First day of spring, now nature is reborn.
Greeted by children and poets pensive.
Birds tune their notes to sweeter songs each morn,
While sinful man doth plan – a new offensive.
A new offensive! Doth not the old offences rise?
A dreadful stench among the prayers and tears
Of those who send their cries
To God, these weary warring years.
Lord purge the hearts of all mankind,
And let the old offences out
Let all be born anew in heart and mind
And peaceful aims put all our foes to rout.
Turn all our enemies to friends,
We are thy children, so are they.
On all of us Thy rain descends
Thy sun doth cheer us with its ray.
With puny hands we fight and strive
Trying to grasp beyond our reach
Only Thy patience lets us live
Thy mercy Lord extend to each.
This poem was used to begin a new Diary book on the first day of spring 1942. It is listed as a Diary entry and has also been added to the poems collection on this site. (Unusually it does not appear in the book The Casualties Were Small which contains most of May’s poems.)
Have you read an introduction to May Hill & family (includes photographs) and explored ‘The Casualties Were Small’?