War Rhymes by Wayfarer Part 10

If he helps the Germans Lose his job for life; If he favors Britain Has to square his wife.

Holds no trumps nor aces, Cannot take a trick, Cards are all queen's faces, Tino's feeling sick.

Tino never whistles, Neither does he sing, Bed of thorns and thistles; Who would be a king?

HAS THE WORLD GONE MAD?

December, 1916

What a lack of reason In this earthly throng!

In and out of season Everything goes wrong; Over there in Europe Kaiser, king and czar, Raise a mighty flare up, Plunge a world in war.

Neither king nor kaiser Down in Mexico, Are the people wiser?

Echo answers, "No!"

There, contending factions Murder, pillage, burn; Plunder and exactions Everywhere you turn.

Has the world gone crazy?

Are the men all fools?

Is our thinking hazy, Spite of all our schools?

THE TREES

The wind that through the forest blows May scatter leaves and blossoms wide.

The parent tree but firmer grows When by the tempest torn and tried.

The stately oak withstands the storm That rocks its boughs in fiercest strife; The winds that shake its st.u.r.dy form But give a deeper, stronger life.

The maple leaves are falling fast, The sugar groves look gaunt and grim, But sap will flow when winter's past, And sweetness course through every limb.

The mighty eucalyptus tree But sheds its bark at winter's call Its leaves retain their greenery, And yield a curing oil for all.

A seedling in the Maori's time, Now, toughened by a thousand gales, Straight stands the kauri in its prime, Fit mast for proudest ship that sails.

Drooping its weary fronds, the palm In sorrow stands on sun-baked plain Till comes, like blessed healing balm, The early and the latter rain.

The n.o.ble banyan dying lives, In youth 'twould shield a single man, In age its spreading shelter gives Shade for a prince's caravan.

No weaklings these, their roots deep down In Mother Earth retain their hold.

To heaven they raise a leafy crown, Sound-hearted, loyal, earnest-souled.

WHO KNOWS

=The pessimist=

Our lot is cast in evil days We almost lose our faith in G.o.d, We cannot comprehend His ways, Nor recognize His chast'ning rod.

To stem the Hun's relentless tread, His hymns of hate, his crimes of Cain We give our daily toll of dead, But wonder if 'tis all in vain.

=The Optimist=

Brave men must fight, brave men must fall, Whene'er a tyrant lifts his head; When Freedom sounds her battle call, We must not grudge our n.o.ble dead.

E'en now the victor's shouts we hear, On blood bought hill, o'er sh.e.l.l-swept plain; The end of tyranny is near, Our struggle has not been in vain.

=The Socialist=

If, when our cheering shall have died, No more for sordid grain we plan, But shed the hoofs and horns of pride, And strive to help our fellow man, So each will get a fair return For labor done by hand or brain And none can take what others earn; The war will not have been in vain.

=The Anarchist=

If still the selfish creed we preach Of pleasure, ease and strife for gold; Employer, and employee, each Resentful, greedy, uncontrolled; Then poor men still will curse the great, And h.e.l.lish hordes will rise again With hungry, hardened, Hunnish hate; This war will have been fought in vain.

AFTERWARDS

When the war shall have ceased with its sorrow, Its hunger, and horror, and h.e.l.l, In the dawn of a brighter to-morrow, What tale will historians tell?

Will the nations get records of glory, Of cowardice, courage or crime, When the sages record the true story, To ring down the decades of time?

We believe that some peoples now broken, And crushed by the Turk and the Hun Will arise from their darkness unspoken, And stand in the light of the sun.

And it may be that Germans, grown wiser And taught at so fearful a cost, Will have hanged their contemptible Kaiser And regained the fair name they have lost.

We believe that the allies now fighting, And lavishing billions untold, Will have found, in the wrong that needs righting, A service far better than gold; That in bearing the load of another, In heeding the cry of the pained, That in staying the feet of a brother, Fresh strength for themselves will have gained.

And some lands that now cravenly study The getting of guerdons and gain, May have found their gold blasted and b.l.o.o.d.y, And tarnished by tears for the slain; And because they dishonoured their stations Were weak when they should have been strong, May be treated with scorn by the nations, A byword and hissing among.

So the scribe will set down in his pages The story the centuries tell, That, for sin, death is still the true wages, And broad the road leading to h.e.l.l.

GERMAN SECURITIES FALL

The British guns have spoken And Bill may lose his crown, The German line is broken, And saur-kraut is down.

The gallant French are storming The Huns with iron hail; They've given Fritz a warning, And limburger is stale.

The Russ is westward pushing, Herding the Huns like sheep, Thus ends the big four flushing, And liverwurst is cheap.