■ 2 
 .E7 
 
RNATIONAL CONCILIATION 
 
 SPECIAL BULLETIN 
 
 CONTEMPORARY WAR POEMS 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 JOHN ERSKINE 
 DECEMBER. 1914 
 
 American Association (or International Conciliation 
 
 Sub-Starion 84 (407 West 1 17th Street) 
 
 New York City 
 
■Jls-i^ 
 
 
 e 
 
 1 
 
 HE poems of this collection have been chosen to illustrate 
 the emotional attitudes of the United States toward the 
 war, as those attitudes find expression in newspaper and 
 magazine verse. At another time the literary merits of 
 these pieces would invite judgment or comment; now, however, 
 the suitability of war poems for the purpose of an anthology is a very 
 minor question, and it is therefore not as a literary museum that 
 these verses are offered, but as social documents, as evidence of 
 the state of our civilization at this moment. Of course the emo- 
 tional attitudes of a nation may unfortunately change from day 
 to day, and it is quite possible that before these selections are in 
 print they may have ceased to represent the national feeling, but 
 at this moment at least we may read in them certain well-defined 
 and comtaon attitudes which are all the more significant since the 
 individual poems were written in various circumstances, and come 
 together here almost by accident. 
 
 The first observation the reader will make is that the glamor 
 of war has not touched these poems; here are no stirring battle 
 songs and no heroic ballads. Perhaps the newspaper correspond- 
 ent and the newspaper photograph have made war too frightfully 
 real for any but a horrified treatment; perhaps warfare has ceased 
 for the moment at least to be an idea of any sort, alluring or other- 
 wise, and has become, or has tended to become, for the public 
 consciousness simply an ugly and stupefying fact. But however 
 we explain it, the absence of glamor from these verses on the war 
 is a new and interesting phenomenon. Even when war has been 
 condemned in itself, poets have usually recognized the moral value 
 of certain of its by-products, or have justified the battles fought 
 in a good cause. Chivalry gave the modern gentleman the ex- 
 ample and the name for his ideal behavior, as the Roman arms 
 gave St. Paul an illustration of the Christian life; Wordsworth 
 could portray the duties of conscientious bloodshed in his "Happy 
 Warrior" without disturbing his own or his readers' equanimity; 
 Tennyson could sing of that peculiarly militaristic obedience that 
 does not discriminate between a useful and unequivocal command 
 and a fatal and obvious error — he could even satisfy us that those 
 
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men are "noble" who discard reason and execute what they know 
 is a blunder; and even yesterday, as it seems, William Vaughan 
 Moody could imply in his beautiful and otherwise enlightened 
 *'Ode in Time of Hesitation" that a war is just, even morally 
 alluring, if it rises from generous impulses and is made to serve 
 some high end. Doubtless there are many to agree with the 
 great poets in all these instances, but clearly the verse-writers 
 who have been expressing the emotional judgments of the United 
 States in the last few weeks do not agree with them. The battle 
 passages in Wordsworth's poem, Tennyson's fine song, and Moody's 
 eloquent peroration have suddenly become antiquated, and Chris- 
 tianity is invoked, not in the images of discipline and strategy, 
 but in the figure of the widowed and the orphaned and the slain. 
 There can be little question that if the United States were actually 
 in the conflict this humane attitude would largely disappear, and 
 the glamor of war would return upon much of our verse; yet never 
 before has so general a condemnation of war been voiced even by 
 a nation at peace. 
 
 Since this frame of mind prevails in these poems, it is not sur- 
 prising that the "literary" manner is absent from them. What- 
 ever else they are, these pieces are spontaneous and sincere; they 
 impress the reader as vehicles of an urgent protest rather than as 
 elaborations of a theme. No one would charge the writers with 
 having used the war for "copy." Such abstinence may not be 
 self-denial — it may not be a virtue at all; it is, however, unusual. 
 War in the past has not only fitted out ethics and religion with a 
 language of spiritual control and conflict, but it has also furnished 
 the ballad-maker with incident. This war from the beginning has 
 been rich in incident, and it broke out at a moment when narrative 
 verse, after a long interval, was returning to popular favor. We 
 might- have expected, therefore, that such a collection as this 
 would contain accounts of air- and sea-fights, of forced marches 
 and exciting encounters, but the papers have been singularly bar- 
 ren of such material. One journal complained editorially that its 
 office was deluged with verse on the war in general, but no poems 
 were coming in which dealt with single events or aspects, and the 
 editor pointed out that successful war-poems in the past have 
 confined themselves to the stirring details of the conflict, instead 
 of projecting a broad mental attitude. His testimony is signifi- 
 cant. When we have become hardened to this war or have got 
 further away from its horrors, we may begin to make literary use 
 
 4 
 
of them, but at present, it seems, the poets and their readers think 
 it a kind of sacrilege to convert any of this stupendous misery to 
 the purposes of art. 
 
 It might have been expected also that feeling so anti-military 
 would have directed itself against one or another of the warring 
 governments, as against the supposed nurse and citadel of mili- 
 tarism. Yet the poems in our newspapers have in this respect 
 shown remarkable poise; much more in fact than the editorials. 
 To be sure, a few foreign-born Americans whose spirit at such a 
 moment as this naturally resides in their fatherland, wherever 
 their physical presence may be, have expressed a violent partisan- 
 ship. To make this collection representative, examples of this 
 kind of prejudice have been included. For the most part, how- 
 ever, it has been militarism rather than any one country or govern- 
 ment that has roused the indignation expressed in these poems. 
 
 Is it fanciful to read in them a new emphasis on democracy? 
 There have always been protests in American literature against 
 the aristocratic conception of war, against the willingness to de- 
 vote the common man to the salvation or the profit of a few, but 
 the protests here gathered seem to contain surprise as well as in- 
 dignation. Why surprise? "We cannot suppose these writers are 
 ignorant of the venerable antiquity of this selfishness, or of its 
 prevalence in all aristocratic countries to-day. Carlyle summed 
 the matter for us in a famous passage in "Sartor Resartus." 
 Evidently the American poet to-day supposed that the old giant 
 of feudalism had been withered up by modern humaneness, and 
 his surprise comes from discovering his mistake. In his own in- 
 tellectual background liberal ideas of the best sort have, it seems, 
 been making during recent decades faster progress than he real- 
 ized; the manner of his protest implies that the right of all men to 
 live and enjoy life is everywhere beyond dispute, and that all life, 
 whether in peasant or noble, is equally sacred. This implication, 
 if we do not deceive ourselves in reading it throughout these 
 poems, is probably their most American contribution and their 
 chief significance. It is what makes them seem remarkably cos- 
 mopolitan. The bitterness against war here expressed is very 
 remote from the interest an outsider would manifest; the makers 
 of these verses write not as spectators of the disaster but as sharers 
 in it. Sympathy so broad has been the mark of rare natures, but 
 here it seems to be a public attitude. 
 
 Is it fanciful to discover also in certain of these poems an in- 
 
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dication of the new position that woman holds in society? War 
 has always fallen heavily on the children and the mothers, and such 
 poems as Ella Wheeler Wilcox's "The Messenger" have always 
 been part of man's comment on the tragedy of battle. But in 
 some of these poems the injustice that war does to womanhood is 
 defined in a new way, with the implication that the tragedy might 
 be avoided, and that women will no longer accept it as inevitable. 
 So at least one may read the verses by Edith M. Thomas and 
 those by Edna Valentine Trapwell. As in the rest of this collec- 
 tion the emphasis is upon the right of the common man to enjoy 
 life, peace and safety, so in these fine poems the emphasis is upon 
 woman's right to decide whether she will pay the penalty that 
 war always exacts of her. 
 
 These are the attitudes that are most clearly discovered in 
 these verses. As a whole the collection represents, so to speak, 
 the nation's first impression of the war. It should have value as 
 evidence of our instinctive reaction at a moment so searching. 
 
 John Erskine.^ 
 Columbia University. 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN WALKS AT MIDNIGHT 
 
 By Vachel Lindsay 
 
 It is portentous, and a thing of state 
 That here at midnight, in our little town 
 
 A mourning fiigure walks, and will not rest 
 Near the old court-house pacing up and down. 
 
 Or by his homestead, or the shadowed yards 
 He lingers where his children used to play, 
 
 Or thru the market, on the well-worn stones 
 He stalks until the dawn-stars burn away. 
 
 A bronzed, lank man! His suit of ancient black, 
 A famous high top-hat and plain worn shawl 
 
 Make him the quaint great figure that men love, 
 The prairie-lawyer, master of us all. 
 
 He cannot sleep upon his hillside now. 
 
 He is among us, as in times before! 
 And we who toss and lie awake for long 
 
 Breathe deep, and start, to see him pass the door. 
 
 His head is bowed. He thinks on men and kings. 
 
 Yea, when the sick world cries, how can he sleep? 
 Too many peasants fight, they know not why. 
 
 Too many homesteads in black terror weep. 
 
 The sins of all the war-lords burn his heart. 
 
 He sees the dreadnaughts scouring every main. 
 He carries on his shawl- wrapt shoulders, now 
 
 The bitterness, the folly and the pain. 
 
 He cannot rest until a spirit-dawn 
 
 Shall come; — the shining hope of Europe free; 
 
 The league of sober folk, the Workers' Earth 
 Bringing long peace to Cornland, Alp and Sea. 
 
 It breaks his heart that kings must murder still, 
 
 That all his hours of travail here for men 
 Seem yet in vain. And who will bring white peace 
 That he may sleep upon his hill again? 
 Springfield, Illinois. — The Independent. 
 
 7 
 
THE NEW BEATITUDE 
 By Richard Butler Glaenzer 
 
 In gay Brabant I have danced till the night turned rose, 
 All the health and the wealth of a Rubens before my eye. 
 
 In meadows which only the tramper of byways knows, 
 I have tasted the peace of earth neath a kind calm sky, 
 
 Glad of the Angelus, gladdened by love-looks shy 
 And the laughter of children and songs of men who mow. 
 
 All that I hear to-day is the harsh dull cry: 
 Blessed are they which died a year ago! 
 
 In Picardy plain through which all joyance flows 
 Like the tranquil Somme; and churches beautify 
 
 Every hamlet with noble shrines that spell repose: 
 And the simple peasant has never a thought to deny 
 
 A bed or a snack to the stranger wandering by, — 
 In gentle, smiling Picardy, all aglow 
 
 With poppies amid ripe wheat, I hear the sigh: 
 Blessed are they which died a year ago! 
 
 In Prussia the proud, whose boundaries enclose 
 Full many a fireside happy once to vie 
 
 In soft content with any home that owes 
 Its worth to toil and thrift, now gone awry; 
 
 Yea, in proud Prussia, not only those that fly 
 The Cossack, but women secure from death or blow, — 
 
 Do not their hearts confess (though Hps may lie) : 
 Blessed are they which died a year ago! 
 
 ENVOY 
 
 Lord Prince of Peace, who for men's sins didst die. 
 Let them not reap the whirlwind that they sow! 
 Twice-crucified, do not Thou too reply: 
 Blessed are they which died a year ago! 
 
 — The Bookman. 
 
THE MAD WAR 
 
 By Richard Butler Glaenzer 
 
 Because one man, one man, was slain — 
 No more a man than you or I — 
 
 Must nations suffer murder's stain. 
 Millions be made to die? 
 
 They have no cruel wrong to right, 
 No wrong to rouse a righteous ire; 
 
 No noble cause for which to fight 
 With heart and soul on fire. 
 
 Austria's heir was killed by plan ! 
 
 Ah, so is someone's hope each day: 
 Can vengeance give back life to man, 
 
 Though royal be his clay? 
 
 A ruler's death to punish? Then, 
 Punish the cowards and their tool; 
 
 But not a million guiltless men 
 With hungry homes to rule! 
 
 Attila and his wolfish Huns, — 
 We read of them as horror past : 
 
 That " Scourge of God " before our guns 
 Were less than trumpet-blast. 
 
 Ponder how Death now bares his teeth. 
 
 Waiting the certain holocaust; 
 The vanquished torn and crushed beneath 
 
 A conqueror half lost. 
 
 War . . . this red madness of an hour 
 Whelped from base fear by baser pride 
 
 Unbalanced by its lust for power? 
 The mailed fist defied! 
 
 One group of three who fraternise 
 
 To-day, though once close locked in hate, 
 
 To thwart another three must rise, 
 All blaming all on Fate. 
 9 
 
Christians, they prate of "Triplices" 
 
 As if of pledges made to God. 
 What is the Trinity to these 
 
 Who trample life roughshod? 
 
 The civilised! The civilised! — 
 
 Smug irony of modern cant ! 
 Culture so blind, self-idolised. 
 
 The East may well supplant. 
 
 And well may smile the pagan Mars 
 
 And grin the bloody Juggernaut: 
 Christendom rends its Saviour's scars 
 
 With weapons Judas-bought. 
 
 Harken, vain Europe — Nay, your ears 
 Can only hear your shout "To arms!" 
 
 Deaf to your women's pleading tears, 
 Your children's dazed alarms. 
 
 Yet could you hear, and heed the roar 
 
 Of sullen Asia, you would cease 
 Ruin's mad march, though cold before 
 
 Your flaunted Prince of Peace. 
 
 — The Bookman. 
 
 WAR 
 
 By Witter Bynner 
 
 Fools, fools, fools. 
 
 Your blood is hot to-day. 
 
 It cools 
 When you are clay. 
 It joins the very clod 
 Wherein your foe shall be, — 
 Wherein you look at God, 
 Wherein at last you see 
 
 The living God, 
 
 The loving God, 
 Which was your enemy. 
 
 — The Nation. 
 
A PRAYER 
 
 By Edward S. Van Zile 
 
 God of my Fathers, grant me aid ^ 
 
 That I may rout my countless foes! 
 By Thee were guns and cannons made, 
 
 From Thee the joy of battle flows. 
 
 God, who gave me might and power, 
 Thou knowest that my heart is pure. 
 
 Be with me in this awful hour. 
 That I and mine may still endure. 
 
 Thou art the God who loveth war, 
 And famine, rapine, blood and death; 
 
 1 pray Thee stand beside me, for 
 Thou knowest what my spirit saith. 
 
 The soul of me is linked with Thine 
 
 To bid the blood of heroes flow, 
 The death we grant them is divine, 
 
 And in Thy name I bid them go. 
 
 God of my Fathers, still be kind 
 
 To them who raise Thy banner high, 
 While Thou and I together find 
 
 The surest way for them to die. 
 
 They do my bidding. God, look down 
 And bless the sword that I have drawn. 
 
 My blight shall fall on field and town. 
 And thousands shall not see the dawn. 
 
 To Thee, O God, I give all praise 
 
 That Thou hast made my hand so strong; 
 
 That now, as in my father's days, 
 The King and Thee can do no wrong. 
 
 — The New York Sun. 
 
IF! 
 
 By Bartholomew F. Gritfen 
 
 Suppose 'twere done! 
 
 The lanyard pulled on every shotted gun; 
 
 Into the wheeling death-clutch sent 
 
 Each millioned armament, 
 
 To grapple there 
 
 On land, on sea and under, and in air! 
 
 Suppose at last 'twere come — 
 
 Now, while each bourse and shop and mill is dumb, 
 
 And arsenals and dockyards hum — 
 
 Now all complete, supreme. 
 
 That vast, Satanic dream! 
 
 Each field were trampled, soaked, 
 
 Each stream dyed, choked. 
 
 Each leaguered city and blockaded port 
 
 Made famine's sport; 
 
 The empty wave 
 
 Made reeling dreadnought's grave; 
 
 Cathedral, castle, gallery, smoking fell 
 
 'Neath bomb and shell; 
 
 In deathlike trance 
 
 Lay industry, finance; 
 
 Two thousand years' 
 
 Bequest, achievement, saving, disappears 
 
 In blood and tears. 
 
 In widowed woe 
 
 That slum and palace equal know, 
 
 In civilization's suicide — 
 
 What served thereby, what satisfied? 
 
 For justice, freedom, right, what wrought? 
 
 Naught! 
 
 Save, after the great cataclysm, perhap 
 
 On the world's shaken map 
 
 New lines, more near or far. 
 
 Binding to king or czar; 
 
 In festering hate 
 
 Some newly vassalled state; 
 
 And passion, lust and pride, made satiate; 
 
 And just a trace 
 
 Of lingering smile on Satan's face! 
 
 — The Boston Globe. 
 
THE VICTORY 
 
 By James J. Montague 
 
 No martial music goes before, 
 
 No stirring bugles play, 
 As in the smoking wake of war 
 
 I take my somber way. 
 But where pale women wait and weep, 
 
 Where old men cringe in dread. 
 And little trusting children sleep, 
 
 I take my toll of dead. 
 
 Afar from fame's highways I seek, 
 
 Through farm and httle town, 
 The frail, the innocent, the meek, 
 
 And swiftly strike them down. 
 They never know the battle's thrill 
 
 Nor watch the flag that waves 
 Its inspiration, ere they fill 
 
 Their unremembered graves. 
 
 They shall not wake a nation's pride 
 
 In years that are to be; 
 For war and fame march side by side. 
 
 But hunger walks with me. 
 I fill no glowing history's page 
 
 With thrilling hero lore; 
 Yet I have been, through every age. 
 
 The blackest curse of war. 
 
 — Hearst's Magazine. 
 
 13 
 
THE MESSENGER 
 By Ella Wheeler Wilcox 
 
 Copyright, 1914, by Star Company. 
 
 She rose up in the early dawn, 
 And white and silently she moved 
 
 About the house. Four men had gone 
 To battle for the land they loved, 
 
 And she, the mother and the wife, 
 
 Waited for tidings from the strife. 
 
 How still the house seemed! and her tread 
 
 Was like the footsteps of the dead. 
 
 The long day passed; the dark night came, 
 
 She had not seen a human face, 
 Some voice spoke suddenly her name. 
 
 How loud it echoed in that place, 
 Where, day on day, no sound was heard 
 But her own footsteps. "Bring you word," 
 She cried to whom she could not see, 
 "Word from the battle-plain to me?" 
 
 A soldier entered at the door, 
 
 And stood within the dim firelight: 
 
 "I bring you tidings of the four," 
 He said, "who left you for the fight." 
 
 "God bless you, friend," she cried, "speak on! 
 
 For I can bear it. One is gone?" 
 
 "Ay, one is gone," he said. "Which one?" 
 
 "Dear lady, he, your eldest son." 
 
 A deathly pallor shot across 
 Her withered face; she did not weep. 
 
 She said: "It is a grievous loss. 
 But God gives His beloved sleep. 
 
 What of the living — of the three? 
 
 And when can they come back to me?" 
 
 The soldier turned away his head: 
 
 "Lady, your husband, too, is dead." 
 
 She put her hand upon her brow; 
 
 A wild, sharp pain was in her eyes. 
 "My husband! Oh, God help me now!" 
 
 The soldier heard her shuddering sighs. 
 14 
 
The task was harder than he thought. 
 "Your youngest son, dear madam, fought 
 Close at his father's side; both fell 
 Dead, by the bursting of a shell." 
 
 She moved her lips and seemed to moan. 
 
 Her face had paled to ashen gray: 
 "Then one is left me — one alone," 
 
 She said, " of four who marched away. 
 Oh, overruling, All-wise God, 
 How can I pass beneath Thy rod!" 
 The soldier walked across the floor, 
 Paused at the window, at the door. 
 
 Wiped the cold dew-drops from his cheek 
 
 And sought the mourner's side again. 
 "Once more, dear lady, I must speak: 
 
 Your last remaining son was slain 
 Just at the closing of the fight. 
 'Twas he who sent me here to-night." 
 "God knows," the man said afterward, 
 "The fight itself was not so hard." 
 
 — The New York Evening Journal. 
 
 THE SURVIVOR 
 By Dana Burnet 
 
 Have ye heard the thunder down the wind? 
 
 Have ye seen the smoke against the sky? 
 Nay, jar my love goes from my arms 
 
 To march and die! 
 
 Have ye seen the scarlet battle flags. 
 
 The distant lightnings of the sword? 
 Nay, for my house hath lost its king, 
 
 My heart its lord! 
 
 Have ye heard the splendid lifting song 
 
 The wind-blown paean of the strife? 
 Nay, for they sing of Death — and I 
 
 Am chained to life! 
 
 — The~New York Evening Sun. 
 
 15 
 
WOMAN AND WAR 
 
 "Shot. Tell His Mother" 
 
 By W. E. p. French, Captain, U. S. Army 
 
 What have I done to you. Brothers, — War-Lord and Land-Lord and 
 
 Priest, — 
 That my son should rot on the blood-smeared earth where the raven 
 
 and buzzard feast? 
 He was my baby, my man-child, that soldier with shell-torn breast, 
 Who was slain for your power and profit — aye, murdered at your behest, 
 I bore him, my boy and my manling, while the long months ebbed away: 
 He was part of me, part of my body, which nourished him day by day. 
 
 He was mine when the birth-pang tore me, mine when he lay on my 
 
 heart, 
 When the sweet mouth mumbled my bosom and the milk-teeth made 
 
 it smart, 
 Babyhood, boyhood, and manhood, and a glad mother proud of her 
 
 son — 
 See the carrion birds, too gorged to fly! Ah! Brothers, what have you 
 
 done? 
 You prate of duty and honor, of a patriot's glorious death. 
 Of love of country, heroic deeds — nay, for shame's sake, spare your 
 
 breath! 
 
 Pray, what have you done for your country? Whose was the blood 
 
 that was shed 
 In the hellish warfare that served your ends? My boy was shot in 
 
 your stead. 
 And f©r what were our children butchered, men makers of cruel law? 
 By the Christ, I am glad no woman made the Christless code of war! 
 Shirks and schemers, why don't you answer? Is the foul truth hard to 
 
 tell? 
 Then a mother will tell it for you, of a deed that shames fiends in hell: — 
 
 Our boys were killed that some faction or scoundrel might win mad 
 
 race 
 For goals of stained gold, shamed honors, and the sly self-seeker's place; 
 That money's hold on our country might be tightened and made more 
 
 sure; 
 That the rich could inherit earth's fullness and their loot be quite secure; 
 
 i6 
 
That the world-mart be wider opened to the product mulct from toil; 
 That the labor and land of our neighbors should become your war-won 
 spoil; 
 
 That the eyes of an outraged people might be turned from your graft 
 
 and greed 
 In the misruled, plundered home-land by lure of war's ghastly deed ; 
 And that priests of the warring nations could pray to the selfsame God 
 For His blessing on battle and murder and corpse-strewn, blood-soaked 
 
 sod. 
 Oh, fools! if God were a woman, think you She would let kin slay 
 For gold-lust and craft of gamesters, or cripple that trade might pay? 
 
 This quarrel was not the fighters': — the cheated, red pawns in your 
 
 game: — 
 You stay-at-homes garnered the plunder, but the pawns, — ^wounds, 
 
 death, and "Fame"! 
 You paid them a beggarly pittance, your substitute prey-of-the-sword. 
 But, ye canny beasts of prey, they paid, in life and limb, for your hoard. 
 And, behold! you have other victims: a widow sobs by my side. 
 Who clasps to her breast a girl-child. Men, she was my slain son's 
 
 bride! 
 
 I can smell the stench of the shambles, where the mangled bodies lie; 
 I can hear the moans of the wounded; I can see the brave lads die; 
 And across the heaped, red trenches and the tortured, bleeding rows 
 I cry out a mother's pity to all mothers of dear, dead "foes." 
 In love and a common sorrow, I weep with them o'er our dead. 
 And invoke my sister woman for a curse on each scheming head. 
 
 Nay, why should we mothers curse you? Lo! flesh of our flesh are ye; 
 But, by soul of Mary who bore the Christ man-murdered at Calvary, 
 Into our own shall the mothers come, and the glad day speed apace 
 When the law of peace shall be the law of the women that bear the race; 
 When a man shall stand by his mother, for the world-wide common 
 
 good, 
 And not bring her tears and heart-break nor make mock of her mother- 
 hood. 
 
 — New York Times. 
 
 17 
 
A PRAYER OF THE PEOPLES 
 
 {On the Day of the President's Call to Prayer) 
 
 By Percy Mackaye 
 
 God of us, who kill our kind! 
 Master of this blood-tracked Mind 
 Which from wolf and Caliban 
 Staggers toward the star of Man — 
 Now, on Thy cathedral stair, 
 God, we cry to Thee in prayer! 
 
 Where our stifled anguish bleeds 
 Strangling through Thine organ reeds, 
 Where our voiceless songs suspire 
 From the corpses in Thy choir — 
 Through Thy charred and shattered nave, 
 God, we cry on Thee to save! 
 
 Save us from our tribal gods! 
 
 From the racial powers, whose rods — 
 
 Wreathed with stinging serpents — stir 
 
 Odin and old Jupiter 
 
 From their ancient hells of hate 
 
 To invade Thy dawning state. 
 
 Save us from their curse of kings! 
 Free our souls' imaginings 
 From the feudal dreams of war; 
 Yea, God, let us nevermore 
 Make, with slaves' idolatry, 
 Kaiser, czar, or king of Thee! 
 
 We who, craven in our prayer, 
 Would lay off on Thee our care — 
 Lay instead on us Thy load; 
 On our minds Thy spirit's goad, 
 On our laggard wills Thy whips 
 And Thy passion on our hps! 
 
 Fill us with the reasoned faith 
 That the prophet Hes who saith 
 All this web of destiny, 
 Torn and tangled, cannot be 
 Newly wove and redesigned 
 By the Godward human mind. 
 i8 
 
Teacli us, so, no more to call 
 Guidance supernatural 
 To our help, but — heart and will — 
 Know ourselves responsible 
 For our world of wasted good 
 And our blinded brotherhood. 
 
 Lord, our God! to whom, from clay, 
 
 Blood and mire, Thy peoples pray — 
 
 Not from Thy cathedral's stair 
 
 Thou hearest: — Thou criest through our prayer; 
 
 For our prayer is but the gate: 
 
 We, who pray, ourselves are fate. 
 
 — The New York Times. 
 
 MEMORY AWAKES 
 
 By Ethel H. Wolff 
 
 What care I for war, or who may lose! 
 Thank God that I am old, and these dim eyes 
 Long since wept dry. Fear, in her hideous guise, 
 No more can haunt my pillow till the long night flies, 
 Whispering her dreadful tale. 
 
 What is't to me that others' sons must go? 
 My share is paid in three mounds, side by side; 
 And I live on, who gladly would have died. 
 With naught to lose, whate'er may now betide — 
 Whether 'tis win or fail. 
 
 Women may lie with open eyes till the faint dawn 
 Thinking of lips that babble feebly to a darkening sky — 
 Gray hands that clutch a water flask long since run dry — 
 Of husband, lovers, sons — but not so I — 
 On dreamless seas I sail. 
 
 Prate not to me of war! I've had my fill 
 
 Of death and sacrifice and bitter tears; 
 
 Yon marching feet, and blaring music in my ears 
 
 But rend apart my graves, now green these many years — 
 
 Make Time Past drop its veil. 
 
 — The New York Times. 
 19 
 
WE MOURN FOR PEACE 
 
 [For the Peace Parade, August 29] 
 
 By Edith M. Thomas 
 
 "Who is this pacing sisterhood, 
 
 Moving in silent, broken mood. 
 
 Clad all in mourning weeds? 
 
 Are ye the celebrants of martial deeds — 
 
 The work of dauntless spirits lifted high 
 
 From many a red field where the brave for country die?" 
 
 No! We are not the celebrants of warUke deeds — 
 
 We mourn for World-Peace slain, 
 
 Hid in our hearts until she rise again! 
 
 We hate your fields of death. 
 
 Your brazen Mars that leads 
 
 Where men are reaped as grain! 
 
 Your "Glory" is to us but venomous breath! 
 
 A-near our hearts your "causes" do not lie — 
 
 Nor one, nor other, O ye warring States! 
 
 But we are they who hate your mutual hates; 
 
 And we are they whom ye shall ask in vain, 
 
 In home's dear covert to remain — 
 
 Praying at home — yet serving still your needs, 
 
 Yielding to you our sons, our brothers and our mates — 
 
 We mourn for World-Peace slain — 
 
 We mourn — but oh, not that alone! 
 
 A heresy through all our ranks is blown: 
 
 The order old is changing — shall not come again ; 
 
 No more shall tender cowardice restrain. 
 
 The "Call of Country" shall betray no more, 
 
 To trick our tears in bravery of a smile, 
 
 Gazing upon the glittering file 
 
 Of those that march away to war (so fain!) — 
 
 Of whom what remnant shall their fate restore? 
 
 We — celebrants of martial deeds? 
 Trading in precious lives more dear than are our own? 
 At last, O warring States, the soul-of-woman know — 
 We will not give our men, to serve your schemes, 
 Your cozzeningplans, and your Imperial dreams! 
 20 
 
And if ye seize them, we to slaughter too will go, 
 And in the breach ourselves will throw; 
 Upon us, too, the quiver of your hatreds rain! 
 We mourn the World-Peace slain! 
 
 — The Evening Post, 
 
 WHO PAYS? 
 
 By Edna Valentine Trapnell 
 
 Drum and trumpet and banner, banner and trumpet and drum! 
 Tramp, tramp, through the city streets the new-listed armies come. 
 Song and laugh on the transports steaming under the stars, 
 Wet eyes star-blind of those behind who pay for the nations' wars — 
 (The women who pay and have paid, dear Lord, for immemorial wars.) 
 
 Cheers and shouts greet the headlines that tell of the battles won. 
 Who remembers the death-wrecked bodies motionless under the sun? 
 "Victory stood to our banners, only a handful lost — " 
 Only! We bore those bodies, and we knovv^ what bodies cost! 
 (Mothers and wives of the soldiers dead — who better can gauge the cost?) 
 
 Man is blinded by passion, by glory or gold or power. 
 Shall we not see more clearly when it comes to the woman's hour? 
 Before we loose hell's Ughtning that shall prove a cause through strife. 
 Shall we not weigh the price we pay when the payment's in human life? 
 (Dear Lord, we know by each birth-throe the value of human life.) 
 
 Counselors, kings, and rulers, ye take what ye cannot give. 
 
 Can ye say to the things in the trenches, "Be whole, rise up ^nd live"? 
 
 Do ye know — who have killed your thousands by a word from a death- 
 tipped pen — 
 
 One little pang of the cost to those who breed you your fighting men? 
 
 (Who pays, dear Lord, for their bodies and souls but the mothers and 
 wives of men?) 
 
 — The Outlook. 
 
DOUBT 
 
 By Percy Mackaye 
 
 So thin, so frail the opalescent ice 
 Where yesterday, in lordly pageant, rose 
 The monumental nations — the repose 
 Of continents at peace! Realities 
 Solid as earth they seemed; yet in a trice 
 Their bastions crumbled in the surging floes 
 Of unconceivable, inhuman woes, 
 Gulfed in a mad, unmeaning sacrifice. 
 
 We, who survive that world-quake, quail and start, 
 
 Searching our hidden souls with dark surmise: 
 
 So thin, so frail — is reason? Patient art — 
 
 Is it all a mockery, and love all lies? 
 
 Who sees the lurking Hun in childhood's eyes? 
 
 Is hell so near to every human heart? 
 
 — Boston Evening Transcript. 
 
 DESTINY 
 
 By Percy Mackaye 
 
 We are what we imagine, and our deeds 
 Are born of dreaming. Europe acts to-day 
 Epics that little children in their play 
 Conjured, and statesmen murmured in their creeds; 
 In barrack, court and school were sown those seeds. 
 Like Dragon's teeth, which ripen to affray 
 Their sowers. Dreams of slaughter rise to slay. 
 And fate itself is stuff that fancy breeds. 
 
 Mock, then, no more at dreaming, lest our own 
 
 Create for us a like reality! 
 
 Let not imagination's soil be sown 
 
 With armed men but justice, so that we 
 
 May for a world of tyranny atone 
 
 And dream from that despair — democracy. 
 
 — Boston Evening Transcript. 
 
RHEIMS 
 
 By Percy Mackaye 
 
 Apollo mourns another Parthenon 
 
 In ruins! — Is the God of Love awake? 
 
 And we — must we behold the world's heart break 
 
 For peace and beauty ravished, and look on 
 
 Dispassionate? — Rheims' gloried fane is gone: 
 
 Not by a planet's rupture, nor the quake 
 
 Of subterranean titans, but to slake 
 
 The vengeance of a Goth Napoleon. 
 
 O Time, let not the anguish numb or pall 
 
 Of that remembrance! Let no callous heal 
 
 Our world-wound, till our kindled pities call 
 
 The parliament of nations, and repeal 
 
 The vows of war. Till then, pain keep us thrall! 
 
 More bitter than to battle — is to feel. 
 
 — Boston Evening Transcript. 
 
 IN MEMORIAM 
 
 notre dame de rheims, september, i914 
 
 By Lee Wilson Dodd 
 
 Men raised thee with loving hands; 
 
 Thy stones, more precious than gems, 
 They wrought for a Light to the Lands; 
 
 Now the Light of all Lands condemns 
 Hun and Vandal and Goth 
 
 Who serve the Lords of the Night, 
 Who have turned the coat of their troth 
 
 And darkened Our Lady of Light. 
 
 Men made thee beautiful, yea 
 
 Their hearts flowed out as they wrought; 
 Thou wast builded not for a day, 
 
 For an age thou wast builded not: 
 And they carved thy portals and towers 
 
 For peer and burgher and clown, 
 That the Book of Our Lady's Hours 
 
 Might endure tho' the sun burned down. 
 23 
 
By the grace of thy ruined Rose, 
 
 By the sullied strength of thy Towers, 
 Thou shalt triumph. Lady! Thy foes 
 
 Shall cower as the hunted cowers. 
 Thou hast not fallen in vain — 
 
 Fallen? Thou canst not fall: 
 They shall crave thy pity in pain. 
 
 Who flung thee hate for a pall. 
 
 — The New York Tribune. 
 
 PEASANT AND KING 
 
 (What the peasants of Europe are thinking) 
 
 By Christopher Morley 
 
 You who put faith in your banks and brigades. 
 
 Drank and ate largely, slept easy at night. 
 Hoarded your lyddite and polished the blades, 
 Let down upon us this blistering blight — 
 You who played grandly the easiest game. 
 Now can you shoulder the weight of the same? 
 Say, can you fight? 
 
 Here is the tragedy: losing or winning 
 
 Who profits a copper? Who garners the fruit? 
 From the bloodiest ending to futile beginning 
 Ours is the blood, and the sorrow to boot. 
 Muster your music, flutter your flags, 
 Ours are the hunger, the wounds, and the rags. 
 Say, can you shoot? 
 
 Down in the muck and despair of the trenches 
 
 Comes not the moment of bitterest need; 
 Over the sweat and the groans and the stenches 
 There is a joy in the valorous deed — 
 But, lying wounded, what one forgets 
 
 You and your ribbons and d d epaulettes — 
 
 Say, do you bleed? 
 
 This is your game: it was none of our choosing — 
 We are the pawns v/ith whom you have played. 
 Yours is the winning and ours is the losing. 
 But, when the penalties have to be paid, 
 We who are left, and our womenfolk, too. 
 Rulers of Europe, will settle with you — 
 Are j^ou afraid? —The Evening Post. 
 
 24 
 
WHO DIES IF ENGLAND LIVE? 
 
 By Morris Ryskind 
 
 London, Sept. 3. — England, ready for a staggering blow on publication of 
 the government casualty list, heaved a sigh of relief when it was found that so 
 few of the noble families had been affected. — The Mail, Sept. 3. 
 
 Ten thousand Tommy Atkinses went forth into the fray; 
 Ten thousand stalwart Tommies who gave Death their lives for pay. 
 But still we sing, "God Save the King," and thank the Fates of War: 
 For Viscount What-the-Who's-This hasnt even got a scar. 
 
 Ten thousand Tommy Atkinses, courageous, clear-eyed, brave, 
 
 Went boldly into battle — and the battlefield's their grave. 
 
 Their souls God rest! — He knows what's best: Good news, bad news 
 
 shall match: 
 The Duke of What-You-Call-It hasn't even got a scratch. 
 
 Ten thousand Tommy Atkinses that faced the German hordes; 
 Ten thousand Tommy Atkinses cut down by guns and swords. 
 In peace they sleep. — Why do ye weep, ye girls they left behind? 
 Lord So-and-So is safe and sound. — The others, — never mind! 
 
 — The Columbia Jester. 
 
 THE PRICE 
 
 By J. H. H. 
 
 A costly thing is a War Lord's word 
 When he bids his subjects draw the sword. 
 
 Here's part of the cost the Germans pay 
 
 For their Kaiser's plunge into bloody strife: 
 For a metal check they trade away 
 
 A vigorous German soldier's life. 
 Thousands and thousands of little tags 
 
 Have been garnered by British and French, they say, 
 To send to Berlin in gunny bags. 
 
 Dear God! what an awful price to pay; 
 
 And scarcely a month has flown away. 
 
 25 
 
But this is only the partial cost, 
 
 Because in the tumult of the fray- 
 Thousands and thousands of checks are lost, 
 
 And the lives they tally are thrown away; 
 For they fail to get even metal disks, 
 
 For those who bleeding and anguished stray, 
 For the souls they count in missing lists. 
 
 Great God! what an awful price to pay; 
 
 And scarcely a month has flown away. 
 
 Can the Kaiser bring them back again? 
 
 Can the War Lord still the tortured wail 
 Of wives and children for murdered men? 
 
 Oh! the shocked world shudders at the tale. 
 If 'twere only loss of yellow gold. 
 
 Or only lack of barter and sale. 
 Why, hearts might grieve, but they'd not grow cold. 
 
 Dear God! what an awful price to pay 
 
 Ere scarcely a month has flown away. 
 
 When the Kaiser bids them fight, they must; 
 , They cannot, they dare not disobey. 
 But there'll be reckoning, since God is just, 
 
 For blood and iron have had their day; 
 And out of the wreck of war for greed 
 The German nation will be freed 
 From the heavy hand of the War Lord's breed. 
 
 But God! what an awful price to pay; 
 
 And scarcely a month has flown away. 
 
 A costly thing is a War Lord's word 
 When he bids his subjects draw the sword. 
 
 Note. — Each German soldier wears an identification check. The news- 
 papers of September 7 reported that 62,000 of these checks had been gathered 
 by the Allies to be sent to Berlin. 
 
 — The New York Times. 
 
 26 
 
FOR ALL WE HAVE AND ARE 
 
 (An Answer) 
 
 By Henry B. Salisbury 
 
 "For all we have and are, " 
 
 "For all our children's fate," 
 Stand and denounce the war 
 
 Of horrid, hellish hate. 
 Let empires pass away 
 
 And kingdoms be o'erthrown. 
 For deeds ye've done to-day 
 
 Shall thrones and crowns atone? 
 
 "Though all we know depart," 
 "The old commandments stand." 
 
 "Thou shalt not kill." Ye start? 
 "Thou shalt not steal" the land. 
 
 Though emperors give the word 
 
 To drench with blood the world, 
 There's a law above the sword 
 
 By mightier power unfurled. 
 "Love thou thy neighbor as thj^self." 
 
 Heard ye that King's command? 
 Go! Royal lords of pelf, 
 
 Go! Hide your bloody hand. 
 
 Though kingly robes ye wear 
 
 (Your brother's keeper still.) 
 The mark of Cain ye bear; 
 
 Hark ye: "Thou shalt not kill." 
 The hand upon the wall 
 
 Has written out your fate. 
 "Begone." Ye rulers all. 
 
 Feel ye the millstone's weight. 
 
 The people to their own 
 
 Shall come when ye are gone. 
 Your exit shall atone. 
 
 (Ye were better never born.) 
 The brotherhood of man 
 
 From war's ruin shall rise, 
 War shall all nations ban 
 
 As your regal power dies. 
 27 
 
'Though all we know depart," 
 
 "The old commandments stand." 
 "Thou shalt not kill." Ye start? 
 "Thou shalt not steal" the land. 
 
 — The New York Globe. 
 
 TO EUROPE 
 By George Steeling 
 
 I 
 
 Beat back thy forfeit plowshares into swords. 
 
 It is not yet the far, seraphic Dream 
 
 Of peace made beautiful and love supreme. 
 For now the strong, unweariable chords 
 Of battle shake to thunder, and the hordes 
 
 Advance, where now the circling vultures scream. 
 
 The standards gather and the trumpets gleam; 
 Down the long hillside stare the mounted lords. 
 
 Now far beyond the tumult and the hate 
 The white-clad nurses and the surgeons wait 
 
 The backward currents of tormented life, 
 When on the waiting silences shall come 
 The screams of men, and, ere those lips are dumb, 
 
 The searching probe, the ligature and knife. 
 
 II 
 
 Was it for such, the brutehood and the pain, 
 
 Civilization gave her holy fire 
 
 Unto thy guardianship, and the snowy spire 
 Of her august and most exalted fane? 
 Are these the harvests of her ancient rain 
 
 Men glean at evening in the scarlet mire, 
 
 Or where the mountain smokes, a dreadful pyre. 
 Or where the war-ship drags a bloody stain? 
 
 Are these thy votive lilies and their dews. 
 
 That now the outraged stars look down to see? 
 Behold them, where the cold prophetic damps 
 Congeal on youthful brows so soon to lose 
 Their dream of sacrilice to thee — to thee, 
 Harlot to Murder in a thousand camps! 
 28 
 
Ill 
 
 Was it for this that loving men and true 
 
 Have labored in the darkness and the h'ght 
 
 To rear the solemn temple of the Right 
 On Reason's deep foundations, bared anew 
 Long after the Caesarian eagles flew 
 
 And Rome's last thunder died upon the Night? 
 
 Cuirassed, the cannon menace from the height; 
 Armored, the new-born eagles take the blue. 
 
 Wait not thy lords the avenging certain knell — 
 
 One with the captains and abhorrent fames 
 The echoes of whose conquests died in Hell? — 
 
 They that have loosened the ensanguined flood 
 And whose malign and execrable names 
 The Angel of the Record writes in blood. 
 
 — The New York World. 
 
 THE VULTURE 
 By George S. Hellman 
 
 I 
 
 With bleeding wings and shame-enveiled eyes. 
 
 How like a stricken eagle flies 
 
 The soul of mankind now! 
 
 War, the great vulture, hunts her from the skies; 
 
 His raucous voice mocks at her high desire; 
 
 His grim, embattled wings forbid her goal. 
 
 O thou world-soul, 
 
 How long shall thy dark foe besmirch thee with his mire? 
 
 II 
 
 Blame not too far the Hohenzollern pride; 
 Trace not the curse alone to Emperor or Czar; 
 Yield sorrowful applause 
 To Belgic valor, Gaul's defensive cause. 
 Or England's loyalty to treaties and to laws; 
 Yet shall no man escape the essential shame. 
 Nor any of earth's nations, whatsoe'er its name, 
 To what avail, paternity denied. 
 Since misbegotten War 
 Is the foul offspring of a sire world-wide? 
 29 
 
Ill 
 
 Oh, grim account soon to be rendered — 
 
 Illimitable columns of lost life — 
 
 When vulture War, whom mankind hath engendered, 
 
 With sated gorge flies from the fields of strife! 
 
 Then 
 
 Shall we, with searching vision of brave men. 
 
 To its far roots far-reaching evil trace. 
 
 And bear our share in a whole world's disgrace ; 
 
 Or, quibbling like mean merchants, face the score, 
 
 Crying, "The crafty Slav hath caused this war!" 
 
 Or "Sordid Anglo-Saxon!" or "Nay, 
 
 The too-ambitious Teuton — let him pay!" 
 
 IV 
 
 Immediate causes are for shallow minds: 
 He hath small sight who uses but his eyes. 
 If the world-soul sails forth on high emprise, 
 Her care is not alone the contravening winds 
 Of autocratic wills, 
 
 Or venomous shafts of ancient racial passions. 
 These shall be transient ills — 
 The forms ridiculous of barbaric fashions — 
 When once the universal voice of man 
 Proclaims in tones that God shall hear afar: 
 "In the great future's perfect plan 
 There is no place for war!" 
 
 V 
 Let tiger 'gainst fierce tiger fight in lust. 
 While the dark jungle trembles with the fray; 
 Deep crimsoning with blood the gray Saharan dust, 
 Let lions dispute their prey. 
 
 How long, Soul of Man, shall men be such as they? 
 How long, how long. 
 
 Redress of evil seek through means of greatest wrong? 
 How long shall Christian nations hurl in air 
 The final blasphemy of the battle-prayer? 
 Oh, when shall cease 
 This gibe, this cruel gibe, against their Prince of Peace? 
 
 VI 
 
 Backward move all marching feet. 
 And downward strikes each mailed hand. 
 The cry to arms confesses inan's defeat 
 In whatsoever land. 
 
 30 
 
Poor little human minds 
 
 That seek in armaments their strength or their disguise; 
 
 The trumpet blares how we are weakly wise, 
 
 The bugle blows our justice to the winds. 
 
 VII 
 
 Today 
 
 In black humiliation stand we all, 
 Seeing, how like a house of cards, 
 Similitudes, with no essential stay, 
 Shards, useless shards, 
 Civilization's boasted structures fall. 
 Not force, but wisdom, be our shield. 
 And our sword justice, man's divinest power! 
 For when these twain, that make us more than beast. 
 Sway all the earth, war shall have ceased. 
 And it may be that this disgraceful hour 
 Will from its shadows still the sunlight yield — 
 The sunlight of high peace, which man's rebirth shall see. 
 His soul from the great vulture, War, set free, O God, set free! 
 
 — The New York Times. 
 
 THE VINTAGE 
 
 By Clinton Scollard 
 
 Rumors of ravaging war perturb the mind, 
 RufiSing the channels of our wonted ease; 
 Within the sky we read red auguries. 
 
 And hear grim portents shivering down the wind. 
 
 Not as aforetime do we fondly find 
 Orchestral notes or lulling harmonies 
 In the long plunge and murmur of the seas, 
 
 But discords horrent unto all mankind! 
 
 The fields of France are bright with poppy flowers; 
 Along the terraced vineyards by the Rhine 
 The ripening grapes are crimsoning for the wine; 
 Beneath the sun what fairer sight to see! 
 But ere the march of many hastening hours, 
 What will the bloom, what will the vintage be? 
 
 — The Sun. 
 31 
 
THE RECKONING 
 
 By Clinton Scollard 
 
 What do they reck who sit aloof on thrones, 
 Or in the chambered chancelleries apart, 
 Playing the game of state with subtle art, 
 
 If so be they may win, what wretched groans 
 
 Rise from red fields, what unrecorded bones 
 
 Bleach within shallow graves, what bitter smart 
 Pierces the widowed or the orphaned heart — 
 
 The unhooded horror for which naught atones! 
 
 A word, a pen stroke, and this might not be! 
 But vengeance, power lust, festering jealousy, 
 
 Triumph, and grim carnage stalks abroad. 
 Hark! Hear that ominous bugle on the wind! 
 And they who might have stayed it, shall they find 
 
 No reckoning within the courts of God? 
 
 — The Sun. 
 
 THE WAR OF KINGS 
 By Clinton Scollard 
 
 From dawn to dusk reign horror and affright, 
 And the sad night no healing respite brings; 
 
 In all its hideous panoply of might, 
 This is the war of kings! 
 
 The people are but pawns upon the board; 
 
 What of their wants, their woes, their sufferings? 
 Speak, Death, dark watcher both by field and ford. 
 
 In this grim war of kings! 
 
 Will history still repeat the sanguine past, 
 With all its trail of ruthless anguishings? 
 
 Oh, may this slaughter-carnival be the last — 
 The last dread war of kings! 
 
 — The Outlook, 
 
X 
 
 AMERICA 
 By Conrad Aiken 
 
 We lay and smiled, to see our sky 
 
 So blue, so luminous with sun; 
 Lo, far off, wailed an ominous cry; 
 
 We heard a thunder of footsteps run 
 
 Under a darkness settling there, 
 
 Some huge and sinister wing's eclipse; 
 Smoke fouled the east; a baleful glare 
 
 Lightened beneath; and maddened lips 
 
 Took up that cry, while darkness stirred 
 And heaved, and like a wounded thing 
 
 Bled, by the utterance of one word 
 Which b^de a myriad war-swords sing. 
 
 What murderous shadow troubled so 
 
 Our summer dream? . . . The sunlight ceased. 
 
 A sick and fetid wind came slow 
 
 From the stale tenements of the east. 
 
 Brother to slay his brother rose, 
 
 The shambles fell, and from that gloom 
 
 Came the hoarse herded cry of those 
 Who blindly massed to fight for room. 
 
 Room! Give us air! A breathing space! 
 
 The sunlight and the land for all! 
 Each lifted up a stifled face. 
 
 And battered door, and beat at wall. 
 
 And surged against resurgent horde 
 
 For space to sow his little seed. 
 Lo, they would plow the earth with sword, 
 
 Strew dead on earth that earth might feed. 
 
 And we — where now our summer bliss? 
 
 From the stale tenements of the east 
 Stole fear lest we should come to this. 
 
 And prove us brother to the beast. 
 
 — The Outlook. 
 
 33 
 
WAR AND DEATH 
 
 By Helen Coale Grew 
 
 Two figures out of the gloom of despair on man's vision broke; 
 And one, colossal, brute-visaged, vengeful, and pitiless, spoke — 
 
 "I am War! And behold in the courts of the gods none is greater than I! 
 Earth quivers and reels at my gauntlet's touch, and the dome of the sky- 
 Is shattered and torn by my trumpet's blare and the flash of my sword; 
 And man at my coming is fearful and fain of the help of the Lord. 
 Yea, black is tlae doom that I spread on the world, and the ruin is wide. 
 Man may pray himself dumb! Can he slay me in fear who begot me in 
 pride?" 
 
 But he, the other, benignant, pitying, quiet of breath. 
 
 Smiled, "You shall know me and fear me not. I am but Death!" 
 
 — The Outlook. 
 
 PEACE 
 
 By Edwin Markham 
 
 Who are the ghosts in flight 
 Where siege guns spat their rage upon the night? 
 What shapes are those that shiver in the moon 
 About the towers and banners of Verdun? 
 And what those cries at night on hill and tarn 
 Down the long ruined Valley of the Marne? 
 They are the ghosts that cannot rest, that cry 
 Because there was no need to die. 
 
 And look, on the north still runs a line of fire 
 Where armies struggle in the battle-mire! 
 And yonder, see the crimson battle-rain 
 Upon the height of Aisne! 
 And farther still upon the cliffs of Oise 
 That streaming banners and the loud huzzahs. 
 And far upon the east the marching masses 
 Are pouring thru the wild Carpathian passes; 
 And the bright quiet flood 
 Of Vistula is red with brother's blood. 
 34 
 
Peace, peace, O men, for ye are brothers all — 
 Ye in the trench and on the shattered wall. 
 Do ye not know ye came 
 Out of one Love and wear one sacred name? 
 
 Let there be no more battles; earth is old 
 With sorrows; let the weary banners fold. 
 And the grim cannons spewing death on men, 
 They, too, are weary and would sleep again. 
 And they have drunk enough, the battle blades — 
 Enough, God knows, are laid asleep with spades. 
 Yes, there are ghosts enough hurled on ahead, 
 Choking the shadowy passes of the dead. 
 
 Peace, brothers; let the music of the loom 
 Help us a little to forget the doom. 
 Yes, let the busy whisper of the wheel 
 And the bright furrow of the happy keel, 
 Help to forget the rage of sword and flame, 
 And wrongs that are too terrible for name. 
 And let the grasses hurry to the graves 
 To cover them with ripple of green waves; 
 And where the fields ran reddest in wild hours, 
 Let Mercy hide them with a foam of flowers. 
 
 O brothers, lift a cry, a long world-cry 
 
 Sounding from sky to sky — 
 
 The cry of one great word, 
 
 Peace, peace, the world-will clamoring to be heard — 
 
 A cry to break the ancient battle-ban, 
 
 To end it in the sacred name of Man! 
 
 — The New York American. 
 
 35 
 
STAIN NOT THE SKY 
 By Henry van Dyke 
 
 Ye gods of battle, lords of fear, 
 
 Who work your iron will as well 
 As once ye did with sword and spear. 
 
 With rifled gun and rending shell, — 
 Masters of sea and land, forbear 
 The fierce invasion of the inviolate air! 
 
 With patient daring man hath wrought 
 
 A hundred years for power to fly, 
 And shall we make his winged thought 
 
 A hovering horror in the sky. 
 Where flocks of human eagles sail, 
 Dropping their bolts of death on hill and dale? 
 
 Ah no, the sunset is too pure. 
 
 The dawn too fair, the noon too bright, 
 
 For wings of terror to obscure 
 Their beauty, and betray the night 
 
 That keeps for man, above his wars. 
 
 The tranquil vision of untroubled stars. 
 
 Pass on, pass on, ye lords of fear! 
 
 Your footsteps in the sea are red, 
 And black on earth your paths appear 
 
 With ruined homes and heaps of dead. 
 Pass on, and end your transient reign. 
 And leave the blue of heaven without a stain. 
 
 The wrong ye wrought will fall to dust, 
 
 The right ye shielded will abide; 
 The world at last will learn to trust 
 
 In law to guard, and love to guide; 
 The Peace of God that answers prayer 
 Will fall like dew from the inviolate air. 
 
 The Hague, Netherlands. — The Independent. 
 
 36 
 
TO THE PEACE P.\LACE AT THE HAGUE 
 
 By Robert Underwood Johnson 
 
 Builded of Love and Joy and Faith and Hope, 
 Thou standest firm beyond the tides of war 
 That dash in gloom and fear and tempest-roar, 
 Beacon of Europe! — tho wise pilots grope 
 Where trusted hghts are lost; tho the dread scope 
 Of storm is wider, deadlier than before; 
 Ay, tho the very floods that strew the shore ' 
 
 Seem to obey some power turned misanthrope. 
 
 For thou art witness to a world's desire. 
 And when — oh, happiest of days! — shall cease 
 The throes by which our Age doth bring to birth 
 The fairest of her daughters, heavenly Peace, 
 When Man's red folly has been purged in fire. 
 Thou shalt be Capitol of all the Earth. 
 
 — The Independent. 
 
 A VOICE FROM THE BATTLEFIELD 
 
 By Herbert Bashford 
 
 To look upon the fool that once was I — 
 That gory thing with face half red, half white, 
 I can but smile; it seems so droll — the sight 
 Of those glazed eyes — one staring at the sky! 
 And now that all is clear I wonder why 
 I could not see until that last mad fight — 
 When I awoke in His eternal light — 
 How blind is he who marches forth to die 
 
 For some vain monarch seated on a throne! 
 If those brave soldiers there could only see 
 As I see now who draw no mortal breath. 
 No more the lifted sword, the crash and groan. 
 The thunder of the red artillery — 
 That awful, flaming orchestra of Death! 
 
 — The San Francisco Bulletin. 
 37 
 
A CHANT OF HATE AGAINST ENGLAND 
 
 By Ernst Lissauer, in Jugend 
 
 Rendered into English verse by Barbara Henderson 
 
 French and Russian, they matter not, 
 A blow for a blow and a shot for a shot; 
 We love them not, we hate them not. 
 We hold the Weichsel and Vosges-gate, 
 We have but one and only hate, 
 We love as one, we hate as one. 
 We have one foe and one alone. 
 
 He is known to you all, he is known to you all, 
 He crouches behind the dark gray flood. 
 Full of envy, of rage, of craft, of gall. 
 Cut off by waves that are thicker than blood. 
 Come let us stand at the Judgment place. 
 An oath to swear to, face to face, 
 An oath of bronze no wind can shake, 
 An oath for our sons and their sons to take. 
 Come, hear the word, repeat the word. 
 Throughout the Fatherland make it heard. 
 We will never forego our hate, 
 We have all but a single hate. 
 We love as one, we hate as one, 
 We have one foe and one alone — 
 ENGLAND! 
 
 In the Captain's Mess, in the banquet-hall, 
 Sat feasting the officers, one and all. 
 Like a sabre-blow, like the swing of a sail, 
 One seized his glass held high to hail; 
 Sharp-snapped like the stroke of a rudder's play, 
 Spoke three words only: "To the Day!" 
 
 Whose glass this fate? 
 They had all but a single hate. 
 Who was thus known? 
 They had one foe and one alone — 
 ENGLAND! 
 
 38 
 
Take you the folk of the Earth in pay, 
 With bars of gold your ramparts lay, 
 Bedeck the ocean with bow on bow, 
 Ye reckon well, but not well enough now. 
 French and Russian they matter not, 
 A blow for a blow, a shot for a shot. 
 We fight the battle with bronze and steel. 
 And the time that is coming Peace will seal. 
 You will we hate with a lasting hate, 
 We will never forego our hate, 
 Hate'by water and hate by land, 
 Hate of the head and hate of the hand. 
 Hate of the hammer and hate of the crown, 
 Hate of seventy millions, choking down. 
 We love as one, we hate as one. 
 We have one foe and one alone — 
 ENGLAND! 
 
 — The New York Times. 
 
 ANSWERING THE "HASSGESANG" 
 
 By Beatrice M. Barry 
 
 French and Russian, they matter not, 
 For England only your wrath is hot; 
 But little Belgium is so small 
 You never mentioned her at all — 
 Or did her graveyards, yawning deep, 
 Whisper that silence was discreet? 
 
 For Belgium is waste! Ay, Belgium is waste! 
 
 She welters in the blood of her sons. 
 And the ruins that fill the little place 
 
 Speak of the vengeance of the Huns. 
 " Come, let us stand at the Judgment place," 
 German and Belgian, face to face. 
 What can you say? What can you do? 
 What will history say of you? 
 For even the Hun can only say 
 That little Belgium lay in his way. 
 39 
 
Is there no reckoning you must pay? 
 What of the Justice of that "Day"? 
 Belgium one voice — Belgium one cry 
 Shrieking her wrongs, inflicted by 
 GERMANY! 
 
 In her ruined homesteads, her trampled fields. 
 You have taken your toll, you have set your seal; 
 Her women are homeless, her men are dead, 
 Her children pitifully cry for bread; 
 Perchance they will drink with you^ — "To the Day!" 
 Let each man construe it as he may. 
 What shall it be? 
 They, too, have but one enemy; 
 Whose work is this? 
 Belgium has but one word to hiss — 
 GERMANY! 
 
 Take you the pick of your fighting men 
 Trained in all warlike arts, and then 
 Make of them all a human wedge 
 To break and shatter your sacred pledge; 
 You may fling your treaty lightly by, 
 But that "scrap of paper" will never die! 
 It will go down to posterity, 
 It will survive in eternity. 
 Truly you hate with a lasting hate; 
 Think you you will escape that hate? 
 "Hate by water and hate by land; 
 Hate of the head and hate of the hand." 
 Black and bitter and bad as sin, 
 Take you care lest it hem you in. 
 Lest the hate you boast of be yours alone, 
 And curses, like chickens, find roost at home 
 IN GERMANY! 
 
 — The New York Times. 
 
 ANOTHER CHANT OF HATE 
 
 By Rosalie M. Moynahan 
 
 French and Russian, they matter not, 
 Some wrong remembered, some good forgot; 
 40 
 
England stands at the Bar alone, 
 Nemesis rises to claim her own. 
 Ireland or Belgium — dare you say 
 Whose wrongs cry loudest this Judgment Day, 
 ENGLAND? 
 
 For not in a sudden, swift campaign, 
 The World as Mourner, was Ireland slain; 
 No soldier's steel plunged straight to her heart — 
 The sword you wield has a finer art. 
 Deep in the darkness of your hold 
 You forged it with hate, you weighed it with gold; 
 You drew it with lust, 
 You swung it with sin. 
 Sure and stealthy you thrust it in. 
 And never have plucked it out again, 
 ENGLAND! 
 
 You cry aloud through the printed page 
 "For Liberty, Honor, the fight I wage!" 
 AustraHa, Canada, governed well? 
 Aye! They are distant, might rebel. 
 Ireland, helpless under your heel. 
 Proof of the value those words conceal! 
 You have wrenched their Celtic tongue away. 
 But their hate cries out in your tongue today, 
 And casts your treacherous past in the way, 
 ENGLAND! 
 
 Yet why the past do we judge you by? 
 Stricken Belgium must deny, 
 But we aloud to the world can cry: 
 "You pledged your Power to be her shield. 
 You pledged her the millions your conquests yield; 
 What help can now the wrong atone? 
 You pledged your honor — She fought alone, 
 ENGLAND!'' 
 
 They have stood at the Judgment-Place, 
 The Saints, the Heroes of our race. 
 Through the long Night of the Tyrant's sin 
 Ireland has trusted her Cause to Him. 
 "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay," 
 And God fulfills His Word today 
 Through GERMANY! 
 41 
 
MOTHERHOOD'S CHANT 
 
 By McLandburgh Wilson 
 
 French or Russian, they matter not, 
 German or Enghsh, as one begot. 
 We bore them all and we bore them well, 
 We went for them to the gates of hell, 
 We are the makers of flesh and bone. 
 We have one foe, one hate alone — 
 WAR! 
 
 He is known to you all, he has called to you all, 
 He crouches behind each boundary wall, 
 He rides on the waves of a crimson flood, 
 He rides on the tides of our children's blood, 
 He lies of glory and sacrifice, 
 Of honor and fame and pomp he lies — 
 WAR! 
 
 Come, let us stand in the Judgment Place 
 And take an oath for the human race. 
 An oath our daughters, and theirs, shall take, 
 An oath no trumpet or drum can shake. 
 We hate no sinner, we hate the sin, 
 Not those who lose, not those who win. 
 We, the makers of flesh and bone, • 
 We have one foe, one hate alone — 
 WAR I 
 
 You take the folk of our pain to slay, 
 That gold nor steel can ever repay. 
 You shall we hate with a lasting hate. 
 We will never forego our hate — 
 Hate of the heart and hate of the womb. 
 Hate of the cradle and hate of the tomb. 
 And you shall answer and make reply. 
 For we are partners of God on high. 
 What will you say before that Throne 
 To Us, the makers of flesh and bone, 
 WAR? 
 
 — The New York Times. 
 
 42 
 
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 PreservationTechnologies 
 
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 111 Thomson Park Drive 
 Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
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MARS, COMEDIAN 
 
 War, an international dementia alleged to insure the survival of the 
 fittest, should be assiduously encouraged by all unfit members of so- 
 ciety. The man with narrow chest and withered hand struggles under 
 a decided handicap in the piping times of peace. He commonly sees 
 the rich, witty and pulchritudinous female of the species carried off 
 into "happiness ever after" by strapping fellows against whom he has 
 no chance whatever in the sex arena. All this is changed, however, 
 with the declaration of war, and the arrival of the recruiting officer. 
 Apollo Belvedere is the favorite fodder of the machine gun. Shrapnel 
 screams with joy as it increases an athlete's chest expansion from seven 
 inches to thirty feet. What matters it if ten thousand mothers weep 
 and wail and gnash their teeth over the details of victory. Who taught 
 their handsome sons to love war? These are but the tears of shame- 
 less recantation. Let them turn for comfort to little Oscar whose dry 
 cough kept him out of the army; to Minnie and Hal at the State Home 
 for the Feeble-Minded. Let the unfit dead bury themselves. These 
 that survive are the fittest. — Life. 
 
 43