Marcel Gaillard, Baby Number 6 in Life’s fund for
French war-orphans

What unsaid messages arise
Behind your clear and wondering eyes,
O grave and tiny citizen?
And who, of wise and valiant men,
Can answer those mute questionings?
I think the captains and the kings
Might well kneel in humility
Before you on your mother’s knee,
As knelt, beside a stable door,
Other great men, long before.

In you, poor little lad, one sees
All children and all mothers’ knees:
All voices inarticulate
That cry against the hymns of hate;
All homes, by Thames or Rhine or Seine,
When cradles will not rock again.