Page:Canadian poems of the great war.djvu/61

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Douglas Leader Durkin

Stout-hearted hewers of forests,
Brown-beaten men of the soil
Heard from afar the grim challenge of war—
Rose in the sweat of their toil.

Back went the word from a people
Bred with a will to be free,
Mother, thy daughter stands ready
Still to prove daughter to thee!'
Spoke then the heart of the Mother,
Swelling with pride in her Day,
'Soul of my soul, where the battle-clouds roll,
We are one soul in the fray!'

THE MEN WHO STOOD

WHY, with the odds ten to one, did they stay,
Playing the game for a wager of blood,
Holding a legion of demons at bay
For a day and a night, for a night and a day—
Do you ask why they stood?

Shed on the soul of a man of the plains
Beams of a sun with a quickening ray,
Fill the young blood of his wild coursing veins
Full of the pride of his orient day;
Trace on his brow in the light of the morn
Symbols of dreams of a nation to be,
Touch him to visions of cities unborn
Crowding the shores of a shimmering sea;

Bring to the soul of a man of the hills
Harrowing winds from the canyons of snow,
Give him to know in the thing that he wills
Men can be gods though they suffer below;
Show him the stars where they set on the rim
Crowning the granite that lifts to the blue,
Tune the great chords of his soul to the hymn
Sung by the planets the living night through;

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