To God's great heart bring not so much despair
As other sins which flourish everywhere
And in all times--bold sins, bare-faced and proud,
Unchecked by college, and by Church allowed,
Lifting their lusty heads like ugly weeds
Above wise precepts and religious creeds,
And growing rank in prosperous days of peace.
Think you the evils of this world would cease
With war's cessation?
If God's eyes know tears,
Methinks He weeps more for the wasted years
And the lost meaning of this earthly life -
This big, brief life--than over bloody strife.
Yea; there are mean, lean sins God must abhor
More than the fatted, blood-drunk monster, War.
Looking from His place, looking from His high place among the stars,
God saw a peaceful land -
A land of fertile fields and golden harvests--and great cities whose
innumerable spires pierced the vault of heaven, like bayonets of an
invading army.
And God said, speaking unto Himself aloud, God said:
'Peace and power and plenty have I given unto this land; and those
tall steeples are monuments to Me.
Now let My people reveal themselves, that I may see their works,
done in My name in a fertile land of peace.
I will withdraw Mine eyes from other worlds that I may behold them,
that I may behold these people to whom I sent Christ--they whose
innumerable spires pierce My blue vault like bayonets.'
God saw the restless, idle rich in club and cabaret,
Meat-gorged, wine-filled, they played and preened and danced till