Page:Canadian poems of the great war.djvu/148

 Peter Me Arthur

(Ha ! Did I hear laughter from Hell at the sound of man s

wisdom?) .... It matters not ! My words are for you, O War God, as you stride beside

me in the fields! Your tramplings are thunder, the flash of your sword

the lightning ! Your voice is in the loud winds and blood falls from you

like rain ;

But I, a common man, shall speak your doom. Fool, Infinite Fool ! Why were you not content with your Pharoahs and

Alexanders, your Csesars and Napoleons With your conquerors and killers who made history a

shambles ? They sounded their trumpets and thrones shook at the

sound of them. They flung out their banners and warriors flocked to

them. They arrayed themselves in golden armour and made

war glorious.

Poets sang to them. Dancers danced before them. Scholars, Priests, Philosophers, Statesmen fawned on

them.

They boasted themselves as gods. The sun was their father, the moon their mother, And they claimed relationship with all the leading con stellations.

They fed you with hecatombs, glutted you with massacres. But while they exalted themselves the common man did

the work of the world Tilled the fields, dug the mines, shaped the armour, bore

the burdens,

Grumbled and paid taxes and took no thought of war. But today you have roused the common man. Mark, O War God !

You have today what the world never saw before. You have such armies as the world never saw before.

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