War Rhymes | Page 9

scanty dole,?To pay the god of war.
From out the States go mighty freights?Of cotton, corn and oil;?From West to East, to feed the beast,?The people save and toil.
The West's astir, the binders whirr?Around the settler's shack;?The threshers hum, lest winter come?Before the wheat's in sack.
The bullocks strain on loaded wain,?Piled high with bales of wool,?A season's clip from shed to ship;?The cargo must be full.
The drivers swear, the bulls by pair?Plunge panting through the dust,?Like things accurst they die of thirst?The war gods say they must.
Where battle fields dread harvests yield?The war god's revels be,?Where blood runs red, he counts the dead,?And shrieks and howls in glee.
With fiendish laughs, he fiercely quaffs?The precious crimson tide;?He'll drink his fill, nor rest until?His blood lust's satisfied.
MOTES AND BEAMS
We condemn, with hot curses, the Hun?For his piracy, perjury, pride,?For his nameless atrocities done,?For the ten million victims that died.?Then we'll lift holy hands to the skies,?When the day of our victory comes,?While pale children, with piteous cries,?Starve for bread in the slime of our slums.
We despite the degenerate Yank?With his blood-spattered idol of gold,?Who, his birthright, for cash in the bank,?And political pottage has sold.?Then we send our poor boys to the war?With a prayer that they keep themselves clean,?And we purchase a shining new car,?Praying harder for cheap gasoline.
We detest the false Bulgars and Greeks;?They must learn to be true to their friends;?They have proved themselves traitors and sneaks,?Using war for their own selfish ends.?But our grafters their pockets may fill,?While valiantly waving the flag,?Caring nothing who settles the bill,?If they only get off with the swag.
We abhor the unspeakable Turk,?For his orgies of murder and shame,?His detestable devilish work?Done in honor of Allah's fair name;?Then we pray as the Pharisee prayed,?While afar off the publican stood,?But forget the Creator has made?All the children of men of one blood.
NURSE CAVELL
November, 1915
This world has spots made holy?By deeds or lives of love,?Has shrines where high and lowly?Alike, their hearts may prove;?This age, when faith might falter?Mid shriek of shot and shell,?Has added one more altar,?The grave of Nurse Cavell.
She cared for sick and dying,?Knew neither friend nor foe,?She spent her strength in trying?To heal a neighbor's woe.?For deeds by love inspired?The Kaiser's vengeance fell?On form so frail and tired,?Heroic Nurse Cavell.
What though the Prussian kultur?Now threatened her with death;?She met the screaming vulture?In simple, quiet faith,?"I am an English woman,?I love my country well,?But must not hate a foeman,"?Said kindly Nurse Cavell.
She faced the guns with even,?Calm, fearless, English eyes,?And then, her foes forgiven,?Made willing sacrifice;?Thus, at the midnight hour,?In Prussian prison cell,?Crushed by a tyrant's power,?Died Christlike Nurse Cavell.
But when no more war legions?In battles fierce are hurled,?When, to remotest regions,?Peace reigns throughout the world;?Where'er beyond the waters?The British peoples dwell?Mothers will tell their daughters?The tale of Nurse Cavell.
'TWAS EVER THUS
November, 1916
O preacher, prophet, martyr, sage,?Whose message falls on heedless ears,?Bethink that unrepentant age?When Noah preached for six score years;?See Israel to Baal bowed,?The persecuting Pharisee,?And all the loaves and fishes crowd?Beside the sea of Galilee.
O patriot of humble birth,?With heart to help a fellow man,?To reconstruct the things of earth?Upon a nobler, wiser plan;?The curse that mars the lowly born?Will dog your footsteps till your death,?The proud Judeans' words of scorn,?"No good thing comes from Nazareth."
O mother, when your son lies dead,?You hate this cruel world of blood,?You pay the price, with grief bowed head,?The age-old price of motherhood.?'Twas thus Eve mourned o'er Abel's loss,?Naomi grieved in tents of Shem,?'Twas thus she wept beside the cross?Who bore a son in Bethlehem.
O soldier with the shattered breast,?Beside the shell-swept Flanders road,?The One who gives the weary rest?Knows all the burden of your load.?The anguished thirst, the bitter pain,?A Father's face He could not see,?The hate of man, sin's awful stain,?He bore them all on Calvary.
EGO
The ego of the human race,?The sordid love of self,?We see it in life's hurried chase,?The grafter's greed for pelf.?The horror of the battle field,?The killed, the maimed, the blind,?The beaten foe, too proud to yield,?The ego of mankind.
The ego of the human race,?The poison in our blood,?The lying tongue, the double face,?Justice and Truth withstood.?The heavy task, the scanty pay,?The beggar with his bone,?The rich young man who went away,?The king upon his throne.
The ego of the human race,?The subtle serpent's lie?No toilsome years can e'er efface,?"Ye shall not surely die."?Eve still by serpent's word beguiled,?The curse on Ham that fell,?Poor outcast Hagar's starving child,?Cities where Lot might dwell.
The ego of the human race,?The toil each day brings in,?The idlers in the market place,?The sorrow and the sin;?Bequeathed from pre-historic sire,?In Turk and Teuton still,?The ape's inordinate desire,?The tiger's lust to kill.
FREEDOM
We're fighting now for liberty?Where'er our armies are,?We wouldn't want our king to be?A Kaiser, or a Czar.?We want no rabbi with his book,?No priest in