<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">Let There Be Light!</h1><p class="byline"> RUTH WRIGHT KAUFFMAN <br xmlns:exist="http://exist.sourceforge.net/NS/exist" xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"/><span class="smallcaps">IN The Red Cross Magazine</span><br xmlns:exist="http://exist.sourceforge.net/NS/exist" xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"/>Permission to reproduce in this book</p><div class="stanza"><p class="line">B LACK with the blackness of hell and despair </p><p class="line">Village and village and village lay there; </p><p class="line">Never a candle and never a lamp--</p><p class="line">Four hundred miles of the enemies' camp.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Trains of munitions that creak with their loads, </p><p class="line">Supplies, horses, soldiers engulfed by the roads; </p><p class="line">An ambulance crawling, a password, and then </p><p class="line">Through the shell-shattered houses the marching of men.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Black with the blackness of wounds and of death </p><p class="line">The villages huddled there holding their breath; </p><p class="line">Black--till there rang this new order to "Cease"--</p><p class="line">"It is over!--all over!--the war!--<em>there is peace!</em></p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Come, dance on the ruins--Look, No Man's Land there, </p><p class="line">"Verboten" for years, is a world's thoroughfare; </p><p class="line">And village and village, remember the night, </p><p class="line">But turn it to day--and let there be light.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">The sorrow unburied, destruction--how much! </p><p class="line">Four hundred long miles for the taper to touch! </p><p class="line">The shades are undrawn, the lamps shining bright; </p><p class="line">It is dawn in the darkness; again There Is Light! </p></div></body></html> · Great War