LU THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



And whence came yearly argosies 



Laden with silks and corn, 



Vast fleets of countless armed men 



O'er the broad seas are borne. 

 * * * 



Though warriors fall like frosted leaves 



Before November winds, 

 They only lose what all must lose, 



But find what none else finds. 

 Their bodies lie beside the way, 



In trench, by barricade. 

 Discarded by the titan Will 



That shatters what it made. 

 Poor empty sheaths, they mark the course 



Of spirits bold as young; 

 Whatever checked that fiery charge 



As dust to dust was flung. 

 For terrible it is to slay 



And bitter to be slain. 

 But joy it is to crown the soul 



In its heroic reign. 

 And better far to make or mar. 



Godlike, but for a day, 

 Than pace the sluggard's slavish round 



In life-long, mean decay. 



Who sighs, then, for the Golden Age? 



Romance has raised her head. 

 And in the sad and sombre days 



Walks proudly o'er your dead. 



The women have contributed largely. Mrs. Annie Bethune 

 Macdougald speaks the gift of the mothers: 



WAR DEBT. 

 Some pay the tax in riven gold. 



But we in blood and tears. 

 Heart throbs, lone vigils, and passionate tendance through the years; 

 First bending low to cull the drifting smile of sleeping innocence 



incarnate 

 Then level, eye to eye, with love's divining glance. 

 Would read the riddle of the dawning man innate; 

 Held hostage still by roguish straight-limbed youth 

 And then with lifted eyes do we behold the flower 



Of manly strength stand up above us 



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And then, with miser fingers, we con the hoarded treasure of the years 

 And wonder, even as Mary, all human, all divine; 

 That all such fair investment of fine gold. 



Should buy us but a crown of glistening, bitter tears. 



******* 



'Tis thus we women pay." 



