Oh the Kings of earth have mobilised their men.
See them moving, valour proving,
To the fields of glory going,
Banners flowing, bugles blowing,
Every one a mother’s son,
Brave with uniform and gun,
Keeping step with easy swing,
Yes, with easy step and light marching onward to the fight,
Just to please the warlike fancy of a King;
Who has mobilised his army for the strife.
Oh the King of Death has mobilised his men.
See the hearses huge and black
How they rumble down the track;
With their coffins filled with dead,
Filled with men who fought and bled;
Now from fields of glory coming
To the sound of muffled drumming
They are lying still and white,
But the Kings have had their fight;
Death has mobilised his army for the grave.
NEUTRAL
That pale word ‘Neutral’ sits becomingly
On lips of weaklings. But the men whose brains
Find fuel in their blood, the men whose minds
Hold sympathetic converse with their hearts,
Such men are never neutral. That word stands
Unsexed and impotent in Realms of Speech.
When mighty problems face a startled world
No virile man is neutral. Right or wrong
His thoughts go forth, assertive, unafraid
To stand by his convictions, and to do
Their part in shaping issues to an end.
Silence may guard the door of useless words,
At dictate of Discretion; but to stand
Without opinions in a world which needs
Constructive thinking, is a coward’s part.
A BOOK FOR THE KING
A book has been made for the King,
A book of beauty and art;
To the good king’s eyes
A smile shall rise
Hiding the ache in his heart—
Hiding the hurt and the grief
As he turns it, leaf by leaf.
A book has been made for the King,
A book of blood and of blight;
To the Great King’s eyes
A look shall rise
That will blast and wither and smite—
Yes, smite with a just God’s rage,
As He turns it, page by page.
THE MEN-MADE GODS
Said the Kaiser’s god to the god of the Czar:
‘Hark, hark, how my people pray.
Their faith, methinks, is greater by far
Than all the faiths of the others are;
They know I will help them slay.’
Said the god of the Czar: ‘My people call
In a medley of tongues; they know
I will lend my strength to them one and all.
Wherever they fight their foes shall fall
Like grass where the mowers go.’