Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/329

Rh So were his songs but brief and few;

Yet of some lives they were a part,

And on some souls they fell like dew;

Dead—now men say: he gave to art

The epic of the heart.

WAR

I

men on thrones, or crouched behind,

With cunning words the world would blind.

With faces grave, averse from spoils,

They weave their thieving, cynic toils.

One thing they mean, another speak;

Bland phrases utter, tongue in cheek.

Stale truths turn lies on velvet lips;

The candid heavens are in eclipse;

From crooked minds, and hearts all black,

Comes upon its flaming track,

And reeking fiends in happy hell

Shout, "All is well!"

II

Then lives surprise!

While not a devil dares to shirk,

But all his hellish malice plies—

The angels, too, begin their work.

Now every virtue issues forth

And busy is from south to north:

Self-sacrifice, and love, and pity

Tramp all the rounds in field and city;

Mercy beyond a price, sweet ruth,

Courage and comradeship and truth,