By Percy Mackaye
(American poet and dramatist, born 1875)
Crowned on the twilight battlefield, there bends
A crooked iron dwarf, and delves for gold,
Chuckling: “One hundred thousand gatlings—sold!”
And the moon rises, and a moaning rends
The mangled living, and the dead distends,
And a child cowers on the chartless wold,
Where, searching in his safety vault of mold,
The kobold kaiser cuts his dividends.