October, 1914
"The world is mad, my masters,"
The poet had the facts
To prove this sweeping statement,
In man's punk-headed acts;
For since the day when Adam
Partook of the wrong tree,
We've toiled, and slipped, and blundered;
"What fools these mortals be".
Take out your horse or auto,
And drive the country roads,
And see the fields and orchards
Bearing their precious loads.
Old Mother Earth produces
With lavish hand and free,
But half is lost or ruined
By man's stupidity.
Ten thousand tons of apples
Will surely go to waste
While poor folk in the cities
Will hardly get a taste.
We take good wheat and barley
And manufacture bums,
Whose wives and little children
Are starving in the slums.
The man that's poor as woodwork,
And nearly always broke,
Can somehow find a nickel
To puff away in smoke;
While those who have the money
To eat and drink their fills,
Are sure to over-do it,
And run up doctor bills.
If, when the times are peaceful
I kill one man, by heck!
They'll call it bloody murder,
And hang me by the neck.
In war-time he's a hero,
Who sends through air or sea
A bomb to blow a thousand
Into Eternity.
And so, dear gentle reader,
You see, by all the rules,
That earth's whole population
Except ourselves are fools.
THE CERTAINTIES
When icy blasts blow fierce and wild,
Cutting the face like steel,
And summer's heart is trodden down
'Neath winter's iron heel,
It's all a part of Nature's plan,
So stay and play the game;
Next Spring will bring the violets,
And roses just the same.
When Pharaoh's lean ill-favored kine
Have grazed the pastures brown.
And, on a parched and starving world
The brazen sun glares down;
Though Canaan's forests, fields and farms,
Are scorched, as with a flame,
There's food in Joseph's granaries
In Egypt just the same.
When Pharaoh makes the task more hard
For overburdened hands,
And stubble fields refuse the straw
His tale of bricks demands;
What matter if our little lives
Go out in fear and shame?
The waters of the mighty Nile
Flow onward just the same.
When, at the front, to bar the way,
The Red Sea waters stand,
And Egypt's hosts are close behind,
A fierce relentless band;
Intent their firstborn to avenge,
Their Hebrew slaves to claim:
Look up, and see the pyramids,
Firm standing, just the same.
When human ghouls hell's lid uplift
To plunder, burn and kill,
And Truth seems driven from her throne,
Say to your heart, "Be still!"
Don't think that Freedom's day is done,
And Honor but a name,
For right still reigns and planets gleam
In Heaven just the same.