WAR ECHOES 
 
 BY 
 
 ERNEST HOWARD CROSBY 
 
 The Victory 
 Enemies 
 
 The Battle of Atbara 
 Woman and War 
 The Tiger . 
 
 The God of War 
 Russia and America 
 My War 
 
 The New Freedom 
 Peace 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 8 
 
 9 
 
 10 
 
 11 
 12 
 15 
 
Innes & Sons 
 Publishers and Printer 
 
 Philadelphia 
 
 1898 
 
>y/ 
 
 THE BATTLE OF ATBARA, APRIL 8, 1898. 
 
 B RITISH victory in the Soudan ? ” 
 
 “ The enemy clung obstinately to the trenches, 
 and were bayonetted in them.” 
 
 “ Nothing could have been finer than the behavior of 
 the troops.” 
 
 Nothing finer indeed ! 
 
 White Christian soldiers three thousand miles from 
 home, in the pay of white Christian bond¬ 
 holders, bayonetting black Mohammedans for 
 defending their native land, and setting the 
 example of bloodshed to brown Mohammedans 
 whom they had already trained to slaughter ! 
 Good God, is it too much to hope that the day may 
 come when every sane man will shrink from 
 running a bayonet into a fellow-creature, as he 
 would now shrink from torturing a baby ? 
 
 We look back with pity, contempt and detestation on 
 the times of the rack and wheel and fagot, we 
 who are still in the thick of the Dark Ages 
 ourselves ! 
 
 A ten-fold better man is the true Mussulman dervish 
 fighting for his home, than one of these Chris¬ 
 tian hypocrites emphasizing their barbarian 
 butcheries with chaplains and crosses and Te 
 Deums and every kind of shameless lie and 
 blasphemy. 
 
 5 
 
WOMAN AND WAR. 
 
 I SAW a lamb gnashing its untried teeth, 
 Rending the fleece 
 Of its own brother, piece by piece, 
 
 Until beneath 
 
 Blood trickled red upon the heath, 
 
 And stained the mouth of that perverted lamb 
 That mouth not made to frighten, 
 
 But rather to whiten 
 
 With the innocent milk of its dam. 
 
 I heard a bobolink in June 
 Forget its limpid tune, 
 
 And choose the shriek and angry talk 
 Of a carrion hawk ; 
 
 And I saw it swooping, mad, relentless, down, 
 Where in a tuft of long couch-grass 
 Lay an unprotected nest, 
 
 Hidden from those who pass, 
 
 But, on its unnatural quest, 
 
 Spied from above as a spot of brown 
 By this unexpected pest. 
 
 “O God,” I cried, u What ails the universe? 
 
 What hell-born curse 
 
 Has stirred these gentle hearts to strike ? 
 
 What anti-natural taint 
 Makes devil and saint 
 In cruelty and hate alike? ” 
 
God did not answer; yet He was not dumb. 
 He only said : 
 
 The worst is still to come.” 
 
 And then I seemed to see 
 With eyes of dread 
 
 A sight most monstrous and unwarranted. 
 For there appeared to me, 
 
 Sadder than ought that I beheld before, 
 (Oh, blasphemy !) 
 
 A woman urging men to war— 
 
 (Ah, that such things should be !) 
 
 A pure-browed maiden urging men to war ! 
 
 7 
 
THE TIGER. 
 
 D OWN with the tiger in each of us ! 
 
 He has his proper place, no doubt, in the econ- 
 
 > 
 
 omy of nature, but it is in the depths of our 
 own private bottomless pit. 
 
 There he growls and mutters as he chafes behind the 
 
 bars. 
 
 If we could kill him, we should straightway fly into 
 atoms, and if war and lust and hatred open 
 the grating and let him spring to the surface 
 he is sure to turn the world upside down. 
 
 There is only one safe course to pursue : lock him up 
 firmly and securely, and pay no heed to his 
 subterranean roar. 
 
 8 
 
MY WAR. 
 
 
 I AM a soldier too, and I have the battle of battles 
 on my hands. 
 
 You little warriors who, while fighting each other, 
 are yet at heart agreed and see the same false 
 life with the same distorted eyes, 
 
 I have to make war upon all of you combined, and 
 upon the infernal War Spirit which inspires 
 you in the bargain. 
 
 I set my courage against your courage. 
 
 It is fine not to flinch under fire. 
 
 It is also fine to tell an unwelcome truth to a mob 
 and to call you the mad lot of murderers that 
 you are. 
 
 It is war between us to the knife, and I will not tell 
 you how well I love you until you are shamed 
 into unconditional surrender. 
 
 Then I will show you my commission, and you will 
 see that it is signed by a Commander-in-chiet 
 who may wait long for victory but never waits 
 
 11 
 
 in vain. 
 
THE NEW FREEDOM. 
 
 i. 
 
 A MERICANS, you once were free— 
 
 Free as the broad prairie and the forest pro¬ 
 found, 
 
 And then you led the world. 
 
 After your Revolution your example fired France 
 and France set Europe aflame. 
 
 Without battalions or men of war you were in the 
 van of nations. 
 
 A mere handful, living in straggling hamlets along a 
 thousand miles of narrow seaboard, 
 
 Without arms you were invincible, 
 
 Without a fortress you were invulnerable, 
 
 Your strength was your freedom. 
 
 11. 
 
 Times change and freedom changes with them, 
 
 For freedom must from age to age be born again. 
 
 The political liberty of Seventy-six, the equality be¬ 
 fore the law, of which you talk so much, is 
 no longer the living ideal that it was ; 
 
 It is now a fossil for antiquaries to toy with. 
 
 Will you play with it in the rear while the nations go 
 marching on ? 
 
 in. 
 
 Think you to lead again by dint of armies and navies 
 and coast defenses ? 
 
 Not so is the world mastered. 
 
Spread your frontiers ; take Cuba and Hawaii; be¬ 
 guile Canada if you can ; push on over the 
 great Southern hemisphere ; 
 
 Will those lands be yours ? 
 
 There is only one possession in them worth the cap¬ 
 turing and that is the hearts of men, 
 
 And these hearts can never be won by a nation of 
 slaves. 
 
 Be free and all mankind will flock to your standard. 
 
 IV. 
 
 While you talk of freedom, do you not feel the fetters 
 that are fastening on your limbs ? 
 
 While you hurrah, are you unconscious of the burden 
 which you are bearing? 
 
 Are you never weary of the endless task ? 
 
 Can you still be cheered by the devilish dream of 
 becoming task-masters in your turn ? 
 
 Up, and to death with the tyrant! 
 
 Let there be no half measures; he must be torn 
 from his insolent throne. 
 
 Show him no quarter; plunge the dagger in deep 
 again and again ; let him welter in his blood. 
 
 v. 
 
 There, at last you are rising ! Where is the oppressor, 
 do you cry ? 
 
 You will not find him in the streets. 
 
 Look for him in your own souls, for the kingdom of 
 hell is within you. 
 
 There reigns the greed for gold. 
 
There it is that you are either trampling on your fel¬ 
 low men or longing to be numbered with the 
 tramplers. 
 
 There it is that your rebellion, your revolution, must 
 begin. 
 
 Set yourselves free ; away with the usurper ; enthrone 
 in his stead the new ideal, the equal freedom 
 in love of ail mankind, liberty and union, one 
 and inseparable. 
 
 Yes ; establish first the kingdom of heaven there and 
 all things shall be added unto you. 
 
 14 
 
PEACE. 
 
 EACE, O Peace, when will the nation 
 
 Lift its eyes and understand 
 
 How thou holdest all creation 
 In the hollow of thy hand ? 
 
 Thine the strength that stays the ocean 
 Hypnotized within its bed ; 
 
 Thine the power that keeps in motion 
 Constellations overhead; 
 
 Thine the orb of love a-fire, 
 
 Lighting up the heavens profound ; 
 
 Thine the suns that never tire 
 
 Swinging planets round and round ; 
 
 Thine the furnaces white-heated, 
 
 Where they forge the cosmic powers— 
 
 Where the sons oi God once greeted 
 This new-fashioned earth of ours ; 
 
 Thine the strength, serene, unshaken, 
 Which can master self alone, 
 
 Quelling passions when they waken, 
 
 From thy calm, eternal throne. 
 
 Insult, hatred, cannot reach thee 
 At that still, majestic height. 
 
 Make us, like thee, we beseech thee, 
 Conscious of reserves of might. 
 
 
Teach us, while the battle rages, 
 What we never understood— 
 This, the mystery of the ages, 
 
 Evil overcome by good. 
 
 Far above the storms and thunders, 
 Far above the war and strife, 
 
 Far above our sins and blunders, 
 
 At the source of strength and life 
 
 There I see thy hand commanding 
 With the olive branch for rod, 
 Peace, that passest understanding ! 
 Spirit of Almighty God ! 
 
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