Oh! it is not just the men who face the guns,
Not the fighters at the Front alone, to-day
Who will bring the longed-for close to the bloody fray, for those
Could not carry on that fray without the ones
Who are working at war’s problems far away.
You are all our splendid heroes in the strife,
And we class you with the warriors maimed and scarred,
Though you never have been near enough the battle din to hear,
While you laboured in the dull routine of life
In your khaki suits with sleeves that are not barred.
You have offered up yourselves to save the world;
You have felt the abnegation of the Christ:
And whatever work you do is a noble work and true;
Though it be not done with banners all unfurled,
You will find it has, in sight of God, sufficed.
While you carry back no medals when you go,
Not without you had the fighters borne war’s brunt:
So just lift your heads uncowed, for your country will be proud
And its lasting love and honour will bestow
On the khaki boys who were not at the Front.
TIME’S HYMN OF HATE
Oh, boastful, wicked land, that once was beautiful and great,
How bitter and how black must be your self-invited fate,
While Time goes down the centuries and sings his hymn of hate!
Time’s voice is just. His words ring true. For as the past recedes,
The clear-eyed Future slowly writes the story of its deeds;
And as Time toward the Infinite his ceaseless flight is winging
He shall go singing
The hymn of hate, of men and gods, for all your deeds of lust,
For all your acts of cruelty and hell-concocted schemes
(More hideous than the darkest plot of which a devil dreams)
Which sprang from your Medusa head before it touched the dust.
Beneath the strangling hand of Fate
That strident voice of yours
Shall hush to silence, soon or late
That Justice that endures
Will mobilise its mighty ranks and free the human race,
Then shall all Space,
Yea, all the chains of sphere on sphere,
With that loud hymn be ringing,
Which Time goes singing
His far flight winging
And all the cherubims of God that dwell in regions o’er us
Shall swell the chorus.
Oh, boastful, wicked land, that once was beautiful and great,
How desolate and dark must be your self-invited fate,
While Time goes down the centuries and sings his hymn of hate!