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.
TO THE PEACE PALACE 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 lights 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.
A VOICE FROM THE BATTLEFIELD
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.
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
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"
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.
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.
French and Russian, they matter not,
Some wrong remembered, some good forgot;
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