November, 1916
O preacher, prophet, martyr, sage,
Whose message falls on heedless ears,
Bethink that unrepentant age
When Noah preached for six score years;
See Israel to Baal bowed,
The persecuting Pharisee,
And all the loaves and fishes crowd
Beside the sea of Galilee.
O patriot of humble birth,
With heart to help a fellow man,
To reconstruct the things of earth
Upon a nobler, wiser plan;
The curse that mars the lowly born
Will dog your footsteps till your death,
The proud Judeans' words of scorn,
"No good thing comes from Nazareth."
O mother, when your son lies dead,
You hate this cruel world of blood,
You pay the price, with grief bowed head,
The age-old price of motherhood.
'Twas thus Eve mourned o'er Abel's loss,
Naomi grieved in tents of Shem,
'Twas thus she wept beside the cross
Who bore a son in Bethlehem.
O soldier with the shattered breast,
Beside the shell-swept Flanders road,
The One who gives the weary rest
Knows all the burden of your load.
The anguished thirst, the bitter pain,
A Father's face He could not see,
The hate of man, sin's awful stain,
He bore them all on Calvary.
EGO
The ego of the human race,
The sordid love of self,
We see it in life's hurried chase,
The grafter's greed for pelf.
The horror of the battle field,
The killed, the maimed, the blind,
The beaten foe, too proud to yield,
The ego of mankind.
The ego of the human race,
The poison in our blood,
The lying tongue, the double face,
Justice and Truth withstood.
The heavy task, the scanty pay,
The beggar with his bone,
The rich young man who went away,
The king upon his throne.
The ego of the human race,
The subtle serpent's lie
No toilsome years can e'er efface,
"Ye shall not surely die."
Eve still by serpent's word beguiled,
The curse on Ham that fell,
Poor outcast Hagar's starving child,
Cities where Lot might dwell.
The ego of the human race,
The toil each day brings in,
The idlers in the market place,
The sorrow and the sin;
Bequeathed from pre-historic sire,
In Turk and Teuton still,
The ape's inordinate desire,
The tiger's lust to kill.
FREEDOM
We're fighting now for liberty
Where'er our armies are,
We wouldn't want our king to be
A Kaiser, or a Czar.
We want no rabbi with his book,
No priest in sable stole,
For priest and rabbi ne'er can brook
The freedom of the soul.
We must be free, to work, or play,
Or loaf, just when we like,
And if we get too little pay,
Be free to go on strike:
And if, perchance, we gain our goal,
And wealth to us should come,
We must be free to take our toll,
From workman's scanty crumb.
We must be free to hit the booze
That steals our children's bread,
The cash that ought to buy them shoes,
Pour down our necks instead.
We must be free to come and go;
No Russ nor Hun are we,
There's nothing grander here below
Than British liberty.
But when, from nations drowned in tears,
For crimes by Kaiser done,
The cry goes forth for volunteers
To come and fight the Hun;
We must be free at home to stay,
While others take their chance
"Of finding little homes of clay"
In Flanders or in France.