War Drums (Scharkie)/The Shadow of Battle
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THE SHADOW OF BATTLE.
Gone the days of peace and quiet; gone the golden-footed hours—
Once, the playmates gay of love and youth in summer shining bowers.
Once, the playmates gay of love and youth in summer shining bowers.
Gone, the days when hope may linger at the angel-guarded gate,
Peering through, with conscious wonder, on the phantom of its fate.
Peering through, with conscious wonder, on the phantom of its fate.
Bitter days of bold endeavour, framed of iron-moulded wills,
Break, with every nearer sunrise, over battle-cumbered hills.
Break, with every nearer sunrise, over battle-cumbered hills.
Near adown the future, fashioned to the heat of rounding suns,
Wild contending armies grapple in the roar of blaring guns.
Wild contending armies grapple in the roar of blaring guns.
Foe-like factions, bloody-hearted, with the tiger-scent of fate,
Trail the vitals of a kingdom through the level of their hate.
Trail the vitals of a kingdom through the level of their hate.
Realms, disrupted, self-dismembered, rotting in intestine lust,
Shivered with the shocks of battle, lie their laurels in the dust.
Shivered with the shocks of battle, lie their laurels in the dust.
Blood and rapine, grown imperial, rule with iron-handed might,
And the sage asks, in confusion, "where is wisdom, where is right?"
And the sage asks, in confusion, "where is wisdom, where is right?"
Blood and life flow free as water down a foaming cataract hurled,
Soaking, blood-like, drenching, dew-like all the morals of the world.
Soaking, blood-like, drenching, dew-like all the morals of the world.
Ah! we mutter in our silence, as we lie upon our shields,
"Whose the blade that drips triumphant with the blood of battle-fields?"
"Whose the blade that drips triumphant with the blood of battle-fields?"
While the seas rock round the mainlands with the crash of bellowing guns,
And the mothers' hearts go bleeding for the slaughter of their sons.
And the mothers' hearts go bleeding for the slaughter of their sons.
Calm, methinks, amid the carnage, and the crash of fiery fights,
Calm, I see the Saxon brothers joining with the Teuton knights.
Calm, I see the Saxon brothers joining with the Teuton knights.
See their jarring discords melting like the mist-line or the lea,
When the Russo-Frankish clarion calls to battle on the sea.
When the Russo-Frankish clarion calls to battle on the sea.
Hear the guns that shook the Baltic, and the bastions of Sedan,
Shake the seas with living thunders, for the good of God and man.
Shake the seas with living thunders, for the good of God and man.
Shouting Right, their loudest war-cry, where hot bolts are thickest hurled,
And tumultuous, far flung thunders shake a battle blasted world.
And tumultuous, far flung thunders shake a battle blasted world.
Till false Senates in their scorning, toppled round degraded kings,
Rot with all the leprous attributes their cursed deception brings.
Rot with all the leprous attributes their cursed deception brings.
Till the name of war (no longer theme of verse and warrior's robe)
Shall be closed with kings that whirled it to the verges of the globe.
Shall be closed with kings that whirled it to the verges of the globe.
While acclaiming victors, with the blazoned folds of peace unfurled,
Lead the grand procession of a free, and federated world.
Lead the grand procession of a free, and federated world.