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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=408529" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>A Fantasy of War</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">From Australia<br>.<br>OH, tell me, God of Battles! Oh, say what is to come!<br>The King is in his trenches, the millionaire at home;<br>The Kaiser with his toiling troops, the Czar is at the front.<br>Oh! Tell me, God of Battles! Who bears the battle’s brunt?<br>The Queen knits socks for soldiers, the Empress does the same,<br>And know no more than peasant girls which nation is to blame.<br>The wounded live to fight again, or live to slave for bread;<br>The Slain have graves above the Slain—the Dead are with the Dead.<br>The widowed young shall wed or not, the widowed old remain—<br>And all the nations of the world prepare for war again!<br>But ere that time shall be, O God, say what shall here befall!<br>Ten millions at the battle fronts, and we’re five millions all!<br>The world You made was wide, O God, the world we made is small.<br>We toiled not as our fathers toiled, for<br>Sport was all our boast;<br>And so we built our cities, Lord, like warts, upon the coast. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>From Europe<br>.<br>The seer stood on the mountain side, the witch was in her cave;<br>The gipsy with his caravan, the sailor on the wave;<br>The sophist in his easy chair, with ne’er a soul to save,<br>The factory slaves went forth to slave, the peasant to the field;<br>The women worked in winter there for one-tenth of the yield;<br>The village Granny nursed their babes to give them time to slave;<br>The child was in the cradle, and the grandsire in his grave.<br>The rich man slumbered in his chair, full fed with wine and meat;<br>The lady in her carriage sat, the harlot walked the street<br>With paint upon her cheek and neck, through winter’s snow and sleet.<br>We saw the pride of Wealth go mad, and Misery increase—<br>And still the God of Gods was dumb and all the world was Peace! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The wizard on the mountain side, he drew a rasping breath,<br>For he was old and near to life, as he was near to death;<br>And he looked out and saw the star they saw at Nazareth.<br>“Two thousand years have passed,” he said. “A thousand years,” he said.<br>“A hundred years have passed,” he said, “and, lo! the star is red!<br>The time has come at last,” he said, and bowed his hoary head.<br>He laid him on the mountain-side—and so the seer was dead.<br>And so the Eastern Star was red, and it was red indeed—<br>We saw the Red Star in the South, but we took little heed.<br>(The Prophet in his garret starved or drank himself to death.) </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The witch was mumbling in her hole before the dawn was grey;<br>The witch she took a crooked stick and prodded in the clay;<br>She doddered round and mumbled round as is the beldame’s way.<br>“Four children shall be born,” she said, “four children at a birth;<br>Four children of a peasant brood—and what shall come on earth?<br>Four of the poorest peasantry that Europe knows,” she said,<br>“And all the nations of the world shall count their gory dead!”<br>The babes are born in Italy—and all the world is red! </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>The Ship</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>The world You gave was wide, O Lord, and wars were far away!<br>The goal was just as near, O Lord, to-morrow or to-day!<br>The tree You grew was stout and sound to carve the plank and keel.<br>(And when the darkness hid the sky Your hand was on the wheel.)<br>The pine You grew was straight and tall to fashion spar and mast.<br>Our sails and gear from flax and hemp were stout and firm and fast.<br>You gave the metal from the mine and taught the carpenter<br>To fasten plank and rib and beam, and sheath and iron her.<br>The world You made was wide, O Lord, with signs on sea and sky;<br>And all the stars were true, O Lord, you gave to steer her by.<br>More graceful than the albatross upon the morning breeze.<br>Ah me! she was the fairest thing that ever sailed the seas;<br>And when the madness of mankind burns out at last in war,<br>The world may yet behold the day she’ll sail the seas once more.<br>We were not satisfied, O Lord, we were not satisfied;<br>We stole Your electricity to fortify our pride!<br>You gave the horse to draw our loads, You gave the horse to ride;<br>But we must fly above the Alps and race beneath the tide.<br>We searched in sacred places for the things we did not need;<br>Your anger shook our cities down—and yet we took no heed.<br>We robbed the water and the air to give us “energy,”<br>As we’d exhaust Thy secret store of electricity.<br>The day may come—and such a day!—when we shall need all three. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>And lest Thou shouldst not understand our various ways and whys,<br>We cut Thy trees for paper, Lord, where-on to print our lies.<br>We sent the grand Titanic forth, for pleasure, gold and show;<br>And all her skeletons of wealth and jewels lie below.<br>For fame or curiosity, for pride, and greed, or trade,<br>We sought to know all things and make all things that Thou hast made!<br>From Pole to Pole we sought to speak, and Heaven’s powers employ—<br>Our cruisers feverishly seek such language to destroy.<br>We shaped all things for war, and now the Sister Nations wade<br>Knee-deep in white man’s blood to wreck all things that we have made!<br>For in the rottenness of Peace—worse than this bitter strife!—<br>We murdered the Humanity and Poetry of Life. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>The Bells and the Child<br>.<br>The gongs are in the temple—the bells are in the tower;<br>The “tom-tom” in the jungle and the town clock tells the hour;<br>And all Thy feathered kind at morn have testified Thy power. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Did ever statesman save a land or science save a soul?—<br>Did ever Tower of Babel stand or war-drums cease to roll?—<br>Or wedding-bells to ring, O Lord—or requiems to toll? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Did ever child in cradle laid—born of a healthy race—<br>Cease for an hour, all unafraid, to testify Thy grace?<br>That shook its rattle from its bed in its proud father’s face? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Cathedral bells must cease awhile, because of Pride and Sin,<br>That never failed a wedding-morn that hailed a king and queen,<br>Or failed to peal for victory that brave men died to win.<br>(Or failed to ring the Old Year out and ring the New Year in.) </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The world You made was wide, O God!—O God, ’tis narrow now—<br>And all its ways must run with blood, for we knew more than Thou!<br>And millions perish at the guns or rot beside the plough,<br>For we knew more than Thou.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Henry+Lawson">Henry Lawson</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=408529" data-title="A Fantasy of War de Henry Lawson" data-description="From Australia
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OH, tell me, God of Battles! Oh, say what is to come!
The King is in his trenches, the millionaire at home;
The Kaiser with his toiling troops, the Czar is at the front.
Oh! Tell me, God of Battles! Who bears the battle’s brunt?..."></div>
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