, 1914

He did not dare!
His swelling pride laid wait
On opportunity, then dropped the mask
And tempted Fate, cast loaded dice,--and lost;
Nor recked the cost of losing.

"_Their souls are mine.
Their lives were in thy hand;--
Of thee I do require them!_"

The Voice, so stern and sad, thrilled my heart's core
And shook me where I stood.
Sharper than sharpest sword, it fell on him
Who stood defiant, muffle-cloaked and helmed,
With eyes that burned, impatient to be gone.

"_The fetor of thy grim burnt offerings
Comes up to me in clouds of bitterness.
Thy fell undoings crucify afresh
Thy Lord--who died alike for these and thee.
Thy works are Death;--thy spear is in my side,--
O man! O man!--was it for this I died?_

_Was it for this?--
A valiant people harried, to the void,--
Their fruitful fields a burnt-out wilderness,--
Their prosperous country ravelled into waste,--
Their smiling land a vast red sepulchre.--
--Thy work!_

_For this?--
--Black clouds of smoke that vail the sight of heaven;
Black piles of stones which yesterday were homes;
And raw black heaps which once were villages;
Fair towns in ashes, spoiled to suage thy spleen;
My temples desecrate, My priests out-cast;--
Black ruin everywhere, and red,--a land
All swamped with blood, and savaged raw and bare;
All sickened with the reek and stench of war,
And flung a prey to pestilence and want;
--Thy work!_

_For this?--
--Life's fair white flower of manhood in the dust;
Ten thousand thousand hearts made desolate;
My troubled world a seething pit of hate;
My helpless ones the victims of thy lust;--
The broken maids lift hopeless eyes to Me,
The little ones lift handless arms to Me,
The tortured women lift white lips to Me,
The eyes of murdered white-haired sires and dames
Stare up at Me.--And the sad anguished eyes
Of My dumb beasts in agony.
--Thy work!_

_Outrage on outrage thunders to the sky
The tale of thy stupendous infamy,--
Thy slaughterings,--thy treacheries,--thy thefts,--
Thy broken pacts,--thy honour in the mire,--
Thy poor humanity cast off to sate thy pride;--
'Twere better thou hadst never lived,--or died
Ere come to this.
Thou art the man! The scales were in thy hand.
For this vast wrong I hold thy so