KAISER, BEWARE

Dost thou, mad Kaiser, for historic name,

Set fire to Europe? Is it joy to gaze

At blacker smoke than Etna's, and a blaze

That wakes up Chaos, wild to come and claim

The World, since Light, God-bidden though it came,

Has failed to dawn upon our human ways?

O Twin of Chaos! peer thou through the haze!

'Tis Human Beings feed the crackling flame.

Beware, the smoke, like Etna's, is the curse

Of widows on thy people-dooming throne,

And in no country, more than in thine own,

Cry out all mothers: "Wherefore bear and nurse?

To feed war with our sons, our flesh and bone,

That chaos may reclaim the Universe?"