Page:Fifes and Drums, Poems of America at War, Vigilantes, 1917.djvu/115

Rh

You cannot change the written scroll

Nor alter the charted plan,

Ever must moaning women quail

And man make war on man;

Out of strength must sweetness come—

Out of sacrifice

We melt the metal and forge the key

To enter Paradise.

I thank my fathers for what they paid

On the altar of the years,

I thank the women who gave me birth

In agony and tears;

I could not wish that life should ask

One payment less from me,

And the bugle-call of the arming hosts

Sets their old passion free.

Willard Wattles.