Page:Canadian poems of the great war.djvu/172

 Robert Norwood

For when man gathers overmuch

God is exchanged for paltry dust ;

And when God goes the devil comes

In panoply of armies:

Drums beating

Trumpets blowing

Flags fluttering

Men hating, fighting, bleeding, dying;

Women wailing and beating their breasts;

Cities in conflagration;

Tall towers tumbling to an accompaniment of thunder,

Tumbling down among the statues and the pictures,

Silencing the song of the singers,

Making the beautiful ugly,

Smothering in wide encompassing smoke

The children the glad, the wonderful children

God s lilies of laughter

His immaculate ones!

I tell you gold is the cause of war, That war is the price we pay for gold Gold for which we give God!

You will not do this thing again !

What thing?

Mistake of owning overmuch.

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��HORUM FORTISSIMI

ORUM Fortissimi! thus Caesar said

He who had found the ancient Belgians brave

And still he comes to place upon the grave

Of Louvain and Liege this merited,

Immortal tribute to their mighty dead.

Can we give less than mighty Caesar gave?

Shall we not rather give our best to save

These for whom all those nameless Caesars bled?

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