Must blood of murders and of wars regale The universe and melt the sun to seas Of crimson and of purple where a sail, Terrific, black, triumphant, rides the gale, Whose gay, insulting pennons flaunt, release A death's-head mocking life's great tragedies, And pirates bellow thunderous and hail Another captive star with miseries? Is ours an earth where slaughter is the fate Reserved for men who seek life's privilege, A soil where hates crunch bones and love turns hate, A house whose every breath breathes sacrilege? O barbarous the sunset of a sea, Which drowns in blood each age's history! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...HUGH SELWYN MAUBERLEY: 13. ENVOI, 1919 by EZRA POUND TIMES GO BY TURNS by ROBERT SOUTHWELL PASSAGE TO INDIA by WALT WHITMAN AN UNTIMELY THOUGHT by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH THE WAY OF SACRIFICE by MATTHEW ARNOLD SONNETS OF MANHOOD: 17. THE CHILD by GEORGE BARLOW (1847-1913) ASPIRATIONS: 1 by MATHILDE BLIND BEHIND THE LINE by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN EXTRACTS FROM NEW-YEAR'S VERSES FOR 1825 by JOHN GARDINER CALKINS BRAINARD |