up on Rydal mere.

RECIPROCITY

I do not think that skies and meadows are
Moral, or that the fixture of a star
Comes of a quiet spirit, or that trees
Have wisdom in their windless silences.
Yet these are things invested in my mood
With constancy, and peace, and fortitude;
That in my troubled season I can cry
Upon the wide composure of the sky,
And envy fields, and wish that I might be
As little daunted as a star or tree.

INVOCATION

As pools beneath stone arches take
Darkly within their deeps again
Shapes of the flowing stone, and make
Stories anew of passing men,

So let the living thoughts that keep,
Morning and evening, in their kind,
Eternal change in height and deep,
Be mirrored in my happy mind.

Beat, world, upon this heart, be loud
Your marvel chanted in my blood.
Come forth, O sun, through cloud on cloud
To shine upon my stubborn mood.

Great hills that fold above the sea,
Ecstatic airs and sparkling skies,
Sing out your words to master me-
Make me immoderately wise.

Louise Driscoll

THE METAL CHECKS

[The scene is a bare room, with two shaded windows at the back, and a fireplace between them with a fire burning low. The room contains a few plain chairs, and a rough wooden table on which are piled many small wooden trays. THE COUNTER, who is Death, sits at the table. He wears a loose gray robe, and his face is partly concealed by a gray veil. THE BEARER is the World, that bears the burden of War. He wears a soiled robe of brown and green and he carries on his back a gunny-bag filled with the little metal disks that have been used for the identification of the slain common soldiers.]

The Bearer

Here is a sack, a gunny sack,

A heavy sack I bring.
Here is toll of many a soul-
But not the soul of a king.

This is the toll of common men,
Who lived in the common way;
Lived upon bread and wine and love,
In the light of the common day.

This is the toll of working men,

Blood and brawn and brain.

Who shall render us again

The worth of all the slain?

The Counter

Pour them out on the table here.

Clickety-clickety-clack!
For every button a man went out,

And who shall call him back?

Clickety-clickety-clack!