Page:Poems Kennedy.djvu/62

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Thou canst not read another heart
Nor probe the mysteries of life;
Thou knowest not 'gainst what deadly odds
Was waged the bitter, long-drawn strife.

Nor canst thou tell what ground was held,
How near the triumph was complete;
One postern lost, the world condemns
And on the banner writes "Defeat."

If we slay man, his brother man
Extorts of us the murderer's dole;
God judges when, with word unjust,
We thrust aside a stricken soul!

So owe we it to Christ himself
To judge with his sweet charity
Those who, half hid in censure's cloud,
Walk in their dread Gethsemane!


BUILDING ANEW
A—DREAM beside the cloistered gates of time
That swing between the Now and Far Away,
I thought I saw the faded phantom years
Creep slowly past the portals of the Day.

And nations that have swayed the world amain,
Chaldea and Syria, Egypt's swarthy host,
And yearning Greece and godless Rome went by
And in the nimbus of the dawn were lost.

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