To Women

Your hearts are lifted up, your hearts That have foreknown the utter price. Your hearts burn upward like a flame Of splendour and of sacrifice. For you, you too, to battle go, Not with the marching drums and cheers But in the watch of solitude And through the boundless night of fears. Swift, swifter than those hawks of war, Those threatening wings that pulse the air, Far as the vanward ranks are set, You are gone before them, you are there! And not a shot comes blind with death And not a stab of steel is pressed Home, but invisibly it tore And entered first a woman's breast. Amid the thunder of the guns, The lightnings of the lance and sword Your hope, your dread, your throbbing pride, Your infinite passion is outpoured From hearts that are as one high heart Withholding naught from doom and bale Burningly offered up,--to bleed, To bear, to break, but not to fail!