Page:Poems of the Great War - Cunliffe.djvu/256

 230 SIR OWEN SEAMAN

��THE WAYSIDE CALVARY

(Lines written on the anniversary of the outbreak of the

war.)

Now with the full year Memory holds her tryst Heavy with such a tale of bitter loss As never Earth has suffered since the Christ Hung for us on the Cross.

��If God, O Kaiser, makes the vision plain : Gives you on some lone Calvary to see The Man of Sorrows Who endured the pain And died to set us free —

��How will you face beneath its Crown of thorn That Figure stark against the smoking skies, The Arms outstretched, the Sacred Head forlorn And those reproachful Eyes ?

How dare confront the false quest with the true Or think what gulfs between the ideals lie Of Him Who died that men might live — and you Who live that men may die.

�� �