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?

that was shed

In the hellish warfare that served your ends?

your stead.

Whose was the blood

My boy was shot in

And for 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;

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.

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 lips!

Fill us with the reasoned faith
That the prophet lies who saith
All this web of destiny,
Torn and tangled, cannot be
Newly wove and redesigned
By the Godward human mind.

Teach 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 skyGray hands that clutch a water flask long since run dryOf 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.

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 warlike 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 knowWe will not give our men, to serve your schemes, Your cozzening plans, and your Imperial dreams!