War is Kind | Page 2

riot of silver lights,?And the gold of the knight's good banner?Still waved on a castle wall.?. . . . . . .?A horse,?Blowing, staggering, bloody thing,?Forgotten at foot of castle wall.?A horse?Dead at foot of castle wall.
Forth went the candid man?And spoke freely to the wind--?When he looked about him he was in a far
strange country.
Forth went the candid man?And spoke freely to the stars--?Yellow light tore sight from his eye.
"My good fool," said a learned bystander,?"Your operations are mad."
"You are too candid," cried the candid man.?And when his stick left the head of the
learned bystander?It was two sticks.
You tell me this is God??I tell you this is a printed list,?A burning candle and an ass.
On the desert?A silence from the moon's deepest
valley.?Fire rays fall athwart the robes?Of hooded men, squat and dumb.?Before them, a woman?Moves to the blowing of shrill whistles?And distant thunder of drums,?While mystic things, sinuous, dull with
terrible color,?Sleepily fondle her body?Or move at her will, swishing stealthily over
the sand.?The snakes whisper softly;?The whispering, whispering snakes,?Dreaming and swaying and staring,?But always whispering, softly whispering.?The wind streams from the lone reaches?Of Arabia, solemn with night,?And the wild fire makes shimmer of blood?Over the robes of the hooded men?Squat and dumb.
Bands of moving bronze, emerald, yellow,?Circle the throat and arms of her,?And over the sands serpents move warily?Slow, menacing and submissive,?Swinging to the whistles and drums,?The whispering, whispering snakes,?Dreaming and swaying and staring,?But always whispering, softly whispering.?The dignity of the accursed;?The glory of slavery, despair, death,?Is in the dance of the whispering snakes.
A newspaper is a collection of half-injustices?Which, bawled by boys from mile to mile,?Spreads its curious opinion?To a million merciful and sneering men,?While families cuddle the joys of the fireside?When spurred by tale of dire lone agony.?A newspaper is a court?Where every one is kindly and unfairly tried?By a squalor of honest men.?A newspaper is a market?Where wisdom sells its freedom?And melons are crowned by the crowd.?A newspaper is a game?Where his error scores the player victory?While another's skill wins death.?A newspaper is a symbol;?It is fetless life's chronical,?A collection of loud tales?Concentrating eternal stupidities,?That in remote ages lived unhaltered,?Roaming through a fenceless world.
The wayfarer,?Perceiving the pathway to truth,?Was struck with astonishment.?It was thickly grown with weeds.?"Ha," he said,?"I see that none has passed here?"In a long time."?Later he saw that each weed?Was a singular knife.?"Well," he mumbled at last,?"Doubtless there are other roads."
A slant of sun on dull brown walls,?A forgotten sky of bashful blue.
Toward God a mighty hymn,?A song of collisions and cries,?Rumbling wheels, hoof-beats, bells,?Welcomes, farewells, love-calls, final moans,?Voices of joy, idiocy, warning, despair,?The unknown appeals of brutes,?The chanting of flowers,?The screams of cut trees,?The senseless babble of hens and wise men--?A cluttered incoherency that says at the
stars;?"O God, save us!"
Once a man clambering to the housetops?Appealed to the heavens.?With a strong voice he called to the deaf
spheres;?A warrior's shout he raised to the suns.?Lo, at last, there was a dot on the clouds,?And--at last and at last--?--God--the sky was filled with armies.
There was a man with tongue of wood?Who essayed to sing,?And in truth it was lamentable.?But there was one who heard?The clip-clapper of this tongue of wood?And knew what the man?Wished to sing,?And with that the singer was content.
The successful man has thrust himself?Through the water of the years,?Reeking wet with mistakes,--?Bloody mistakes;?Slimed with victories over the lesser,?A figure thankful on the shore of money.?Then, with the bones of fools?He buys silken banners?Limned with his triumphant face;?With the skins of wise men?He buys the trivial bows of all.?Flesh painted with marrow?Contributes a coverlet,?A coverlet for his contented slumber.?In guiltless ignorance, in ignorant guilt,?He delivered his secrets to the riven multitude.?"Thus I defended: Thus I wrought."?Complacent, smiling,?He stands heavily on the dead.?Erect on a pillar of skulls?He declaims his trampling of babes;?Smirking, fat, dripping,?He makes speech in guiltless ignorance,?Innocence.
In the night?Grey heavy clouds muffled the valleys,?And the peaks looked toward God alone.
"O Master that movest the wind with a?finger,?"Humble, idle, futile peaks are we.?"Grant that we may run swiftly across
the world?"To huddle in worship at Thy feet."
In the morning?A noise of men at work came the clear blue miles,?And the little black cities were apparent.
"O Master that knowest the meaning of raindrops,?"Humble, idle, futile peaks are we.?"Give voice to us, we pray, O Lord,?"That we may sing Thy goodness to the sun."?In the evening?The far valleys were sprinkled with tiny lights.?"O Master,?"Thou that knowest the value of kings and birds,?"Thou hast made us humble, idle, futile peaks.?"Thous only needest eternal patience;?"We bow to Thy wisdom, O Lord--?"Humble, idle, futile peaks."
In the night?Grey heavy clouds muffles the valleys,?And the peaks looked toward God alone.
The chatter of a death-demon from a tree-top.
Blood--blood and torn grass--?Had marked the rise of his agony--?This lone hunter.?The grey-green woods impassive?Had watched the threshing of his limbs.
A canoe with flashing