Some such thoughts as these shaped themselves in my mind into the following lines in the second year of the war.
EVOLUTION
They said: Behold, battle is earth's high law,
Turn where we will is ruthlessness and strife,
Beast against beast, and plant with plant wage war,
Through havoc only gain we ampler life.
The strong leaf ousts the weak leaf from the sun,
Root strangles root in wrestle for the soil,
Close-shelved in rock lie types whose race is run,
Cast out in the eternal stress and moil.
Thus painfully, by force and guile and hate,
From flaccid forms that lurked in primal ooze,
Life, in advance from low to high estate,
Ever the weak rejects, the strong doth choose.
Shall man alone shirk universal rule,
And bind the peoples with his petty codes
That shield rank growth of weakling and of fool
And crush the hero under caitiffs' loads?
Truth is a figment, charity a myth,
Life gives its crowns to strength and craft and greed,
Why should we weave, to stay our hands therewith,
A moral net at variance with our need?
We will forswear the outworn, craven creed
That blessed the peacemakers and pure in heart,
And take the lesson taught by beast and weed
To guide our feet in court and camp and mart.
And thus they placed their land all else above,
Suckled their sons at iron paps of war,
Made mock of honour and a God of love,
Trampled on covenant and scoffed at law.