Page:Poems of the Great War - Cunliffe.djvu/254

 228 CLINTON SCOLLARD

For there shall dawn a reckoning day, Or soon or late, come as it may, Wlien those who gave the sign to slay Shall meet His face alone.

What, think ye, will their penance be

Who have wrought this monstrous crime ?

What shall whiten their blood-red hands

Of the stains of riven and ravished lands ?

How shall they answer God's stern commands At the last assize of Time ?

For though we worship no vengeance-god

Of madness and of ire. No Presence grim, with a heart of stone. Shall they not somehow yet atone ? Shall they not reap as they have sown

Of fury and of fire ?

There is a vale in the Flemish land Where the lengthening shadows spread

When day, with crimson sandals shod.

Goes home athwart the mounds of sod

That cry in silence up to God From the valley of the dead !

— Clinton Scollard.

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