Page:A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919.djvu/254

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And the giant with his club,

And the dwarf with rage in his breath,

And the elder giants from far,

They are all the children of Death.

They are all abroad to-night

And are breaking the hills with their brood,

And the birds are all asleep

Even in Plug Street Wood!

The great guns of England, they listen mile on mile

To the boasts of a broken War-Lord; they lift their throats and smile;

But the old woods are fallen

For a while.

The old woods are fallen; yet will they come again,

They will come back some springtime with the warm winds and the rain,

For Nature guardeth her children

Never in vain.

They will come back some season; it may be a hundred years;

It is all one to Nature with the centuries that are hers;

She shall bring back her children

And dry all their tears.

But the tears of a would-be War-Lord shall never cease to flow,

He shall weep for the poisoned armies whenever the gas-winds blow,

He shall always weep for his widows,

And all Hell shall know.

The tears of a pitiless Kaiser shallow they'll flow and wide,

Wide as the desolation made by his silly pride

When he slaughtered a little people

To stab France in her side.