O Glorious France

You have become a forge of snow white fire,         A crucible of molten steel, O France!         Your sons are stars who cluster to a dawn         And fade in light for you, O glorious France!         They pass through meteor changes with a song         Which to all islands and all continents         Says life is neither comfort, wealth, nor fame,         Nor quiet hearthstones, friendship, wife nor child         Nor love, nor youth's delight, nor manhood's power,         Nor many days spent in a chosen work,         Nor honored merit, nor the patterned theme         Of daily labor, nor the crowns nor wreaths         Or seventy years.         These are not all of life,         O France, whose sons amid the rolling thunder         Of cannon stand in trenches where the dead         Clog the ensanguind ice. But life to these         Prophetic and enraptured souls is vision,         And the keen ecstasy of fated strife,         And divination of the loss as gain,         And reading mysteries with brightened eyes         In fiery shock and dazzling pain before         The orient splendor of the face of Death,         As a great light beside a shadowy sea;         And in a high will's strenuous exercise,         Where the warmed spirit finds its fullest strength         And is no more afraid. And in the stroke         Of azure lightning when the hidden essence         And shifting meaning of man's spiritual worth         And mystical significance in time         Are instantly distilled to one clear drop         Which mirrors earth and heaven.             This is life         Flaming to heaven in a minute's span         When the breath of battle blows the smoldering spark.         And across these seas         We who cry Peace and treasure life and cling         To cities, happiness, or daily toil         For daily bread, or trail the long routine         Of seventy years, taste not the terrible wine         Whereof you drink, who drain and toss the cup         Empty and ringing by the finished feast;         Or have it shaken from your hand by sight         Of God against the olive woods.         As Joan of Arc amid the apple trees         With sacred joy first heard the voices, then         Obeying plunged at Orleans in a field         Of spears and lived her dream and died in fire,         Thou, France, hast heard the voices and hast lived         The dream and known the meaning of the dream,         And read its riddle: How the soul of man         May to one greatest purpose make itself         A lens of clearness, how it loves the cup         Of deepest truth, and how its bitterest gall         Turns sweet to soul's surrender.          And you say:         Take days for repetition, stretch your hands         For mocked renewal of familiar things:         The beaten path, the chair beside the window,         The crowded street, the task, the accustomed sleep,         And waking to the task, or many springs         Of lifted cloud, blue water, flowering fields -         The prison house grows close no less, the feast         A place of memory sick for senses dulled         Down to the dusty end where pitiful Time         Grown weary cries Enough!