Page:Canadian poems of the great war.djvu/68

 ''Editor-Author of 'Canadian Poets' Editor of 'The Collected Poems of Isabella Valancy Crawford.' Eldest living son of the late David Garvin (a native of Armagh county, Ireland) and Melissa Lemon, of Vespra township, county of Simcoe, Ontario. Honour Graduate of the University of Toronto, and an ex-Inspector of Public Schools. Contested West Peterborough in the Conservative interest, for the Ontario Legislature, in the campaign of 1897-98. 'Director and General Sales Manager' of a Toronto securities corporation.''

AST hosts of armed men are aflame
 * With hatred and murderous lust,

And civilization's a name
 * Half buried in ruins and dust,

While check-mating kings play the game
 * Of envy, vain-glory, mistrust.

Death still is the wages of sin:
 * The dead lie in winrows like corn;

All hell with its thunderous din
 * Is loosened afresh every morn;

While homesteads and quivering kin
 * Are desolate, drear, and forlorn.

Thou Infinite Breather of Stars
 * That jewel Thy Face in the night,

Protect with omnipotent bars
 * Thy manifest selves in their plight;

Forgive ineffaceable scars,
 * The wounds of inglorious fight!

ATE grinds the blade of life,
 * On his swift-whirling wheel;

This sharpens it for strife,
 * But wears away the steel.