Page:More songs by the fighting men, soldier poets, second series, 1917.djvu/29

Ernest K. Challenger And to-day with their coward lips

Men prate of love in their creeds,

And a thousand times to-day

Do they spurn her with their deeds.

For we talk of the law of truth

While our God is the law of might,

And the will of the strongest there

Is the thing we hold as right.

What have we gained with the years,

But the greater power to lie?

We, who speak of the truth,

Smooth-voiced and with side-long eye;

Better the axe of stone

And the feet on the weakest throat

Than the lying lips and the coward thrust

And the stealthy eyes that gloat.

Now for the one's desire

Shall the many be crucified

On the cross of a lawless power

With the nails of a soulless pride.

And the wrong goes deeper yet,

Aye, deep as the springs of life,

And has blossomed out at the 'hest of pride

In the deadly flower of strife.

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