Peace ... will you buy it with blood and tears? With women despoiled, with children's dark fears? Crushed under the wheels, men ... give in vain; Death-masked are their faces, bled white of all pain ... But deep in the earth-holes hearing always the rain ... Of shrapnel. Conquering ... conquered! Bend the knee To bayonet-blazoned apostasy, Seeding in souls; strange plants to grow Out of its loins; and who to know Whither the wind its pollen shall blow At midnight? The heavens are brass to cannons' boom; And rent the earth with a hell-simoon Led hard by Death. ... Let us go away. ... No, not to preach, nor even to pray; But with murderous blade to smite, to slay, Black hatred. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...DAYBREAK by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW THE ROSY BOSOM'D HOURS by COVENTRY KERSEY DIGHTON PATMORE SONNET: DEATH-WARNINGS by FRANCISCO GOMEZ DE QUEVEDO Y VILLEGAS WATER MOMENT by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN THE GOLDEN ODES OF PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIA: ANTARA by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT THE DEPARTED by HARRY RANDOLPH BLYTHE SONGS FOR MY MOTHER: 4. HER STORIES by ANNA HEMPSTEAD BRANCH |