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 lightning's 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!