O you who were so quick to judge—
Leader, and loved, of yore—
Hear now the judgment of our youth:
Leader and Chief no more!
THE BAYONET
(1914)
THE great guns slay from a league away, the death-bolts
fly unseen,
And bellowing hill replies to hill, machine to brute
machine,
But still in the end when the long lines bend and
the battle hangs in doubt
They take to the steel in the same old way that
their fathers fought it out—
It is man to man and breast to breast and eye
to bloodshot eye
And the reach and twist of the thrusting wrist, as
it was in the days gone by!
Along the shaken hills the guns their drumming
thunder roll—
But the keen blades thrill with the lust to kill
that leaps from the slayer's soul!
For hand and heart and living steel, one pulse of
hate they feel.
Is your clan afraid of the naked blade? Does it
flinch from the bitter steel?
Perish your dreams of conquest then, your swollen
hopes and bold,
For empire dwells with the stabbing blade, as it
did in the days of old!
THE BUTCHERS AT PRAYER
(1914)
EACH nation as it draws the sword
And flings its standard to the air
Petitions piously the Lord—
Vexing the void abyss with prayer.
O irony too deep for mirth!
O posturing apes that rant, and dare
This antic attitude! O Earth,
With your wild jest of wicked prayer!