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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


THE DRUMS OF GOD by HERBERT KAUFMAN

First Line: THE SEED YOU SOWED OF DEATH AND HATE
Last Line: FOR THEM WHO COME TO DO GOD'S WRATH.
Subject(s): GOD; RELIGION; THEOLOGY;

THE seed you sowed of death and hate
Are bearing fruit now at your gate.
The crimson dusk of ruin stains
Your mosques and minarets and fanes.
Your star grows dim, your crescent wanes
And Vengeance marches on your plains.
Your towers stand on cursed ground.
The Drums of God, Islam, resound,
And in their graves a martyred host
From Crete to the Dalmatian Coast
Awake and damn you from the tomb;
The babe stabbed in the mother's womb,
The virgin spoiled, the gray-beard slain
Defending hearth and seed in vain;
The spirits of the men you smote,
Armenian, Albanian, Croat,
The ghosts of Greece and Macedon
Will guide the ship and aim the gun
And guard the sleep and point the path
For them who come to do God's wrath.



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