And we ourselves? Are our hands clean?
Are our souls free from blame
For this world-tragedy?
Nay then! Like all the rest,
We had relaxed our hold on higher things,
And satisfied ourselves with smaller.
Ease, pleasure, greed of gold,—
Laxed morals even in these,—
We suffered them, as unaware
Of their soul-cankerings.
We had slipped back along the sloping way,
No longer holding First Things First,
But throning gods emasculate,—
Idols of our own fashioning,
Heads of sham gold and feet of crumbling clay.
If we would build anew, and build to stay,
We must find God again,
And go His way.
POLICEMAN X
"Shall it be Peace?
A voice within me cried and would not cease,—
'One man could do it if he would but dare.'"
(From "Policeman X" in "Bees in Amber.")
EPILOGUE, 1914
He did not dare!
His swelling pride laid wait
On opportunity, then dropped the mask
And tempted Fate, cast loaded dice,—and lost;
Nor recked the cost of losing.
"Their souls are mine.
Their lives were in thy hand;—
Of thee I do require them!"
The Voice, so stern and sad, thrilled my heart's core
And shook me where I stood.
Sharper than sharpest sword, it fell on him
Who stood defiant, muffle-cloaked and helmed,
With eyes that burned, impatient to be gone.
"The fetor of thy grim burnt offerings
Comes up to me in clouds of bitterness.
Thy fell undoings crucify afresh
Thy Lord—who died alike for these and thee.
Thy works are Death;—thy spear is in my side,—
O man! O man!—was it for this I died?
Was it for this?—
A valiant people harried, to the void,—
Their fruitful fields a burnt-out wilderness,—
Their prosperous country ravelled into waste,—
Their smiling land a vast red sepulchre.—
—Thy work!
For this?—
—Black clouds of smoke that vail the sight of heaven;
Black piles of stones which yesterday were homes;
And raw black heaps which once were villages;
Fair towns in ashes, spoiled to suage thy spleen;
My temples desecrate, My priests out-cast;—
Black ruin everywhere, and red,—a land
All swamped with blood, and savaged raw and bare;
All sickened with the reek and stench of war,
And flung a prey to pestilence and want;
—Thy work!