Battle-Retrospect, and Other Poems/The Invisible Suffrage
THE INVISIBLE SUFFRAGE. NOVEMBER 2, 1920.
For that our fathers sowed the slopes of time
With seed of faith that still its harvest yields,
For that they called Him Lord to Whom the shields
Of all the earth belong,—our dearth, our crime
He overlooked, and in an hour sublime
Led us out to the eternal battle-fields
Where through the ages His own sword He wields
To prove us worthy of our country's prime.
... Now we indict the temper of that hour!
Now we abandon the unburied slain!
In panic at the unwonted Light we cower
And stampede to our midnight ways again,
While plead and clamour for that glorious morn
The suffrage of the dead and the unborn.