But now, behold, what
Is warfare wherein honour is not!
Rama laments
Its dead innocents:
Herod breathes: “Sly slaughter
Shall rule! Let us, by modes once called accurst,
Overhead, under water,
Stab first.”
1915.
A CALL TO NATIONAL SERVICE
Up and be doing, all who have a hand
To lift, a back to bend. It must not be
In times like these that vaguely linger we
To air our vaunts and hopes; and leave our land
Untended as a wild of weeds and sand.
—Say, then, “I come!” and go, O women and men
Of palace, ploughshare, easel, counter, pen;
That scareless, scathless, England still may stand.
Would years but let me stir as once I stirred
At many a dawn to take the forward track,
And with a stride plunged on to enterprize,
I now would speed like yester wind that whirred
Through yielding pines; and serve with never a slack,
So loud for promptness all around outcries!
March 1917.
THE DEAD AND THE LIVING ONE
The dead woman lay in her first night’s grave,
And twilight fell from the clouds’ concave,
And those she had asked to forgive forgave.