Well, now suppose The preachers who preach Jesus meek and mild, But fulminate for slaughter, when the game Of money turns its thumbs down; if your statesmen With hardened arteries and hardened hearts, Who make a cult of patriotism, gain Their offices and livelihood thereby; Your emperors and kings and chancellors, Who glorify themselves and win sometimes Lands for their people; and your editors Who whip the mob to fury, bellies fat, Grown cynical, and rich, who cannot lose, No matter what we suffer--if we nurses, And soldiers fail; your patriotic shouters Of murder and of madness, von Bernhardis, Treitschkes, making pawns of human life To shape a destiny they can't control-- Your bankers and your merchants--all the gang Who shout for war and pay the orators, Arrange the music--if I say--this crowd Finds us, the nurses and the soldiers, cold, Our fire of youth and faith beyond command, Too wise to be enlisted or enslaved, What will they do who shout for war so much? And haven't we, the nurses and the soldiers Written some million stories for the eyes Of boys and girls to read these fifty years? And if they read and understand, no war Can come again. They can't have war without The spirit of your Elenor Murrays--no! * * * * * So Mary Black went on, and Merival Gave liberty to her to talk her mind. The jury smiled or looked intense for words So graphic of the horrors of the war. Then David Barrow asked: "Who is the man That used to write to Elenor, went away?" And Mary Black replied, "We do not know; I do not know a girl who ever knew. I only know that Elenor wept and grieved, And did her duty like a little soldier. It was some man who came to France, because The word went round he had gone back, and left The service, or the service there in France Had left. Some said he'd gone to England, some America. He must have been an American, Or rather in America when she sailed, Because she went off happy. In New York Saw much of him before we sailed." And then The Reverend Maiworm juryman spoke up-- This Mary Black had left the witness chair-- And asked if Gregory Wenner went to France. The coroner thought not, but would inquire. * * * * * Jane Fisher was a friend of Elenor Murray's And held the secret of a pack of letters Which Elenor Murray left. And on a day She talks with Susan Hamilton, a friend. Jane Fisher has composed a letter to A lawyer in New York, who has the letters-- At least it seems so--and to get the letters, And so fulfill the trust which Elenor Had left to Jane. Meantime the coroner Had heard somehow about the letters, or That Jane knows something--she is anxious now, And in a flurry, does not wish to go Down to LeRoy and tell her story. So She talks with Susan Hamilton like this: