POETRY.
BACKWARDS.
IN wars of countless years beyond our ken, When Stomach was the ruling lust, to seize Some prize of fruit the greediest monkey-men Gibbered and stoned each other in the trees.
The earth roiled slowly into prayer and creed.
Men found keen ways to make their neighbours dead; They took to Thought, and those who disagreed—
No matter. This was Progress : Stone to Lead.
All in the name of God. They dragged Him in To every nightmare that a king decreed, And thus they "purged" the blessed world of "Sin," Making a wilderness to kill a weed.
The business skull began. The conquerors sailed With lips that prayed and consciences that winked, And to acquire one market more assailed Their kin. In tarn we called the type extinct.
The last imperial butcher now calls up God like a conscript, and informs his herd The hosts of Heaven are bound to side with Krupp And serve his pleasure as a " brilliant third."* You sicken Christians. But your claim allows
Of proof, and we will put it to the touch. If such a cause as this God must espouse
Or ours, we do not fear the verdict much.
For Heaven, a democratic sort of place, Cannot be violated even by you, Will not descend to make itself a base Of operations for the Potsdam crew.
We stand for honour, freedom, peace, and right, And all the things that suit your system least, Since you for years have organized your might To bring man nearer the ancestral beast.
We are under vow to urge the mighty ball Some notches further up Time's jagged track, And shall not count how many of us fall As props to save the earth from slipping back.
Also an end must now be made of fools, War-lords and murderers who bid Heaven rain Blood. We shall put our youth to other schools. This never must be possible again.
ROBERT VARSITTART.
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