Poems of power [electronic text]

WAR SONNETS.

I.

WAR is destructive, wasteful, brutal, yet The energies of men are brought to play, And hidden valor by occasion met Leaps to the light, as precious jewels may When earthquakes rend the rock. The stress and strain Of war stirs men to do their worst and best. Heroes are forged on anvils hot with pain And splendid courage comes but with the test Some natures ripen and some virtues bloom Only in blood-red soil; some souls prove great Only in moments dark with death or doom. This is the sad historic jest which fate Flings to the world, recurring time on time. Many must fall that one may seem sublime.

II.

Above the chaos of impending ills, Through all the clamor of insistent strife, Now while the noise of warring nations fills Each throbbing hour with menaces to life, I hear the voice of Progress! Strange indeed The shadowed pathways that lead up to light. But as a runner sometimes will recede

That he may so accumulate his might, Then with a will that needs must be obeyed Rushes resistless to the goal with ease, So the whole world seems now to retrograde, Slips back to war, that it may speed to peace. And in that backward step it gathers force For the triumphant finish of its course.