THE PACIFIST.

Cowards and curs and traitors,

Fatuous dreaming fools —

Binding us, stripped, for the madman

Nurtured of dastard schools,

Where right of might and who springs first

Are the only known rules.

Well fed, well housed and sleek and smug,

Full pursed and full of pride —

Your fields are green, your lanes are fair

Where peaceful homes abide,

And your children play by sunny streams

That laughing seaward glide.

What Primal Power tells you eat

To the ends of your belly-greed —

What holds your fields with harvests full,

And answers every need —

And bids your bairns play laughingly

With never care or heed?

The answer, Fool, is written large

In words of blazing light —

They are rewards of dwelling in

A Land of kingly might,

That grants you surety and wealth

And guards you, day and night.

And whence, Fool, came its splendid strength —

And why, and how and when?

In a World of strife and reddened knife

Did it rise by tongue and pen?

No, Dolt, but by the strong right arms,

The arms of its fighting men.

And Ye, Ye would sit with folded hands,

Agaze into Heaven's blue,

With sanctimonious murmurings

Of what the Lord will do;

While your neighbor and your neighbor's son

Go forth and fight for you.

For you, you cur, and your belly-need —

For your hearth and kith and kin:

For your harvest and your banking-house

Where you shovel the shekels in,

Till the labor has hardened your hands and heart,

And your soul is parchment skin.

Religion cannot cover

A dog whose liver is white.

Your Christ, with righteous anger,

Smote hard to left and right

The usurers. And never said

He was too proud to fight.

When we are another Belgium

And the land with blood is dyed,

And your homes are burned and your women raped,

And ye know that ye have lied —

Mayhap ye will say with your final gasp

That ye are satisfied.