Let us falter in hope--and plan deeds for the morrow,
The world crowned with freedom, the fall of the foe.

As the soldier who goes from his homestead a-weeping,
And whose mouth yet remembers his sweetheart's embrace,
While all round about him the bullets are sweeping,
But stern and stout-hearted dies there in his place;

Yea, so let our lives be! e'en such that hereafter,
When the battle is won and the story is told,
Our pain shall be hid, and remembered our laughter,
And our names shall be those of the bright and the bold.

NOTE--This section had the following note in The Commonweal. It is the
intention of the author to follow the fortunes of the lovers who in the
"Message of the March Wind" were already touched by sympathy with the
cause of the people.



SENDING TO THE WAR



It was down in our far-off village that we heard of the war begun,
But none of the neighbours were in it save the squire's thick-lipped son,
A youth and a fool and a captain, who came and went away,
And left me glad of his going. There was little for us to say
Of the war and its why and wherefore--and we said it often enough;
The papers gave us our wisdom, and we used it up in the rough.