Visions and Rumours of War 
that the redder they are the warfare foretold will be the 
more bloody. The Chippewa Indians believe the Northern 
Lights to be deer rushing by and phantom warriors making 
merry. There is a superstition peculiar, I believe, to 
Northern races that the falling of a star means the passing 
of a soul, while Red Indians call the Milky-way the Path- 
way of the Ghosts. A meteoric year is said to be a bloody 
year. Certainly the bloodshed of this present South 
African War is terrible, enhanced by the apparent small 
regard paid to the Red Cross flag by the uncivilised Boers. 
One hears the most pathetic stories of missing husbands 
and sons ; hardly a woman one meets but has a man 
at the war. Only the other day I heard of a poor woman 
who has all her seven sons at the front, and there is one 
in a cottage near here who has three. War-echoes pervade 
everything. Yet beautiful are the stories of heroism, quiet 
unmurmuring patience under discomfort, and unselfish 
devotion to duty. As the soldiers’ bard so truly sings : 
It’s Tommy this and Tommy that and Tommy go away ; 
But it’s thin red line of ’eroes when the band begins to play. 
But there are also heroes and heroines in the cottages 
whence the soldier-laddies come, uncomplaining parents 
awaiting for news. 
THE LAMENT OF THE SOLDIER’S WIDOW 
I cannot see, my eyes are dim, 
What is it yonder shines ? 
Is it the sunlight on men’s swords 
And serried armed lines ? 
Along the sandy highway, 
Where their hurried feet late passed, 
Are those but morning dewdrops 
On the flowerheads downcast ? 
And, for the beating of my heart, 
I cannot tell the sound 
That now upon the breeze I hear 
Borne o’er the broken ground. 
Is it the sighing of the pines 
That pierce the distant sky, 
For all the stormrift branches 
In the storm that now sweeps by ? 
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