The Spirit of Great Joan

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Back of each soldier who fights for France,
   Ay, back of each woman and man
Who toils and prays through these long tense days,
   Is the spirit of Great Joan.
For the love she gave, and the life she gave,
   In the eyes of God sufficed
To crown her with light, and power, and might,
   That made her second to Christ.

And so in that hour at the Marne she came,
   To the seeing eyes of men;
And the blind of view still felt and knew
   That her spirit had come again.
And she will come in each crucial hour
   And joy shall follow despair,
For Joan sees her France on its knees
   And she hears the voice of its prayer.

There is no hate in the heart of France,
   But a mighty moral force
That takes its stand for her worshipped land,
   And cannot be swerved from its course.
For this is the way with France to-day,
   Her courage comes from faith,
And she bends her knee ere she straightens her arm;
   In her forward rush toward death.

A jungle of beasts in the heart of the Hun -
   War to the world laid bare.
And war has revealed, that France concealed,
   Only the lion's lair.
A lioness fighting to save her own,
   She fights as a lioness can,
And strength to the end shall the Unseen send,
   In the spirit of Great Joan.

from Hello, Boys! by Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1919)
Dear Motherland of France	Speak

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