War is Kind | Page 2

have I lived," quoth the

maniac,
"Possessing only eyes and ears.
"But you--
"You don
green spectacles before you look at roses."
Fast rode the knight
With spurs, hot and reeking,
Ever waving an
eager sword,
"To save my lady!"
Fast rode the knight,
And leaped
from saddle to war.
Men of steel flickered and gleamed
Like riot of
silver lights,
And the gold of the knight's good banner
Still waved
on a castle wall.
. . . . . . .
A horse,
Blowing, staggering, bloody
thing,
Forgotten at foot of castle wall.
A horse
Dead at foot of
castle wall.
Forth went the candid man
And spoke freely to the wind--
When he
looked about him he was in a far
strange country.
Forth went the candid man
And spoke freely to the stars--
Yellow
light tore sight from his eye.
"My good fool," said a learned bystander,
"Your operations are mad."
"You are too candid," cried the candid man.
And when his stick left
the head of the
learned bystander
It was two sticks.
You tell me this is God?
I tell you this is a printed list,
A burning
candle and an ass.
On the desert
A silence from the moon's deepest
valley.
Fire rays fall athwart the robes
Of hooded men, squat and
dumb.
Before them, a woman
Moves to the blowing of shrill
whistles
And distant thunder of drums,
While mystic things,
sinuous, dull with

terrible color,
Sleepily fondle her body
Or move at her will,
swishing stealthily over
the sand.
The snakes whisper softly;
The whispering, whispering
snakes,
Dreaming and swaying and staring,
But always whispering,
softly whispering.
The wind streams from the lone reaches
Of
Arabia, solemn with night,
And the wild fire makes shimmer of blood

Over the robes of the hooded men
Squat and dumb.
Bands of moving bronze, emerald, yellow,
Circle the throat and arms
of her,
And over the sands serpents move warily
Slow, menacing
and submissive,
Swinging to the whistles and drums,
The
whispering, whispering snakes,
Dreaming and swaying and staring,

But always whispering, softly whispering.
The dignity of the
accursed;
The glory of slavery, despair, death,
Is in the dance of the
whispering snakes.
A newspaper is a collection of half-injustices
Which, bawled by boys
from mile to mile,
Spreads its curious opinion
To a million merciful
and sneering men,
While families cuddle the joys of the fireside

When spurred by tale of dire lone agony.
A newspaper is a court

Where every one is kindly and unfairly tried
By a squalor of honest
men.
A newspaper is a market
Where wisdom sells its freedom

And melons are crowned by the crowd.
A newspaper is a game

Where his error scores the player victory
While another's skill wins
death.
A newspaper is a symbol;
It is fetless life's chronical,
A
collection of loud tales
Concentrating eternal stupidities,
That in
remote ages lived unhaltered,
Roaming through a fenceless world.
The wayfarer,
Perceiving the pathway to truth,
Was struck with
astonishment.
It was thickly grown with weeds.
"Ha," he said,
"I
see that none has passed here
"In a long time."
Later he saw that
each weed
Was a singular knife.
"Well," he mumbled at last,

"Doubtless there are other roads."

A slant of sun on dull brown walls,
A forgotten sky of bashful blue.
Toward God a mighty hymn,
A song of collisions and cries,

Rumbling wheels, hoof-beats, bells,
Welcomes, farewells, love-calls,
final moans,
Voices of joy, idiocy, warning, despair,
The unknown
appeals of brutes,
The chanting of flowers,
The screams of cut trees,

The senseless babble of hens and wise men--
A cluttered
incoherency that says at the
stars;
"O God, save us!"
Once a man clambering to the housetops
Appealed to the heavens.

With a strong voice he called to the deaf
spheres;
A warrior's shout he raised to the suns.
Lo, at last, there
was a dot on the clouds,
And--at last and at last--
--God--the sky
was filled with armies.
There was a man with tongue of wood
Who essayed to sing,
And in
truth it was lamentable.
But there was one who heard
The
clip-clapper of this tongue of wood
And knew what the man

Wished to sing,
And with that the singer was content.
The successful man has thrust himself
Through the water of the years,

Reeking wet with mistakes,--
Bloody mistakes;
Slimed with
victories over the lesser,
A figure thankful on the shore of money.

Then, with the bones of fools
He buys silken banners
Limned with
his triumphant face;
With the skins of wise men
He buys the trivial
bows of all.
Flesh painted with marrow
Contributes a coverlet,
A
coverlet for his contented slumber.
In guiltless ignorance, in ignorant
guilt,
He delivered his secrets to the riven multitude.
"Thus I
defended: Thus I wrought."

Complacent, smiling,
He stands heavily
on the dead.
Erect on a pillar of skulls
He declaims his trampling of
babes;
Smirking, fat, dripping,
He makes speech in guiltless

ignorance,
Innocence.
In the night
Grey heavy clouds muffled the valleys,
And the peaks
looked toward God alone.
"O Master that movest the wind with a
finger,
"Humble, idle, futile
peaks are we.
"Grant that we may run swiftly across
the world
"To huddle in worship at Thy feet."
In the morning
A noise of men at work came the clear blue miles,

And the little black cities were apparent.
"O Master that knowest the meaning of raindrops,
"Humble, idle,
futile peaks are we.
"Give voice to us, we pray, O Lord,
"That we
may sing Thy goodness to the sun."
In the evening
The far valleys
were sprinkled with tiny lights.
"O Master,
"Thou that knowest