Sydney Dobell.
ALEXANDER
LXXXIV
WAR
They say that ‘war is hell,’ the ‘great accursed,’
The sin impossible to be forgiven;
Yet I can look beyond it at its worst,
And still find blue in Heaven.
And as I note how nobly natures form
Under the war’s red rain, I deem it true
That He who made the earthquake and the storm
Perchance makes battles too!
The life He loves is not the life of span
Abbreviated by each passing breath,
It is the true humanity of man
Victorious over death,
The long expectance of the upward gaze,
Sense ineradicable of things afar,
Fair hope of finding after many days
The bright and morning star.