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Rh THE GREAT ARMISTICE

BY ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER

the uproar and stench

Of a Verdun trench—

The tortured bed of the great war's birth—

I slept, and dreamed this vision of Earth:

Out of the bosom of Europe the slaughter had spread

Till the waves of the distant Yang-tze-kiang flowed red;

Red were Columbia, Amazon, Ganges, Nile;

Red were the uttermost peak and the outermost isle.

No part of the planet, from shore to remotest shore,

But agonized now in the bestial clutch of war.

From every ocean, from every tribe and state,

Rose up to the stars the fetid odor of hate.

Then I saw in my dream how the sun was suddenly veiled

By the wings of a monstrous, ghoulish fleet of the air,—

Unhuman ships from another world, that hailed

From none knew where;