Across a world where all men grieve
   And grieving strive the more,
The great days range like tides and leave
   Our dead on every shore.
Heavy the load we undergo,
   And our own hands prepare,
If we have parley with the foe,
   The load our sons must bear.

Before we loose the word

   That bids new worlds to birth,

Needs must we loosen first the sword

   Of Justice upon earth;

Or else all else is vain

   Since life on earth began,

And the spent world sinks back again

   Hopeless of God and Man.

 

A People and their King

   Through ancient sin grown strong,

Because they feared no reckoning

   Would set no bound to wrong;

But now their hour is past,

   And we who bore it find

Evil Incarnate held at last

   To answer to mankind.

 

For agony and spoil

   Of nations beat to dust,

For poisoned air and tortured soil

   And cold, commanded lust,

And every secret woe

   The shuddering waters saw—

Willed and fulfilled by high and low—

   Let them relearn the Law:

 

That when the dooms are read,

   Not high nor low shall say:—

“My haughty or my humble head

   Has saved me in this day.”

That, till the end of time,

   Their remnant shall recall

Their fathers’ old, confederate crime

   Availed them not at all:

 

That neither schools nor priests,

   Nor Kings may build again

A people with the heart of beasts

   Made wise concerning men.

Whereby our dead shall sleep

   In honour, unbetrayed,

And we in faith and honour keep

   That peace for which they paid.