SEA SPRAY ^ SMOKE DRIFT 



Thine aid. We have suffered and striven 

 Till we have grown reckless of pain, 

 Though feeble of heart and of brain. 



Fair spirit, alluring if wicked, 



False deity, terribly real, 

 Our senses are trapp'd, our souls trickdd 



By thee and thy hollow ideal. 

 The soldier who falls in his harness, 



And strikes his last stroke with slack hand, 

 On his dead face thy wrath and thy scorn is 



Imprinted. Oh ! seeks he a land 



Where he shall escape thy command ? 



When the blood of thy victims lies red on 

 That stricken field, fiercest and last. 



In the sunset that gilds Armageddon 

 With battle-drift still overcast. 



When the smoke of thy hot conflagrations 

 O'ershadows the earth as with wings. 



Where nations have fought against nations, 

 And kings have encounter'd with kings, 

 When cometh the end of all things. 



Then those who have patiently waited, 



And borne, unresisting, the pain 



73 



