They were cleanly groomed. They were not to be bought.
And their cigars were good.

But they had pulled so many strings

In the tinselled puppet-show of kings

That, when they talked of war, they thought

Of sawdust, not of blood;

VOL. CXCIV.-NO. MCLXXVI.

2 F

Not of the crimson tempest

Where the shattered city falls:

They thought, behind their varnished doors,
Of diplomats, ambassadors,

Budgets, and loans and boundary-lines,
Coercions and re-calls ;

Forces and Balances of Power;

Shadows and dreams and dust;
And how to set their bond aside
And prove they lied not when they lied,
And which was weak, and which was strong,
But never which was just.

Yet they were honest, honest men.
Justice could take no wrong.
The blind arbitrament of steel,
The mailed hand, the armoured heel,
Could only prove that Justice reigned
And that her hands were strong.

For they were strong. So might is right,
And reason wins the day.

And, if at a touch on a silver bell
They plunged three nations into hell,
The blood of peasants is not red
A hundred miles away.

But, if one touch on a silver bell
Should loose, beyond control,

A blind immeasurable flood

Of lust and hate and tears and blood,
Unknown immeasurable powers
That swept to an unseen goal,

Beyond their guidance for one hour,
Beyond their utmost ken,

No huddled madman, crowned with straw,
Could so transgress his own last law . . .
So a secretary struck the bell

For these five honest men.

II.

With brown arms folded, by his hut, Johann, The young wood-cutter, waited. A bell tolled, The sunset fires along the mountain ran,

The bucket at the well dripped a thin gold,

He saw the peaks like clouds of lilac bloom Above him, then the pine-woods, fold on fold,

Around him, slowly filled with deep blue gloom.

Sleep, Dodi, sleep, he heard his young wife say, Hushing their child behind him in the room.

Then, like a cottage casement, far away,

A star thrilled in a pale green space of sky;
And then, like stars, with tiny ray on ray,

He saw the homely village-lights reply:
And earth and sky were mingled in one night,
And all that vast dissolving pageantry

Drew to those quintessential points of light,
Still as the windless candles in a shrine,
Significant in the depth as in the height.

O, little blue pigeon, sleep. Sleep, Dodi, mine,
She murmured, Sleep, little rose in your rosy bed.
The moon is rocking, rocking to rest in the pine.

Sleep, little blue pigeon,

Sleep on my breast,
Sleep, while the stars shine,

Sleep, while the big pine

Rocks with the white moon,
Over your nest.

A great grey cloud sailed slowly overhead.
She stood behind Johann. Around his eyes
Her soft hands closed. "Dodi's asleep," she said.

He drew her hands away. Then, as the skies
Darkened, he muttered, "Sonia, you must know.
I've kept the news from you all day."

Parted her lips.

"Go? Where?"

Surprise

"To-morrow I must go.'

-Clear as a silver bell, one star

Thrilled thro' the clouds. Her face looked white as snow.

-To-morrow morning, Sonia. No, not far!

To join the regiment. We are called, you see.

But why? What does it mean?

Mean, Sonia? War!

III.

The troop-train couplings clanged like Fate
Above the bugles' din.

Sweating beneath their haversacks,

With rifles bristling on their backs,

Like heavy-footed oxen

The dusty men trooped in.

It seemed that some gigantic hand
Behind the veils of sky

Was driving, herding all these men
Like cattle into a cattle-pen,
So few of them could understand,
So many of them must die.

Johann was crammed into his truck.
Far off, he heard a shout.
The corporal cracked a bottle of wine,
And passed the drink along the line.
The iron couplings clanged again,
And the troop-train rumbled out.

"I left my wife a month's pay,"
A voice droned at his side.

"This war, they say, will last a year.
God knows what will become of her,
With three to feed."-"Ah, that's the way
In war," Johann replied.

"They say that war's a noble thing!
They say it's good to die,
For causes none can understand!
They say it's for the Fatherland!
They say it's for the Flag, the King,
And none must question why!"

The train shrieked into a tunnel.
"Duty --Yes, that is good.

But when the thing has grown so vast
That no man knows, from first to last,
The reason why he finds himself

Up to his neck in blood;

When you are trapped and carried along
By a Power that runs on rails;

Why, open that door, my friends, and see
The way you are fixed. You think you are free,
But the iron wheels are singing a song

That stuns our fairy-tales;

When you are lifted up like this
Between a finger and thumb,

And dropt you don't know where or why,
And told to shoot and butcher and die,
And not to question, not to reply,

But go like a sheep to the shearers,
A lamb to the slaughter, dumb;

What? Are the engines, then, our God?
Does one amongst you know

The reason of this bitter work?"—
"Reason? The devilry of the Turk!
Lock, stock, and barrel, the Sick Man
And all his tribe must go."