"AN OLD OFFENDER."
["It is impossible, we fear, to escape from the conclusion that there is a substantial basis of fact for the rumours ... of atrocities perpetrated by Turkish troops on the Christian inhabitants of Armenia.... By one of the Articles of the Treaty of Berlin the Porte undertook 'to carry out without delay the improvements and reforms demanded by local requirements in the provinces inhabited by the Armenians, and to guarantee their security against the Circassians and the Kurds.'"—"Times" Leader, December 4.]
Again! Is there nothing can humanise ever
The heart of Islam, that red-ravening wolf?
Will bonds of convention and treaty bridge never
Between Turk and Christian the broadening gulf?
Will no lesson teach, and will no promise tether,
The Ottoman hordes when let loose on the foe?
Must slaughter, and rapine, and outrage together,
The old vile triumvirate, fetterless go?
Time's fool seems the Turk, stern, unteachable, savage,
The fiercest fool-fighter on history's roll.
All indolent rest or undisciplined ravage.
The varnish of manner soaks not to his soul.
Red Man of the Orient, ruthless, untamable,
Neighbour, by fortune, in nothing near kin.
Humanity's brotherhood surely is blameable,
Leaving him free from Law's bondage to win!
In sheer self-defence we must muzzle and shackle
This wolf of the world; snatch its poor prostrate prey
From its crimsoning fangs. The old cynical cackle
Of "coffee-house babble" is silent to-day;
And a weapon's at hand, too long left there unlifted,
That Law and that Justice alike now commend
To the grip of Europa. Be murder short-shrifted
And bestial outrage meet summary end!
Not again must hot Islamite hate be permitted
In chase of creed-vengeance the East to embroil;
Not again must its prey fall unaided, unpitied,
The Gallio's mock, and the miscreant's spoil.
There hangs the good Berlin-blade, consecrated
By common agreement to Justice's work!
Be its blow not this time, as aforetime, belated!
Let Europe not bleed for the sin of the Turk!