THE RECKONING[ToC]

What do they reck who sit aloof on thrones,
Or in the chambered chancelleries apart,
Playing the game of state with subtle art,
If so be they may win, what wretched groans
Rise from red fields, what unrecorded bones
Bleach within shallow graves, what bitter smart
Pierces the widowed or the orphaned heart—
The unhooded horror for which naught atones!

A word, a pen-stroke, and this might not be!
But vengeance, power-lust, festering jealousy
Triumph, and grim carnage stalks abroad.
Hark! Hear that ominous bugle on the wind!
And they who might have stayed it, shall they find
No reckoning within the courts of God?

CLINTON SCOLLARD