Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses Part 24

AN APPEAL TO AMERICA ON BEHALF OF THE BELGIAN DESt.i.tUTE

Seven millions stand Emaciate, in that ancient Delta-land:- We here, full-charged with our own maimed and dead, And coiled in throbbing conflicts slow and sore, Can poorly soothe these ails unmerited Of souls forlorn upon the facing sh.o.r.e! - Where naked, gaunt, in endless band on band Seven millions stand.

No man can say To your great country that, with scant delay, You must, perforce, ease them in their loud need: We know that nearer first your duty lies; But--is it much to ask that you let plead Your lovingkindness with you--wooing-wise - Albeit that aught you owe, and must repay, No man can say?

December 1914.

THE PITY OF IT

I walked in loamy Wess.e.x lanes, afar From rail-track and from highway, and I heard In field and farmstead many an ancient word Of local lineage like "Thu bist," "Er war,"

"Ich woll," "Er sholl," and by-talk similar, Nigh as they speak who in this month's moon gird At England's very loins, thereunto spurred By gangs whose glory threats and slaughters are.

Then seemed a Heart crying: "Whosoever they be At root and bottom of this, who flung this flame Between kin folk kin tongued even as are we,

"Sinister, ugly, lurid, be their fame; May their familiars grow to shun their name, And their brood perish everlastingly."

April 1915.

IN TIME OF WARS AND TUMULTS

"Would that I'd not drawn breath here!" some one said, "To stalk upon this stage of evil deeds, Where purposelessly month by month proceeds A play so sorely shaped and blood-bespread."

Yet had his spark not quickened, but lain dead To the gross spectacles of this our day, And never put on the proffered cloak of clay, He had but known not things now manifested;

Life would have swirled the same. Morns would have dawned On the uprooting by the night-gun's stroke Of what the yester noonshine brought to flower;

Brown martial brows in dying throes have wanned Despite his absence; hearts no fewer been broke By Empery's insatiate l.u.s.t of power.

1915.

IN TIME OF "THE BREAKING OF NATIONS" {1}

I

Only a man harrowing clods In a slow silent walk With an old horse that stumbles and nods Half asleep as they stalk.

II

Only thin smoke without flame From the heaps of couch-gra.s.s; Yet this will go onward the same Though Dynasties pa.s.s.

III

Yonder a maid and her wight Come whispering by: War's annals will cloud into night Ere their story die.

1915.

CRY OF THE HOMELESS AFTER THE PRUSSIAN INVASION OF BELGIUM

"Instigator of the ruin - Whichsoever thou mayst be Of the masterful of Europe That contrived our misery - Hear the wormwood-worded greeting From each city, sh.o.r.e, and lea Of thy victims: "Conqueror, all hail to thee!"

"Yea: 'All hail!' we grimly shout thee That wast author, fount, and head Of these wounds, whoever proven When our times are throughly read.

'May thy loved be slighted, blighted, And forsaken,' be it said By thy victims, 'And thy children beg their bread!'

"Nay: a richer malediction! - Rather let this thing befall In time's hurling and unfurling On the night when comes thy call; That compa.s.sion dew thy pillow And bedrench thy senses all For thy victims, Till death dark thee with his pall."

August 1915.

BEFORE MARCHING AND AFTER (in Memoriam F. W. G.)

Orion swung southward aslant Where the starved Egdon pine-trees had thinned, The Pleiads aloft seemed to pant With the heather that twitched in the wind; But he looked on indifferent to sights such as these, Unswayed by love, friendship, home joy or home sorrow, And wondered to what he would march on the morrow.

The crazed household-clock with its whirr Rang midnight within as he stood, He heard the low sighing of her Who had striven from his birth for his good; But he still only asked the spring starlight, the breeze, What great thing or small thing his history would borrow From that Game with Death he would play on the morrow.

When the heath wore the robe of late summer, And the fuchsia-bells, hot in the sun, Hung red by the door, a quick comer Brought tidings that marching was done For him who had joined in that game overseas Where Death stood to win, though his name was to borrow A brightness therefrom not to fade on the morrow.

September 1915.

"OFTEN WHEN WARRING"

Often when warring for he wist not what, An enemy-soldier, pa.s.sing by one weak, Has tendered water, wiped the burning cheek, And cooled the lips so black and clammed and hot;