No More Learning

Will it be Heaven? Will it be Hell,
When there is Peace?

This let us pray for, this implore:
That all base dreams thrust out at door,
We may in loftier aims excel
And, like men waking from a spell,
Grow stronger, nobler, than before,
When there is Peace.

_Austin Dobson_




A PRAYER IN TIME OF WAR


[ The war will change many things in art and life, and among them,
it is to be hoped, many of our own ideas as to what is, and what is not,
"intellectual. "]

Thou, whose deep ways are in the sea,
Whose footsteps are not known,
To-night a world that turned from Thee
Is waiting--at Thy Throne.

The towering Babels that we raised
Where scoffing sophists brawl,
The little Antichrists we praised--
The night is on them all.

_The fool hath said. . . . The fool hath said. . . . _
And we, who deemed him wise,
We who believed that Thou wast dead,
How should we seek Thine eyes?
How should we seek to Thee for power
Who scorned Thee yesterday?
How should we kneel, in this dread hour?
Lord, teach us how to pray!

Grant us the single heart, once more,
That mocks no sacred thing,
The Sword of Truth our fathers wore
When Thou wast Lord and King.

Let darkness unto darkness tell
Our deep unspoken prayer,
For, while our souls in darkness dwell,
We know that Thou art there.

_Alfred Noyes_




THEN AND NOW


When battles were fought
With a chivalrous sense of should and ought,
In spirit men said,
"End we quick or dead,
Honour is some reward!
Let us fight fair--for our own best or worst;
So, Gentlemen of the Guard,
Fire first! "

In the open they stood,
Man to man in his knightlihood:
They would not deign
To profit by a stain
On the honourable rules,
Knowing that practise perfidy no man durst
Who in the heroic schools
Was nurst.

But now, behold, what
Is war with those where honour is not!
Rama laments
Its dead innocents;
Herod howls: "Sly slaughter
Rules now! Let us, by modes once called accurst,
Overhead, under water,
Stab first. "

_Thomas Hardy_




THE KAISER AND GOD


["I rejoice with you in Wilhelm's first victory. How magnificently God
supported him! "--Telegram from the Kaiser to the Crown Princess. ]

Led by Wilhelm, as you tell,
God has done extremely well;
You with patronizing nod
Show that you approve of God.
Kaiser, face a question new--
This--does God approve of you?