Page:Canadian poems of the great war.djvu/145

 Peter McArthur

The well-known Canadian litterateur, author of In Pastures Green To Be Taken With Salt: An Essay on Teaching One s Grandmother to Suck Eggs The Prodigal and Other Poems, The Red Cow and Her Friends, etc. Born at Ekfrid, Ontario, March 10th, 1866. Educated in local public school, at the Strath- roy Collegiate Institute, and at University College, Toronto^

FULFILMENT

They shall beat their swords into plowshares. . . . Neither shall they learn war any more. Micah, iv., 3.

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��O, smith, stand by your anvil

And bare your arm to smite ! Of man s long course of folly

There waits the closing rite. For while before your smithy

He stays his iron car, We ll beat our swords to plowshares

To serve the god of war.

With blood of slaughtered millions,

He stands there, dripping red, And shouts to all the nations

His armies must be fed ! He turns our hope to laughter,

He turns our faith to scorn ! My brothers of the plowshare,

Shall this be meekly borne?

Ho, smith, bow to your labour

And let your strokes be sure ! The work that you shall fashion

Shall evermore endure : For to your hammer s ringing

A deathless vow we ll make That through the after ages

No King shall dare to break.

Let it be marked in heaven That from this fateful day

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