Page:Canadian poems of the great war.djvu/251

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��Horatio Wallace

Mr Wallace is a Master of Arts (Edinburgh}, and an Edinburgh lawyer (a Writer to the Signet). He came to Canada in 1903, and for four years, planted and worked a fruit-ranch at Kelowna, British Columbia. At present is a law-clerk in Winnipeg. Author of The Song of the Madness of the Children of Odin.

THE FAITH-BREAKERS

N the great name of our humanity, Before the bar of nations, we impeach you ; Before the soul of man we do impeach you ; Before the Throne of Justice we impeach you ; Yea, be it with reverence, in the name of God In that ye have, for lust of pride and glory, For greed of power and o er-much seeking of it, For wrongful rule which is its own destruction. In that cold, cynic wisdom of your folly And salt o er-flowing of your insolence, Outraged the sense of honour and of faith, And violated in the heart of man Its living hope in goodness.

The world were poorer

By this your crime, but that its very grossness Makes the gorge rise, yea, strips from the true devil His veiling robe of light. Ye stand impeached. Of all the innocent blood we do impeach you ; Of all the ruined lives we do impeach you; Of all the bitter tears and heavy sorrows, In long, sad nights full of dear, vanished faces, When morning brings no balm the great indictment Streams like a fire to heaven. Ye stand impeached. And Time, God s minister, who works with justice, After the stroke and thunder-voice of battle, Dashing your winged ambitions to the dust, Shall, in that awful silence, when men s hearts Dimly conceive the foulness wrought upon them And shrink, in comprehending, past all curses,

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