I. <br /> <br />The beast exultant spreads the nostril wide, <br />Snuffing a sickly hate-enkindling scent; <br />Proud of his rage, on sudden carnage bent, <br />He leaps, and flings the helpless guard aside. <br />Again, again the hills are gapped and dyed, <br />Again the hearts of waiting women spent. <br />Is there no cooler pathway to content? <br />Can we not heal the insanity of pride? <br /> <br />Silence the crackle and thunder of battling guns, <br />And drive your men to strategy of peace; <br />Crush ere its birth the hell-begotten crime; <br />Still there's a war that no true warrior shuns, <br />That knows no mercy, looks for no surcease, <br />But ghastlier battles, victories more sublime. <br /> <br />II. <br /> <br />Envy has slid in silence to its hole, <br />And Peace is basking where the workers meet, <br />And fire has purged the fever of the street <br />Where raucous tradesmen grinned and gave and stole. <br />Yet louder now the tides of battle roll, <br />With cheer or sob of charge or stern retreat, <br />And sullen thud and rumble of cannon beat <br />About the heights and passes of the soul. <br /> <br />Not only that amid the hush we hear <br />The sounds that once were blurred by market cries, <br />Or classes wrangling in affairs of state: <br />But forces now set free from sordid fear <br />No longer work as Mammon's murdering spies, <br />But storm the very citadels of hate.<br /><br />John Le Gay Brereton<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/war-219/
