Was not the bounty of the grape and corn,
     Burned into ripeness by a summer sped,
Harvest enough without all they have borne
     In their own aching flesh and from their bosoms fed?
 
Shall they, the mothers of the time to be,
     Create for nothing but a league-long grave,
That swallows up their immortality
     And hideous yawns across a kingdom while they rave?
 
'Tis they who forge the bolt, when nations chafe
     And howl their battle cries of right and wrong;
'Tis they who lead the mighty armies safe
     To manhood's threshold, brave and beautiful and strong.
 
For death's the only answer that we make
     When hungry kingdoms rise and fall on strife;
Still one insensate spirit's greed can break
     The wide world's peace, and drain her holy founts of life.
 

And still the grandest death that man may die
     Is held the death of war, at some great need
Beyond all human reason's power to try,
     Since honour often spurns her sister, reason's rede.
 
For reason's dumb while honour's thirsty blade
     Still flashes to the universe how man
Remains so blind, so faltering, so afraid
     That carnage yet controls his highest hope and plan.
 
But reason, guarding well her golden light,
     Denies he shall for ever sate his dearth
Like wolf or tiger; wills such futile might
     Anon be banned and thrust from off the good round earth.
 

She dawns upon the darkness of our eyes;
     Reveals that war can only hurl us back
On hostile values; whispers to the wise
     How virtue in the fed is vice to them that lack.
 
Virtue and vice are names, not qualities,
     And when the baffled cry that might is right,
No smug opinion from the unconscious skies
     For doubtful virtue's sake shall hold them to their plight.
 
All nations live by ideals; but in need
     They linger with no ethic obsolete;
They bend the knee to no unfriendly creed;
     But tramp their values firm beneath an army's feet.
 
Remains to man this everlasting truth
     That for his sure defence and steadfast guide,
Reason and honour, by the way of ruth,
     Shall yet march, hand in hand, and onward, side by side.
 
Again the world is meeting might with might,
     And when the battle's fought and lost and won,
Pray victory decree, as primal right,
     That reason also wins a kingdom in the sun.

Then shall she swiftly, for our world-wide shame,
     Bend to the Mother from her starry place,
And, in humanity's almighty name,
     For ever dry the tears upon that sacred face.