And so once more the Persian steel
The armies of the Greeks must feel,
And once again a Xerxes know
The virtue of a Spartan foe.
Thus may the cloudy fates unroll'd
Retrace the starry circles old,
And the recurrent heavens decree
A Periclean dynasty.
W. Macneile Dixon
"WHEN THERE IS PEACE"
"When there is Peace our land no more
Will be the land we knew of yore."
Thus do our facile seers foretell
The truth that none can buy or sell
And e'en the wisest must ignore.
When we have bled at every pore,
Shall we still strive for gear and store?
Will it be Heaven? Will it be Hell,
When there is Peace?
This let us pray for, this implore:
That all base dreams thrust out at door,
We may in loftier aims excel
And, like men waking from a spell,
Grow stronger, nobler, than before,
When there is Peace.
Austin Dobson
A PRAYER IN TIME OF WAR
[ The war will change many things in art and life, and among them, it is to be hoped, many of our own ideas as to what is, and what is not, "intellectual.">[