GIFT OF 
 
 of 1897 
 
THE BINDING OF THE BEAST 
 AND OTHER WAR VERSE 
 
THE 
 
 BINDING OF THE BEAST 
 
 AND OTHER WAR VERSE 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE STERLING 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF THE SUNS 
 A WINE OF WIZARDRY 
 THE HOUSE OF ORCHIDS 
 BEYOND THE BREAKERS 
 
 YOSEMITE 
 THE CAGED EAGLE 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 A. M. ROBERTSON 
 
 MCMXVII 
 
COPYRIGHT 
 
 1917 
 
 BY A. M. ROBERTSON 
 
TO 
 
 EDWARD F. O DAY 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Christmas Under Arms 9 
 
 The Song of the Valkyrs ----- 12 
 
 The Dream of Wilhelm II ----- 15 
 
 To Germany -------- 16 
 
 Belgium, August, 1914 - - - - - - 22 
 
 England, August, 1914 ------ 23 
 
 To the War-Lords ------ 24 
 
 The War God - - 27 
 
 The Little Farm- 28 
 
 The Binding of the Beast 29 
 
 To Belgium - 32 
 
 Germany 33 
 To France -- ------34 
 
 The Night of Man - 35 
 
 The Turk --------- 36 
 
 To the Allied Arms - 37 
 
 The Crown-Prince at Verdun 38 
 
 Before Dawn in America ----- 39 
 
 To England - 40 
 
 To France at Verdun - - - - - - 41 
 
 In a Thousand Years ------ 42 
 
 Germany in Belgium ------ 44 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Germany on the Seas ------ 45 
 
 A Vision of Germania 47 
 
 To the Hun 48 
 
 War: The Past 49 
 
 The Present - - 50 
 
 The Future 51 
 
PUBLISHER S NOTE 
 
 One of the poems in this volume, "Christmas Under 
 Arms" was written in December, 1913, and appeared 
 in "Beyond the Breakers," published 1914, and some of 
 the other verses are from "The Caged Eagle," published 
 1916. 
 
CHRISTMAS UNDER ARMS 
 
 By the star that led kings to His feet in the night of 
 
 His birth, 
 Put ye no trust in kings nor the mighty ones of the 
 
 earth ! 
 Put ye no trust in prayer nor abase ye unto the 
 
 Past 
 By the star of the mind alone shall your sons see clear 
 
 at last! 
 
 Who are we that we make us a feast, or say of the 
 years, "They are ours !" 
 
 As the lost might revel in Hell and bind their fore 
 heads with flowers? 
 
 Wherefore now are we glad, when the nations toil in 
 their night, 
 
 Seeking them battle-music and engines grievous to 
 smite ? 
 
 A thousand masters are ours, and the weight of a 
 
 thousand chains; 
 We cease not this side death to seek new bondage and 
 
 pains. 
 
CHRISTMAS UNDER ARMS 
 
 Him that forgeth the shackles, him we acknowledge 
 
 as lord, 
 And darker over the burdened world falls the shadow 
 
 of the sword. 
 
 Cannon arraigneth cannon, and fort is answer to fort; 
 Death sits silent and masked by the cliffs and dunes 
 
 of the port; 
 They gird themselves in the East to the day when 
 
 their battleships go forth, 
 And there comes no pause in the thunder of the forges 
 
 of war in the North. 
 
 Whither, O Man! say whither may the steel-girt 
 
 highway lead! 
 We have made of the past a shambles red and a place 
 
 where vultures feed. 
 Nay! must it ever be thus with the hope and promise 
 
 of Life 
 Ever the agony, ever the waste and the hatred and 
 
 blindness of strife? 
 
 Which way we look is night, and the wind of a great 
 
 unrest 
 Moans on our high-built towers, and passes on to the; 
 
 West. 
 
 10 
 
CHRISTMAS UNDER ARMS 
 
 Vague in the gloom before us move shadows vastei 
 
 than man, 
 A.nd doubts lay hold on the human host and rumors 
 
 trouble our van. 
 
 Have we builded but for the flame, and sown that 
 
 Death may reap? 
 Shall we give our morning to murder and our noon 
 
 to eternal sleep? 
 Answer, Thou who we dream dost abide in the gloom 
 
 apart ! 
 There is no answer, O Man! except in the silence of 
 
 thy heart! 
 
 With thee alone is the answer, and the answer is 
 
 "Love and Peace!" 
 Except the message be heard, the bountiful years shall 
 
 cease ; 
 Except the message be honored, a curse shall come 
 
 to the lands 
 Where thou waitest on Christmas morning with a 
 
 sheathless sword in thy hands! 
 
 December, 1915. 
 
 11 
 
THE SONG OF THE VALKYRS 
 
 Horizons of the world, what hide ye from our sight? 
 What Fates sing now from darkness their ancient 
 
 battle-song ? 
 Are those the armored Valkyrs men hear across the 
 
 night ? 
 
 What god hath set the trumpet to lips austere and 
 strong ? 
 
 The deeps and heights are shaken. The walls of the 
 
 Dark 
 
 Tremble with all their stars, and all stars reel. 
 Shadows from outer night draw closer now to hark 
 The echo of what thunders, the music of whose 
 steel? 
 
 Whose is the war ? Who first hath drawn the sword ? 
 "A king!" cry the Valkyrs, "whose rule is on the 
 
 race! 
 
 Woe to the many, who hold one man their lord, 
 For one hath loosed the tempest, and hid the 
 heavens face! 
 
 12 
 
THE SONG OF THE VALKYRS 
 
 " War s gate is down, and Thor! Thor is forth! 
 
 He hath thrown off old harness, to forge him 
 
 weapons new. 
 The gaunt guns toll, sounding from south to north, 
 
 To call young men to doom, till young men are few. 
 
 "The old men shall call, and the young men shall 
 
 hear, 
 
 Hear and set out, who never shall come back 
 They that might have sown in the spring of the year, 
 They that now shall reap the bitter grain and 
 black. 
 
 "The tides of doom s sea are mounted unto flood ; 
 The long dykes are down, sundered at one man s 
 
 breath. 
 
 All the youth of Europe shall render of their blood. 
 All the youth of Europe shall sit at dice with 
 Death. 
 
 "Ravens, appear ! and come, ye birds of prey, 
 
 From high and lonely places, for now is food for all. 
 
 Wolves of the night, be early on your way ! 
 The fold is left open; they guard another wall. 
 
 13 
 
THE SONG OF THE VALKYRS 
 
 "Thor ! Thor is forth ! Hark to his ocean-voice ! 
 
 The blood of the world makes scarlet his hands. 
 Thor is forth upon the dark! Sisters, rejoice! 
 
 A king hath loosed the god whose sword is on the 
 lands!" 
 
 14 
 
THE DREAM OF WILHELM II 
 
 He, a colossus towering toward the spheres, 
 With tyrant shadow casting triple night 
 On Europe, saw with dominating sight 
 
 The great world-caldron seethe with futile tears, 
 
 And heard as with a god s commending ears 
 The tread of armies whose resistless might 
 Should stay mankind s advancement to the light, 
 
 But throne his dynasty a thousand years. 
 
 Then rose he from the conquered globe on wings 
 Such as in vision serve the will of kings, 
 Till gazing from the violated skies 
 
 He saw, below his battles smoky bars, 
 With flaming France and Russia for its eyes, 
 Earth like a skull that glared upon the stars. 
 
 15 
 
TO GERMANY 
 
 Beat back thy forfeit plow-shares into swords: 
 
 It is not yet, the far, seraphic dream 
 
 Of peace made beautiful and love supreme. 
 Now let the strong, unweariable chords 
 Of battle shake to thunder, and the hordes 
 
 Advance, where now the famished vultures scream. 
 
 The standards gather and the trumpets gleam; 
 Down the long hill-side stare the mounted lords. 
 
 Now far beyond the tumult and the hate, 
 The white-clad nurses and the surgeons wait 
 The backward currents of tormented life, 
 When on the waiting silences shall come 
 The screams of men, and, ere those lips are dumb, 
 The searching probe, the ligature and knife. 
 
 16 
 
TO GERMANY 
 
 II 
 
 Was it for such, the brutehood and the pain, 
 Civilization gave her holy fire 
 Unto thy wardship, and the snowy spire 
 
 Of her august and most exalted fane? 
 
 Are these the harvests of her ancient rain 
 Men reap at evening in the scarlet mire, 
 Or where the mountain smokes, a dreadful pyre, 
 
 Or where the warship drags a bloody stain ? 
 
 Are these thy votive lilies and their dews, 
 
 That now the outraged stars look down to see? 
 Behold them, where the cold, prophetic damps 
 Congeal on youthful brows so soon to lose 
 Their dream of sacrifice to thee to thee, 
 Harlot to Murder in a thousand camps! 
 
 17 
 
TO GERMANY 
 
 HI 
 
 Was it for this that loving men and true 
 Have labored in the darkness and the light 
 To rear the solemn temple of the Right, 
 
 On Reason s deep foundations, bared anew 
 
 Long after the Caesarian eagles flew 
 
 And Rome s last thunder died upon the Night? 
 Cuirassed, the cannon menace from the height; 
 
 Armored, the new-born eagles take the blue. 
 
 Wait not thy lords the avenging, certain knell 
 
 One with the captains and abhorrent fames 
 The echoes of whose conquests died in Hell? 
 
 They that have loosened the ensanguined flood. 
 And whose malign and execrable names 
 The Seraph of the Record writes in blood. 
 
 18 
 
TO GERMANY 
 
 IV 
 
 From gravid trench and sullen parapet, 
 
 Profane the wounded lands with mine or shell! 
 
 Turn thou upon the world thy cannons Hell, 
 Till many million women s eyes are wet! 
 Ravage and slay ! Pile up the eternal debt ! 
 
 But when the fanes of France and Belgium fell 
 
 Another ruin was on earth as well, 
 And ashes that the race shall not forget. 
 
 Not by the devastation of the guns, 
 
 Nor tempest-shock, nor steel s subverting edge, 
 Nor yet the slow erasure of the suns 
 
 The downfall came, betrayer of thy trust! 
 But at the dissolution of a pledge 
 
 The temple of thine honor sank to dust. 
 
 19 
 
TO GERMANY 
 
 V 
 
 Make not thy prayer to Heaven, lest perchance, 
 O troubler of the world, the heavens hear! 
 But trust in Uhlan and in cannoneer, 
 
 And, ere the Russian hough thee, set thy lance 
 
 Against the dear and blameless breast of France! 
 Put on thy mail tremendous and austere, 
 And let the squadrons of thy wrath appear, 
 
 And bid the standards and the guns advance! 
 
 Those as an evil mist shall pass away, 
 
 As once the Assyrian before the Lord : 
 Thou standest between mortals and the day, 
 
 Ere God, grown weary of thine armored reign, 
 Lift from the world the shadow of thy sword 
 And bid the stars of morning sing again. 
 
 August, 1914. 
 
 20 
 
TO GERMANY 
 
 VI 
 
 Beyond all evil that the tongue can name, 
 Below all pits wherein we paint a Hell, 
 Oh! deep, deep, deep below the blackest well 
 
 And secular abyss of human shame, 
 
 Rot now the monstrous relics of thy fame ! 
 
 There worm and carrion-snake may find a cell; 
 There fancied devils might in common dwell, 
 
 And find their honor and thine own the same. 
 
 Upon that charnel which thy hands have built 
 Thy sword has graven all thy tale of guilt 
 The names that Time shall sicken to recall. 
 Pollution is upon thee like the mire 
 In which thine armies work thy dark desire 
 And in whose slime thy sated princes crawl. 
 
 October, 1917. 
 
 21 
 
BELGIUM, AUGUST, 1914 
 
 O Earth! O star of sorrow! at thy breast 
 What vampires have had sustenance of thee! 
 From thy dark womb what furies have gone free 
 
 And in thy shadowy lap what dragons nest! 
 
 O beautiful as thou art all unblest! 
 
 From thee so fair shall births so monstrous be, 
 And in thy smile must man forever see 
 
 A hidden hatred, endless and suppressed? 
 
 How harmless are thy serpents, matched with man! 
 
 How gentle are the wars of fen or wave, 
 Beside this other that thy children plan! 
 
 Across the dykes of mercy sweeps the flood; 
 Butcher and beast, the hordes of Odin rave, 
 
 Whom War hath blinded with the dust of blood ! 
 
 22 
 
ENGLAND, AUGUST, 1914 
 
 Southward again on ancient roads of war, 
 Beyond the Narrow Seas thy legions flow, 
 Where wait the battle-fields of long-ago, 
 
 Ramparts thy lion-flag hath known before, 
 
 And cities where they crowned thee conqueror. 
 Depart the youthful ranks that cannot know 
 As yet the power and malice of the foe, 
 
 But know what vow those perjured lips forswore. 
 
 Thy war is for the sanctity of pledge 
 Whether the word of man to man endure, 
 
 Or that his bond be as a rope of sand. 
 Forth! till the world be cleansed of sacrilege, 
 And those antique foundations rest secure 
 On which the pillars of the Temple stand ! 
 
 23 
 
TO THE WAR-LORDS 
 
 I 
 
 Be yours the doom Isaiah s voice foretold, 
 Lifted on Babylon, O ye whose hands 
 Cast the sword s shadow upon weaker lands, 
 
 And for whose pride a million hearths grow cold! 
 
 Ye reap but with the cannon, and do hold 
 
 Your plowing to the murder-god s commands; 
 And at your altars Desolation stands, 
 
 And in your hearts is conquest, as of old. 
 
 The legions perish and the warships drown; 
 
 The fish and vulture batten on the slain; 
 And it is ye whose word hath shaken down 
 
 The dykes that hold the chartless sea of pain. 
 Your prayers deceive not men, nor shall a crown 
 
 Hide on the brow the murder-mark of Cain. 
 
 24 
 
TO THE WAR-LORDS 
 
 II 
 
 Now glut yourselves with conflict, nor refrain, 
 But let your famished provinces be fed 
 From bursting granaries of steel and lead! 
 
 Decree the sowing of that deadly grain 
 
 Where the great war-horse, maddened with his pain, 
 Stamps on the mangled living and the dead, 
 And from the entreated heavens overhead 
 
 Falls from a brother s hand a fiery rain. 
 
 Lift not your voices to the gentle Christ: 
 Your god is of the shambles ! Let the moan 
 Of nations be your psalter, and their youth 
 To Moloch and to Bel be sacrificed! 
 
 A world to which ye proffered lies alone 
 
 Learns now from Death the horror of your truth. 
 
 25 
 
TO THE WAR-LORDS 
 
 III 
 
 How have you fed your people upon lies, 
 
 And cried "Peace! peace!" and knew it would 
 
 not be ! 
 For now the iron dragons take the sea, 
 
 And in the new-found fortress of the skies, 
 
 Alert and fierce a deadly eagle flies. 
 
 Ten thousand cannon echo your decree, 
 To whose profound refrain ye bend the knee 
 
 And lift unto the Lord of Love your eyes. 
 
 This is Hell s work: why raise your hands to Him, 
 And those hands mailed, and holding up the sword ? 
 
 There stands another altar, stained with red, 
 At whose basalt the infernal seraphim 
 Uplift to Satan, your conspirant lord, 
 
 The blood of nations, at your mandate shed. 
 
 26 
 
THE WAR-GOD 
 
 Behold the pandar of Oblivion 
 
 This idiot monster, holding hate his law! 
 It is for him that Life must stand in awe, 
 
 For him that Art hath cringed and Science done 
 
 Whoredom among the tribes, refusing none. 
 In his red day our scruples are as straw : 
 The nations gather at his word, and draw 
 
 His chariot, refulgent as the sun. 
 
 The stars of many masterdoms have set, 
 But that star sets not ever, and the light 
 
 That fell on Troy is cast on Europe now ; 
 And as of old the mothers eyes are wet, 
 
 And the brute god, girded with steel and night, 
 Above Time s charnel scowls with armored brow. 
 
 27 
 
THE LITTLE FARM 
 
 Along the vague horizon, vapor-bound, 
 A monstrous muttering forever broke, 
 As tho the Titans at their council spoke, 
 
 Far off, or in some cavern underground ; 
 
 But at the little farm there was no sound, 
 Save when a low and idiot laughter woke. 
 Ashes, till then a home, sent up their smoke : 
 
 A raven dozed upon an eyeless hound. 
 
 One laughed whom men had fettered to a tree. 
 Above his head a broken-hilted knife 
 
 Pinned a small hand that clasped a bit of string. 
 And still he laughed, nor turned his gaze to see 
 The stripped and ravished body of his wife. 
 
 A weathered sign announced: No Trespassing. 
 
 28 
 
THE BINDING OF THE BEAST 
 
 He plotted in the den of his lordship over men; 
 
 He wrought his grim array and he hungered for the 
 Day. 
 
 Then the loosing-word was spoken; then the seal of 
 Hell was broken; 
 
 Then its Princes were assembled for the feast; 
 
 But against the Vandal night rose the star of Free 
 dom s light, 
 
 And a world was called together for the binding of 
 the Beast. 
 
 They have seen it for their star; they have come from 
 
 near and far; 
 From the forges of the north go the men and young 
 
 men forth, 
 Having found the holier duty, found the true, the final 
 
 beauty, 
 
 As their brothers of the south and of the east. 
 In the forests of the west they are giving of their 
 
 best, 
 With strong hands and patient for the binding of the 
 
 Beast. 
 
 29 
 
THE BINDING OF THE BEAST 
 
 For his treason unto man in the War that he began, 
 For the rapine and the flame, for the hissing of his 
 
 name, 
 Have the hosts gone up against him and with swords 
 
 of judgment fenced him, 
 
 With his coward clutch on woman and on priest. 
 For the children he has maimed, for the maidens he] 
 
 has shamed, 
 The nations gird their harness for the binding of the] 
 
 Beast. 
 
 Now frothing in his rage, a scourge to youth and age, 
 Caked with blood he stands at bay, with his feet upon 
 
 his prey. 
 Ringed with surf of guns resounding, raw and fetid 
 
 from the hounding, 
 Smiles he still in baffled fury and the roar of hate 
 
 releast ; 
 But the huntsmen of the ranks, with their steel at 
 
 breast and flanks, 
 Give no truce nor sign of respite at the binding of the 
 
 Beast. 
 
 30 
 
THE BINDING OF THE BEAST 
 
 He is cunning, he is strong, and the war shall yet be 
 
 long, 
 Where the seven thunders wake and the walls of 
 
 Heaven shake. 
 He is cruel, blind and ruthless; he is bitter, sly and 
 
 truthless ; 
 
 By his will the Powers of Darkness are increast; 
 But the shackle and the chain shall avenge the hurt 
 
 and slain, 
 Who have broken bread with heroes at the binding of 
 
 the Beast. 
 
 For his pact with Death and Hell, let us bind the 
 monster well, 
 
 That the menaced world be freed from his arrogance 
 and greed! 
 
 By the pact he dared to sever, make we treaty with 
 him never, 
 
 Till the murder-venom in his blood has ceast! 
 
 By his trust in force and war, end we those forever- 
 more, 
 
 As the nations sit in council for the binding of the 
 Beast! 
 
 31 
 
TO BELGIUM 
 
 As Rome beat down the kingdoms, one by one, 
 
 With sword invincible, until her sway 
 
 Held from the rise to set of Europe s day, 
 So to his war-adventure leapt the Hun, 
 And as the Roman wrought, so had he done, 
 
 Were not thy sons as lions on his way. 
 
 Granite he found thee, who had thought thee clay, 
 O nation clothed as with the noonday sun! 
 
 O barrier to the tempest! Faithful wall 
 That held the armored avalanche a space! 
 O little dyke against so great a flood! 
 Thou sentry, whom no midnight could appall! 
 Thou Christ of nations, giving to the race 
 That respite purchased with thy holy blood! 
 
 32 
 
GERMANY 
 
 As he who shod the horses of the sun, 
 She made her desecrated forges peal 
 To monstrous births of cannon and of keel, 
 
 Where fires deliver and the hammers stun; 
 
 And when the daylight and the toil were done, 
 Upon the breast of Peace she set her heel, 
 Loosing the headlong avalanche of steel, 
 
 With lance on lance and gun on cruel gun. 
 
 As Samson in his blindness hath she snapt 
 The pillars of the temple of the light, 
 
 Drawn down in ruin upon Europe s head. 
 To heavens in the smoke of conquest wrapt 
 There cry unheeded voices in the night, 
 
 From new-made ramparts builded of the dead. 
 
 August, 1914. 
 
 33 
 
TO FRANCE 
 
 O daughter of the morning! on thy brow 
 
 Immortal be the lilies thou hast won! 
 
 Eternal be thy station in the sun, 
 That shines not on a splendor such as thou! 
 A strength is thine beyond the armored prow, 
 
 And past dominion of the lance and gun, 
 
 Tho now thou stand, as battle-thunders stun, 
 Heroic, on the fields that cannon plow. 
 
 Triumph be thine, O beautiful and dear ! 
 
 Whose cause is one with Freedom and her name. 
 
 The armies of the night devise thee wrong, 
 But on thy helm the star of Truth is clear, 
 And Truth shall conquer, tho thy cities flame, 
 And morning break, tho now the night is strong ! 
 
 34 
 
THE NIGHT OF MAN 
 
 Europe, how have kings dealt with thee, and sown 
 Thine every acre from a human breast ! 
 Red was the seed and red the harrow pressed 
 
 To bitter fields whose harvest was a moan; 
 
 And the long years pass on to the unknown, 
 And cannon utter now thy lords unrest, 
 Where still their armies gather for the test, 
 
 And heavy darkness holds about the throne. 
 
 And shall they sow forever in this wise, 
 
 To reap that corn whose roots take hold on Hell? 
 
 Better a desert and the sunlight there, 
 In which the lions gaze with stony eyes 
 
 From nameless ruins where the lizards dwell, 
 And the small hawk floats lonely on the air. 
 
 35 
 
THE TURK 
 
 Behold him ! the abominable ! the beast ! 
 The butcher of the race, malignly red 
 With blood of helpless ones from heel to head! 
 
 Behold this infamy by Fate released 
 
 On gentler nations given as a feast 
 Where vultures batten after he has fed, 
 And trampled bosoms of the tortured dead 
 
 Pave his dominion of the ravished East. 
 
 Over the rondure of the world a cry 
 
 Goes forth against him, as Armenia s breast 
 
 Implores a hundredth time for God to save 
 A bleak and dreadful voice upon the sky 
 
 To North and South, and in the avenging West 
 An echo of the moan that Belgium gave. 
 
 36 
 
TO THE ALLIED ARMS 
 
 Where children slept, gun answers unto gun ; 
 
 Where peace was on the orchards, armies fight ; 
 
 Now burst, on vale and devastated height, 
 The tides that raven and the seas that stun. 
 Yet wage ye now the battles of the sun 
 
 And with a holy ray your flags are bright, 
 
 Tho deep on Europe lies the two-fold night 
 Of pain s despair and death s oblivion. 
 
 More clear, more terrible, the days reveal 
 What foe is yours, and how malignly vast 
 
 The horror and betrayal of its plan 
 That tyranny which rears its crest of steel 
 To blot the Future s blue, a shadow cast 
 By Hell s red star on Liberty and Man. 
 
 37 
 
THE CROWN-PRINCE AT VERDUN 
 
 By Mars his hilt! this is a royal sport, 
 
 And fit amusement for a king-to-be! 
 
 Surely the revels now permitted thee 
 Excel the poor diversions of a court! 
 Against the tireless thunder of the fort 
 
 Thy ranks go forth as waves upon a sea 
 
 Puppets and pawns that move at thy decree. 
 A merry game, but mayst thou find it short! 
 
 Or is it as a painter that thy skill 
 
 Favors the world? daubing with red the snow, 
 As on the mighty canvas of a hill 
 
 Thy cannon spread the pigments, till the whole 
 Stands perfect, and applauding armies know 
 The vision of the Hell that waits thy soul. 
 
 38 
 
BEFORE DAWN IN AMERICA 
 
 Slowly the hours beyond the midnight crawl. 
 
 Far on the frozen night a train goes by. 
 
 I know there is no starlight in the sky, 
 But that concealing fog is over all, 
 Alike for stars and men a somber pall. 
 
 Remoter now, a cold, mechanic cry 
 
 Is signal, and the poplars stir and sigh, 
 As ranks that wait in vain the trumpet s call. 
 
 Now breaks the day on Belgium and France. 
 Over the shoulder of the world, I know 
 What rubrics gleam on the recording snow 
 
 (That page of Heaven s book that lay so pure!) 
 As, votive to the race s huge mischance, 
 Men die, O Liberty! that thou endure. 
 
 1916. 
 
 39 
 
TO ENGLAND 
 
 O mighty Mother of our heart and mind ! 
 We, sons of thine in vision and in deed, 
 Gaze eastward, where our brothers toil and bleed. 
 
 And hear thy battle-music on the wind. 
 
 Behold ! we gaze, who are to thee as blind, 
 And listen, seeming deaf to all thy need, 
 But in our hearts what ancient Voices plead ! 
 
 What clarions echo, calling kind to kind! 
 
 We are a folk of many hearths and hates, 
 Fretted with alien counsels, and unsure; 
 
 Yet some there be who know our war is one, 
 And strain upon the barrier of our Fates, 
 And scorn the coward twilight that endures 
 Between our darkness and thy noonday sun. 
 
 1916. 
 
 40 
 
TO FRANCE AT VERDUN 
 
 Glory to God for thy might, 
 
 Glory with prayer and song, 
 France of the sword of light, 
 Saving a world from wrong! 
 Thou who dost count not the pain and the cost, 
 Music of cannon is forth on the world ; 
 Over thy borders what legions are hurled! 
 Stand, or the world is lost! 
 
 Ramparts of darkness were thine, 
 
 Once, ere democracy s dawn 
 Dungeons and shackles malign, 
 
 Precious to kings and their spawn; 
 Those thou hast crushed with thy terrible heel, 
 Daughter of freedom, of justice and truth! 
 War shall be thine in thy beautiful youth 
 Never a new Bastile! 
 
 Ramparts of stars and of sun 
 These thou defendest to-day, 
 Holding the hills of Verdun, 
 Stronger than lions at bay. 
 Thou who in sorrow dost cry not "Alas!" 
 Thou who in battle art first in the field, 
 Stand (for the hearts of the world are thy shield) 
 Crying, "They shall not pass!" 
 
 41 
 
IN A THOUSAND YEARS 
 
 What will they think of this age in a thousand years, 
 In the reaping-time of our sown and pregnant tears? 
 What will they think when the hands of War at last 
 Fall from the race s throat and his reign is past? 
 When, on the hills where Verdun s cannon stood, 
 Gaul and Teuton are one in brotherhood? 
 You of the future s nobler hopes and fears, 
 What will you think of this age in a thousand years? 
 
 What will they think when the children toil no more, 
 And the old folk rest from the labor long since o er ? 
 *^When no man s need is cause for another s gain, 
 And each man s grief is part of another s pain? ^ 
 When the common sunlight finds not ever a thrall, 
 And the whole great earth is home and heaven for 
 
 all? 
 
 You of the future s nobler hopes and fears, 
 What will you think of this age in a thousand years? 
 
 42 
 
IN A THOUSAND YEARS 
 
 What will they think when the tyrant s brow is dust? 
 What will they think when the spirit s chains are rust, 
 And the final freedoms lead us out to the light 
 From the prison-glooms and haunted cells of the 
 
 night ? 
 
 When the many creeds are one in a wider grace, 
 And the many races blend in the Royal Race? 
 You of the future s nobler hopes and fears, 
 What will you think of this age in a thousand years? 
 
 Scorn us not, for the fighting strain was strong! 
 Scorn us not, for the ancient dark was long! 
 <Long our bleeding feet were slow on the path 
 Up from the hells of ignorance and wrath> 
 You whose eyes shall see so freely and far, 
 Know that ours were loyal too to a star, 
 Seeing there, tho blurred with the doubting tears, 
 The sun whose dawn shall surge in a thousand years. 
 
 43 
 
GERMANY IN BELGIUM 
 
 Mankind had dreamed its paltry dream of Hell, 
 And Satan gloating on a race undone. 
 Then through our mist of visions drave the Hun, 
 
 And on the world a blacker shadow fell. 
 
 So shall the fact deride, the truth dispel, 
 
 The flimsy web that childish minds have spun, 
 Till Horror bare her shambles to the sun, 
 
 And that be told we whisper as we tell. 
 
 God, when we pictured Hell, You must have smiled. 
 Look down and see: abomination piled 
 Upon abomination! Flood on flood 
 
 Of tears outwrung from innocence and age! 
 What spite of fiends is in the Teuton rage! 
 What venoms of the Pit are in their blood! 
 
 44 
 
GERMANY IN BELGIUM 
 
 II 
 
 One after one the veils are torn aside, 
 Till now we see, as from a sunlit place, 
 That this is Hell we fight, and not a race. 
 
 Lo! these are they that in their lust and pride 
 
 Purpose to be our human light and guide! 
 
 But these are they for whom Man s humbled face 
 Is blackened before Heaven with disgrace, 
 
 And with their blazon of dishonor dyed. 
 
 Say not we are blood-brothers to this Thing 
 That slays for very cruelty and spite, 
 
 Heaping with babes his altar unto Mars ! 
 This Birth for which polluted Earth might swing 
 With errant orbit into utter night, 
 
 And hide her visage from the sickened stars. 
 
 45 
 
GERMANY ON THE SEAS 
 
 "The submarine then proceeded to shell the defense 
 less life-boats." ANY NEWSPAPER. 
 
 What monsters of the mythologic den 
 
 Shall match the horror of the Hun at sea? 
 
 The frozen blood congeals, then, leaping free, 
 Goes furious on its outraged course again. 
 This is the work of devils, not of men! 
 
 By this they do, know now that man may be 
 
 Deeper below the beast than ever we 
 Have soared above the reptiles of the fen. 
 
 They do this open-eyed. This is their plan, 
 
 Tho all the world go sick with qualms of it. 
 Such savageries do men devise for man, 
 
 Conscious and nothing loth, as tho Hell s slime 
 Took form to do the bidding of the Pit 
 A stench upon our days and ways of Time ! 
 
 46 
 
A VISION OF GERMANIA 
 
 She took the sword that shone at Waterloo, 
 Drawn once in aid and service of the right, 
 But tarnished now, that was awhile so bright, 
 
 And gazing on the shameful steel, she knew 
 
 What maculations left so strange a hue 
 The blood of innocence that dried to blight: 
 Across the Gothic vastness of her night 
 
 Far oceanward the forfeit blade she threw. 
 
 Past Verdun and the long Biscayan dune 
 It gleamed like Arthur s glaive below the moon, 
 And falling, broke the sea to foamy chaff. 
 Outward a swift and ever-lessening wave 
 Swept moaning from the dark, dishonored grave. 
 "Sunk without trace!" cried Satan with a laugh. 
 
 47 
 
TO THE HUN 
 
 Not for the lust of conquest do we blame 
 Thy monstrous armies, nor the blinded rage 
 That holds thee traitor to this gentler age, 
 
 Nor yet for cities given to the flame; 
 
 For changing Europe finds thy heart the same 
 And as of old thy bestial heritage. 
 The Light is not for thee. The war we wage 
 
 Is less on thee than on thy deathless shame. 
 
 Lo ! this is thy betrayal that we know, 
 
 Gazing on thee, how far Man s footsteps stray 
 
 From the pure heights of love and brotherhood, 
 How deep in undelivered night we go, 
 How long on bitter paths we shall delay, 
 
 Held by thy bruteship from the Gates of Good. 
 
 48 
 
WAR 
 
 THE PAST 
 
 In that abyss what monsters greet the sight ! 
 Then were the fertile leisures of the sage, 
 And stony Art saw then her Golden Age; 
 
 But nation upon nation in that night, 
 
 With flame to blast and savage steel to smite, 
 Fell fiendlike, drunken with the battle-rage, 
 And Time s red arm upholds a bloody page 
 
 Before the revelation of the light. 
 
 The dreadful heritage is on us yet: 
 
 Rapine and tears and torment and despair 
 The murder-stains wherewith our hands are wet. 
 Still round us rise the dungeons of the Past, 
 The crypt abominable whence we fare 
 Slowly, ah! slowly to the light at last. 
 
 49 
 
WAR 
 
 THE PRESENT 
 
 They will not pause for counsel. Deadly wings 
 Take now the skies, and the horizons slay 
 With hands invisible, and warships sway 
 
 To billows broken by their thunderings. 
 
 So wrought the lands where now the desert flings 
 A pall of sand on columns that decay; 
 And whose the realm none knows unto this day, 
 
 Nor knows the Wrath that smote its cruel kings. 
 
 Is this the wholesome blue, the heavens of night 
 
 Whose eastern star the wise men had for guide? 
 Found they the Prince of Peace below its light? 
 
 That orb hath set. Swift from its holy place 
 With level wings the pampered vultures slide, 
 As morning glimmers on a dead man s face. 
 
 50 
 
WAR 
 
 THE FUTURE 
 
 Be beautiful, O morning s feet of gold, 
 
 Upon the mountains of that time to be! 
 
 Be swift, O dayspring that shall set us free 
 From all the blinding tyrannies of old ! 
 Thine are the years by seer and bard foretold, 
 
 And thine the judgment driven as a sea 
 
 On man s high-treason to humanity. 
 Thine is the sun their armies shall behold. 
 
 O ranks that serve the future and the Right, 
 
 How fair your conquests and how high your wars, 
 When, bathed in that deliverance of light, 
 
 Your swords are lifted against pain and wrong, 
 And, ere man s House be builded toward the stars, 
 Ye lay its deep foundations with a song! 
 
 51 
 
BY GEORGE STERLING 
 
 The Caged Eagle and Other Poems 
 
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