Page:America in the war -by Louis Raemaekers. (IA americainwarbylo00raem).pdf/142

 "I Must Break in Here Before That Comes Down"

The small speck that at first seemed a dull mist hanging over the Western Hemisphere caused little else than sarcastic flings at our own Republic, and had it been possible to awaken pity in the breast of the Arch Demon, striving to spread his wings over the whole world, some sympathy might have fallen to us, for the weak mind we showed in presuming we could do anything to check the Imperial army in its brutal course. But happily great oaks from little acorns grow, from stationary mists dark clouds may rise, from low uncertain rumblings the ear-splitting thunder clap may spring, and make man and beast seek cover. So, by the Grace of God, things have developed, and the mist that was a banquet joke, is transformed, and spread into a veritable storm, and its direction is across the wide ocean; it is an on-rusher that awakens a craven fear; and it well may. It is no autumn cloud, whose fleecy skirts the sun has painted with gold; but something equalling the harbinger of death, that the soothsayers saw driving over Rome when Cæsar's end was nigh; on which could be seen "Fierce fiery warriors in ranks, and squadrons and in right form of war"; and from which blood is drizzling, not only to fall over France, or Flanders, but perhaps to darken the sky, and crimson the soil, even at that nest of iniquity, Potsdam.

PALMER COX.