A MOTHER'S LAMENT
Written on a scrap of paper, September 26, 1915, "To ease the pain and to try to get in touch"
RAYMOND, darling, you have gone from our world, and oh, to ease the pain. I want to know if you are happy, and that you yourself are really talking to me and no sham.
"No more letters from you, my own dear son, and I have loved them so. They are all there; we shall have them typed together into a sort of book.
"Now we shall be parted until I join you there. I have not seen as much of you as I wanted on this earth, but I do love to think of the bits I have had of you, specially our journeys to and from Italy. I had you to myself then, and you were so dear.
"I want to say, dear, how we recognise the glorious way in which you have done your duty, with a certain straight pressing on, never letting anyone see the effort, and with your fun and laughter playing round all the time, cheering and helping others. You know how your brothers and sisters feel your loss, and your poor father!"
THE religious side of Raymond was hardly known to the family; but among his possessions at the Front was found a small pocket Bible called "The Palestine Pictorial Bible" (Pearl 24mo), Oxford University Press, in which a number of passages are marked; and on the fly-leaf, pencilled in his writing, is an index to these passages, which page I copy here:—
| PAGE | |
| Ex. xxxiii. 14 | 63 |
| St. John xiv. | 689 |
| Eph. ii. | 749 |
| Neh. i. 6, II | 337 |
| St. John xvi. 33 | 689 |
| Rom. viii. 35 | 723 |
| St. Matt. xi. 28 | 616 |
| Ps. cxxiv. 8 | 415 |
| Ps. xliii. 2 | 468 |
| Deut. xxxiii. 27 | 151 |
| Deut. xxxii. 43 | 150 |
| Isa. li. 12 | 473 |
| Isa. lii. 12 | 474 |
| Jude 24 | 784 |
| Ezra ix. 9 | 335 |
| Isa. xii. 2 | 451 |
| Isa. i. 18 | 445 |
| Isa. xl. 31 | 467 |
| Rev. vii. 14 | 788 |
| Rev. xxi. 4 | 795 |
| Mizpah. Gen. xxxi. 49. | |
| 14/8/15 | R. L. |
THE following poem was kindly sent me by Canon Rawnsley, in acknowledgment of a Memorial Card:—
OUR ANGEL-HOST OF HELP
IN MEMORY OF RAYMOND LODGE,
Who Fell in Flanders, 14 Sept. 1915
"His strong young body is laid under some trees on the road from Ypres to Menin." [From the Memorial Card sent to friends.]
'Twixt Ypres and Menin night and day
The poplar trees in leaf of gold
Were whispering either side the way
Of sorrow manifold,
—Of war that never should have been,
Of war that still perforce must be,
Till in what brotherhood can mean
The nations all agree.
But where they laid your gallant lad
I heard no sorrow in the air,
The boy who gave the best he had
That others good might share.
For golden leaf and gentle grass
They too had offered of their best
To banish grief from all who pass
His hero's place of rest.
There as I gazed, the guests of God,
An angel host before mine eyes,
Silent as if on air they trod
Marched straight from Paradise.
And one sprang forth to join the throng
From where the grass was gold and green,
His body seemed more lithe and strong
Than it had ever been.
I cried, "But why in bright array
Of crowns and palms toward the north
And those white trenches far away,
Doth this great host go forth?"
He answered, "Forth we go to fight
To help all need where need there be,
Sworn in for right against brute might
Till Europe shall be free."
H. D. Rawnsley
EXTRACTS FROM PLATO'S DIALOGUE
"MENEXENUS"
Being part of a Speech in honour of those who had
died in Battle for their Country
AND I think that I ought now to repeat the message which your fathers, when they went out to battle, urged us to deliver to you who are their survivors, in case anything happened to them. I will tell you what I heard them say, and what, if they could, they would fain be saying now, judging from what they then said; but you must imagine that you hear it all from their lips. Thus they spoke:—
"Sons, the event proves that your fathers were brave men. For we, who might have continued to live, though without glory, choose a glorious death rather than bring reproach on you and your children, and rather than disgrace our fathers and all of our race who have gone before us, believing that for the man who brings shame on his own people life is not worth living, and that such an one is loved neither by men nor gods, either on earth or in the underworld when he is dead.
"Some of us have fathers and mothers still living, and you must encourage them to bear their trouble, should