Page:Mandragora.djvu/68

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
WAR

THESE, these are not the hours
    For mention of sweet flowers,
Or for light whispers blown thro' brittle reeds.
    The smoke of war's eclipse.
    Rolls dark across love's lips,
Cypris is silent while Adonis bleeds.

So be it. It is so.
And yet while come and go
    Sun, moon and stars, the old emotions waken
Which, while we breathe, we must
Feel thro' our human dust
    Even tho' the pillars of the earth are shaken.

Oh hero hosts struck low,
That a new world may know,
    Some rest from power, some escape from pride,
Faint over each dear head,
The shaméd gods must shed
    Tears for the cruel pain in which you died.

Never quite as before,
Will spring come to our door —
    A red stain lies upon love's tender star.
All born of human race,
Henceforth upon the place,
    Where beats the heart must feel an aching scar.