1942
Mar 21 Sat. 10.00. P.M.
# WELCOME TO SPRING – NEW BOOK
# A PRAYERFUL POEM

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.)