Back of each soldier who fights for France, <br />Aye, back of each woman and man <br />Who toils and prays through these long tense days. <br />Is the spirit of Great Joan. <br />For the love she gave, and the life she gave, <br />In the eyes of God sufficed <br />To crown her with light, and power, and might, <br />That made her second to Christ. <br /> <br /> <br />And so in that hour at the Marne she came, <br />To the seeing eyes of men; <br />And the blind of view still felt and knew <br />That her spirit had come again. <br />And she will come in each crucial hour <br />And joy shall follow despair, <br />For Joan sees her France on its knees <br />And she hears the voice of its prayer. <br /> <br /> <br />There is no hate in the heart of France, <br />But a mighty moral force <br />That takes its stand for her worshipped land, <br />And cannot be swerved from its course. <br />For this is the way with France to-day, <br />Her courage comes from faith, <br />And she bends her knee ere she straightens her arm; <br />In her forward rush toward death. <br /> <br /> <br />A jungle of beasts in the heart of the Hun- <br />War to the world laid bare. <br />And war has revealed, that France concealed, <br />Only the lion's lair. <br />A lioness fighting to save her own, <br />She fights as a lioness can, <br />And strength to the end shall the Unseen send, <br />In the spirit of Great Joan.<br /><br />Ella Wheeler Wilcox<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-spirit-of-great-joan/
