<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">A Colloquy</h1><h1 align="center" class="head"><em>(For M. W.)</em></h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"<span class="smallcaps">When</span> you get to Heaven, seek and find my boy.</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Mother him!" "Until you come?" "I shall never come.</p><p class="line">Earth was good enough for me who had all my joy</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:6%">In my Love, my Light of home.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"But to him be given, in overflowing measure,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">All the joys your Heaven can give if your God be just!</p><p class="line">He, my boy slain in his youth to serve some mad king's pleasure</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:6%">And his dreams and hopes in dust."</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"How shall I know him where so many boys are?</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Multitudes and multitudes ever they increase."</p><p class="line">"Oh, my boy is young and tall, with bird-russet hair</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:6%">And quiet eyes of peace.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"He who was killed in a quarrel not his own!</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">All his days he had good-will to his fellow-men.</p><p class="line">Oh, your God is kind and just, shall He not atone</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:6%">And the dark ways be made plain?</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"Seek my son and find him, so he shall not miss</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Me, his mother-comrade, through his length of days."</p><p class="line">"Oh, but he would turn from a strange woman's kiss</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:6%">And ask where his mother delays.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"So be up and going for the way's not long!</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">God who kissed His Mother dear, a Babe in Nazareth,</p><p class="line">Knows how they need mother-love, the dear and precious young,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:6%">In the new Life where is no Death."</p></div></body></html> · Great War