3599 VJ 7 3 5 Vv)135" CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE |.;<#XS TO GOD: FROM THE WEARY NATIONS BY FURNLEY MAURICE -^tlands 90 The original of tliis bool< is in tlie Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013251511 TO GOD: FROM THE WEARY NATIONS DEDICATED TO ISRAEL ZANGWILL ROMAIN ROLLAND AND THE MARTYRED MINORITY TO GOD: FROM THE WEARY NATIONS BY FURNLEY MAURICE AUSTRALASIAN AUTHORS' AGENCY MELBOURNE 1917 PR Printed by THE SPECIALTY PRESS PTY. LTD. 189 Little Collins St., Melbourne. TO GOD FROM THE WEARY NATIONS \\T E have been dead, our shroud enfolds the sea, Honor's a rag tossed out for winds to rend, And Virtue is most shamed and Lust goes free : And trembling Wisdom vainly seeks a friend. Our heroes lost in trenches or the sea Are dust or rag but no more clay than we, For we once set ourselves the frightful task Of healing delicate wounds with blazing brands. Oh God, look not upon our souls nor ask That we display the colour of these hands, But help us that we consecrate to Thee The remnant of our poor humanity. TO GOD, FROM THE WEARY NATIONS II. 'lAT'E have been cruel in thought. Life's not so sweet With pearls and pleasures that the race should set Its ardour to destruction. Brutal feet Crush down the roses. God, let us forget That we accused of barbarous intent The foe that lies in death magnificent. How can we hate forever, having proved All men are bright and brave and somewhere loved? How can men hate forever? We who have slain The dread of death shall kiU the hate from hell, Our bodies grown superior to pain. Our hearts shall learn the love ineffable. foeman who was valorous, we crave Forgiveness for the crimes we would forgive. All men have sinned, but God made all men brave. We ask forgiveness by this deep choked grave, And a little time, a little time to live, A little time to live and forget in the world The years of swords and horrors we repent. Forget the doom and shrieking curses hurled On foes that lie in death magnificent. God, men did not know men were so brave Till foes stood silent by the deep choked grave. TO GOD, FROM THE WEARY NATIONS III. \\f^ pray for pity, Lord, not justice, we Being but mortal offer mortal tears, For justice would mean more of cruelty And we have had enough inhuman years. Guard our repute ! We have grown gross and mean Who hoped to teU our children something clean, We come, the draggled and debauched sot. Drunken in blood, burdened with all distress. Ah, pity us, dear God, who have forgot The name and manner of pity and generousness. We, being mortal, love may come again. Thou wilt not be too hard— we are but men. TO GOD, FROM THE WEARY NATIONS IV. A H pity, Lord ! Maybe Thou wilt not find Hope for the devious, devilish ways to Peace Of shamefaced, shuddering remnants of mankind, All murdering, none brave enough to cease. Redeem us with Thy hope lest Thy disgust Makes future empires violate our dust. Ah pity us, dear God, who have forgot The name of that sweet pity that once reigned Imperial; or must forever rot The hearts that guilt and grossness have so stained? Could we be as we were before war came We would not talk of guile nor separate blame. Let the past go : sin is an old affair. Search not our records for the first dark ruse. We, being sinners, all must share and share. We ask for pity, Lord, not for our dues. Let us, all sinners and all stained with blood, Assemble in a sinners' brotherhood. TO GOD, FROM THE WEARY NATIONS V. 17 OR every man has courage, all are peerless. Each man reigns in his region, sovereign, free. ■But we have broken blessed men and fearless, Bach in his deep and separate agony. "We have drawn hearty boys eager to live Into the ghastly hells our guns have made ; And lying mothers who were "glad to give" 1 Took war's terrific wastage unafraid. With resignation terrible to see They suffered questionless that deathly toll, "Waiting for woe, for hope, for what might be — Knowing that life is carrion and a soul. And is man's battle anguish stiU more deep Than those sharp mother-pangs that give men birth? Pain begets pain, and curses curses reap. Travail is useless, sacrifice no worth. For we have shown the world this bitter thing: Men suffering for no end but suffering. 10 TO GOD, FROM THE WEARY NATIONS VI. \\T E 'VE heaped hot curses upon unknown names, And we have sinned before our dreams and Thee, Gazed tearlessly on blasted human frames — Ah pity. Lord, our soiled humanity. Oh we have murdered hope and babes and things Wrought by inspired fingers joyously. Earth and her vines may shroud our murderings, But what shall kill that haunting memory? Eiot, destruction, lust — these have prevailed. Reason and quietness grappled, sank and died. Our soldiers, dreaming of home gardens, failed. Seeing their last mad dawn in the bloody tide. You made men for the light. Where now are we? Oh pity. Lord, our poor humanity. Oh that You might, with one vast, cleansing breath, Erase from time and human memory These devastating panders crying "Death!" And our poor stripped and stained mortality That tramps through new terrific wastes in vain The imbecilic circle, pain to pain ! Read down the sins of Thy most dread account Add Satan's interest, plus and overplus. Put Thou an aeon's crimes to that amount Thou shalt not sum the frightful debt of us. We've ruined dreams; canst Thou forgive us then Who have so wrecked the visions of good men? TO GOD, FROM THE WEARY NATIONS 11 VII. 'PHE wisdom of our strength comes very slow, The trend of our wild wills is subtly hid. We sometimes ask: "However could we kaow, "We wilful, fumbling children, what we did?" Forget, oh Lord, the shrapnel and the lance And give Thy children one more splendid chance! We have nursed means of killing that exhaust The mode and quickness of an expert Death. And not one died in all that holocaust But fell because of someone's little faith. You made us for the light, and here we tramp Murky, mediaeval paths of murder and gloom. We, being greatly gifted, shattered the Lamp, Debased our altitude, devised more doom. H^ve we been valiant? Ah, petty pride- Teach us to live as bravely as we died. Hope rode with pride from out his ivied tower, The sun was gold upon his shining dress. But where romance and gallantry might flower The fray brought only blood and beastliness. And this we might forget and no more see, If Thon wouldst slay this spectre Memory. 12 TO GOD, FROM THE WEARY NATIONS VIII. 'T'HE house of Faith and Wisdom, stone and beam In travail and devotion have we raised. Now through the ruined terraces of dream The blind soul wanders homelessly and dazed, And dazedly wonders who has done this thing, What power has wrought this senseless ravaging? Souls sacrificial, consecrated years. Out of deep speculation and calm thought, Cemented with high faith and suffering's tears, Stone upon chiselled stone her temple wrought. Can we face any more those eyes of pain Now we have wrecked what shall not rise again? .TO GOD, FROM THE WEARY NATIONS 13 IX. T'HB dreamers wait. What can the spirit urge Against the madness of this sorry day? How shall the timid form of Peace emerge Unless the marshals let the dreamers say? And they are few and most forsaken, Lord, Who spoke and suffered for their human hope. Though Thou shalt give the soldier to the sword Preserve the future from the hangman's rope! Preserve for us, oh God, the voice of those Who, towering above the tempest, speak not yet With audibleness; the howling battle blows Their protest back into their faces wet With tears of helplessness and huge regret. Preserve them for the time when their calm word Above the ruinous carnage may be heard. For dreams are stronger than armies in the end. Old savage men may tear the face of Truth, Decree: "There stauds your foeman, here your friend,' Declare their bloody wars that slaughter youth — Ah, Youth, old as the world, is not so wise ! The serpent voice fashions the hearts for hate, Sets down a rule of war, a rune of lies That have no right at all — the dreamers wait, Reijfembering the precept and the plan. The changeless laws that angry men forget. The just and splendid destiny of man We quarrelling children must acknowledge yet. 14 TO GOD, FROM THE WEARY NATIONS 1*7 E cannot fight forever. When the domes Of Truth's forsaken temple surely gleam Above wrecked churches and black, ruined homes Men shall forsake the battle for the dream. Then call Thou home the bold young men again Who front a ruthless and bewildering fate. Call home the young who suifer senseless pain And leave the war to those who taught them hate. God, forget these hours of ignorance. Youth and the dreamers offer their hearts in fee. If Thou wilt give the traitors one more chance . If Thou wilt spare our poor humanity. Though much is taken, much is still to take, War has not yet consumed Thy sheltering grace. God, recall Thy children ere they break The old unbroken spirit of Thy race. Ere we who held Thy torch are doomed to climb The dark again, condemned to see afar Prom timeless depths of catastrophic slime The distant gleam of our forsaken star, Ere we become so doomed, call back to Thee The remnant of our poor humanity. TO GOD, FROM THE WEARY NATIONS 15 XI. /^URS is no cry of creed, oh Lord, or race, But all the men the battles left to live Cry from the pit of their most foul disgrace. Cry to their pitying Father to forgive. So help them that they consecrate to Thee The remnant of their poor humanity. We have been dead, our hearts are crusted round With horn and hardness, black iniquity Grew over us a glory and sweet sound, And we have worshipped those, forgetting Thee. To have forgotten in the rage and stress Might leave our absolution undenied. But the whole purport of our guiltiness Is that, forgetting, we forgot with pride. 16 TO GOD, FROM THE WEARY NATIONS XII. POR Thou hast given wit and hands and fire And when we saw our huge converters blast Their jewelled fumes to Heaven, our desire Yearned for a soaring conquest just as vast. And when we watched our Dreadnoughts fling the weight Of waves aside, and heard our great guns lift ' A mountain into dust, we saw our fate Gigantic without Thee — and cut adrift. We saw the steel run bubbling in the mould And, disremembering where we began, "This steel," we cried, "is conquest, this is gold! , God is a prisoner td revolted man!" Thou gavest steel to us. Thou gavest brain, Thou gavest patience ; we grew grossly great ; And we have used Thy steel Thy will to chain, And Thou hast burst those bonds, and now we wait Thy judgment, who have meddled with Thy things. We thought to snatch the sacred flame from Thee — Look on our soul's scorched breast, our withered wings And pity, Lord, our poor humanity! Cornell University Library PR 9599.W735T6 To God: from the weary nations. 3 1924 013 251 511