As it were almost cricket--as it were even your play, Weighed and pondered and worshipped, and practised day and day. So ye shall bide sure-guarded when the restless lightnings wake In the womb of the blotting war-cloud, and the pallid nations quake. So, at the haggard trumpets, instant your soul shall leap Forthright, accoutred, accepting--alert from the wells of sleep. So at the threat ye shall summon--so at the need ye shall send Men, not children or servants, tempered and taught to the end; Cleansed of servile panic, slow to dread or despise, Humble because of knowledge, mighty by sacrifice. But ye say, ‘It will mar our comfort.’ Ye say, ‘It will minish our trade.’ Do ye wait for the spattered shrapnel ere ye learn how a gun is laid? For the low, red glare to southward when the raided coast-towns burn? (Light ye shall have on that lesson, but little time to learn.) Will ye pitch some white pavilion, and lustily even the odds, With nets and hoops and mallets, with rackets and bats and rods? Will the rabbit war with your foemen--the red deer horn them for hire? Your kept cock-pheasant keep you?--he is master of many a shire. Arid, aloof, incurious, unthinking, unthanking, gelt, Will ye loose your schools to flout them till their brow-beat columns melt? Will ye pray them or preach them, or print them, or ballot them back from your shore? Will your workmen issue a mandate to bid them strike no more? Will ye rise and dethrone your rulers? (Because ye were idle both? Pride by insolence chastened? Indolence purged by sloth?) No doubt but ye are the People; who shall make you afraid? Also your gods are many; no doubt but your gods shall aid. Idols of greasy altars built for the body’s ease; Proud little brazen Baals and talking fetishes; Teraphs of sept and party and wise wood-pavement gods-- _These_ shall come down to the battle and snatch you from under the rods? From the gusty, flickering gun-roll with viewless salvoes rent, And the pitted hail of the bullets that tell not whence they were sent. When ye are ringed as with iron, when ye are scourged as with whips, When the meat is yet in your belly, and the boast is yet on your lips; When ye go forth at morning and the noon beholds you broke, Ere ye lie down at even, your remnant, under the yoke. _No doubt but ye are the People--absolute, strong, and wise; Whatever your heart has desired ye have not withheld from your eyes. On your own heads, in your own hands, the sin and the saving lies!_ THE PEACE OF DIVES [Page 40] The Word came down to Dives in Torment where he lay: ‘Our World is full of wickedness, My Children maim and slay, ‘And the Saint and Seer and Prophet ‘Can make no better of it ‘Than to sanctify and prophesy and pray.