I Sit and Sew

I sit and sew--a useless task it seems, My hands grown tired, my head weighed down with dreams-- The panoply of war, the martial tread of men, Grim-faced, stern-eyed, gazing beyond the ken Of lesser souls, whose eyes have not seen Death Nor learned to hold their lives but as a breath-- But--I must sit and sew.

I sit and sew--my heart aches with desire-- That pageant terrible, that fiercely pouring fire On wasted fields, and writhing grotesque things Once men. My soul in pity flings Appealing cries, yearning only to go There in that holocaust of hell, those fields of woe-- But--I must sit and sew.--

The little useless seam, the idle patch; Why dream I here beneath my homely thatch, When there they lie in sodden mud and rain, Pitifully calling me, the quick ones and the slain? You need me, Christ! It is no roseate dream That beckons me--this pretty futile seam, It stifles me--God, must I sit and sew?