Poems (Kennedy)/Culprits
CULPRITS
("During the first two and a half years of the war our loyal women gave 3,000,000 unfathered children to the state," said the kaiser.)
WHO is to blame for this dread war?
The German wife, the German maid
Who with servility obeyed
That word of out-lawed purity
And humbly lent
Themselves to "conscript motherhood"
To please an autocratic lord—
The German wife, the German maid
Who with servility obeyed
That word of out-lawed purity
And humbly lent
Themselves to "conscript motherhood"
To please an autocratic lord—
Those coward women who forgot
In bestial license God's decree
For marriage vows and chastity,
The finer, cleaner things of life—
And by their acts
Were concubines to stranger men
And lost the whiteness of their souls.
In bestial license God's decree
For marriage vows and chastity,
The finer, cleaner things of life—
And by their acts
Were concubines to stranger men
And lost the whiteness of their souls.
These bear the burden of the blame,
And on their shameless heads is heaped
The world's contempt; they trebly reaped
In scorn of world-wide womanhood
What they had sown;
For through the ages it will stand
A nation's scarlet harlotry!
And on their shameless heads is heaped
The world's contempt; they trebly reaped
In scorn of world-wide womanhood
What they had sown;
For through the ages it will stand
A nation's scarlet harlotry!
And men who know their women went
Down to such depths of infamy,
Nor struck a blow for sanctity,
Nor spoke a word for clean uplift
Of wife and home?
What kind of men are they? The jungle beasts
Have higher instincts, since they fight
To hold their mates against the world.
Down to such depths of infamy,
Nor struck a blow for sanctity,
Nor spoke a word for clean uplift
Of wife and home?
What kind of men are they? The jungle beasts
Have higher instincts, since they fight
To hold their mates against the world.
SHIPS THAT SAIL
A WIDE and ever swinging path,
A gleaming trail across the world,
Calm with the shine of silver light,
Or wracked by billows, tempest-hurled;
And down that swaying, swinging path,
Uncharted to the far outposts,
The ships dip through the lilac dawns
Or slip away like midnight ghosts.
A gleaming trail across the world,
Calm with the shine of silver light,
Or wracked by billows, tempest-hurled;
And down that swaying, swinging path,
Uncharted to the far outposts,
The ships dip through the lilac dawns
Or slip away like midnight ghosts.
They're freighted deep with men and stores,
Each niche is filled by war's decree,
And yet—though we look close and long,
Not half their cargoes we may see.
For on them went, with cask and bale,
Unseen and all so silently,
The love of those left here behind
In scattered homes of loyalty.
Each niche is filled by war's decree,
And yet—though we look close and long,
Not half their cargoes we may see.
For on them went, with cask and bale,
Unseen and all so silently,
The love of those left here behind
In scattered homes of loyalty.
No invoice of those "stores" is made,
But, though its presence none may prove,
Beside each man that treads the deck
The shadow of some love doth move.
O ships that sail that wide highway,
O pilot at the helm of fate,
Hold true your course—come safe to port;
A thousand hearts go in your freight.
But, though its presence none may prove,
Beside each man that treads the deck
The shadow of some love doth move.
O ships that sail that wide highway,
O pilot at the helm of fate,
Hold true your course—come safe to port;
A thousand hearts go in your freight.