Waves that marched to the western coast past forests and plains, mountains and deserts, and wrought their work in a world gone by. And the ripple of the ranks of these regiments that march to suffer and to die, is the ripple of a great brown river in flood that forges seaward; And the ripple of the light on eyes and lips that watch and work, is the swelling of a greater flood that forces them to go. And the ripple and arrest of light on dull gun-barrels that crest their flow are runes of a ritual spelled in steel and a service enduring. And each beat of their feet and each beat of their hearts is a word in a gospel of steel that says the nations through ruins grow one again; When God's drill-master War has welded nations in ranks that their children may serve Him together. For tomorrow makes way for them. John Curtis Underwood THE OLD GODS The Old Gods never die, Jove and Neptune and Mars, Tyr and Odin and Thor, These watch with the ageless stars, They watch forevermore. They call with the worn bronze trumpets, They call and all men hear. Their voice is deeper than church bells, We hear the tramp of many feet Their fashion's garments off they cast The Old Gods rule the seas, And men are fed to the waves. The Old Gods burn the cities; They bind and ravish their slaves. They ride on the storm and the lightning, They revel in jungle and brake, They inhabit the seats of the thunders A strange, strange smile Is the Old Gods', while They hope for the Cross to fall And they be lords of all. Jove and Neptune and Mars, Tyr and Odin and Thor, These watch with the ageless stars, They watch forevermore. The Old Gods never die, They only watch and wait, They wait for a thousand years Calvin Dill Wilson KOL NIDRE When twilight charms the sunset into dusk But when through darkening window-panes I reach I know must pass forever, I hear his voice: As from dissolving mists sudden appears Two thousand years of listless wandering! Who sings behind the wall is meek; the words Flow gently from his soul, and you whose song Cannot conceive the terrible despair! But we who sing it know, for as we sing And the whole song the story of a race Which wrought God from itself and lost its soul. Give me Kol Nidre! and a hundred armies march The dead have pride, and seeing it on me Will go their way. Yet I'll not desecrate The dead! Their pride-'twas all they had in life! Kol Nidre! God! will this never have end? The living? Lord! Have you no laughter left? Of bleeding lambs and drowning swine reach them. |