The WAR-MAKERS

NZ Truth, Issue 477, 8 August 1914, Page 1

The WAR-MAKERS

Alfred Noyes.

By

A. MURDERED.man ten miles away, . '■ . Will hardly shake your peace Like one red stain upon your • hand; • And a tortured child m a 'distant, land ■• Will never check one smile to-day, # Or bid one fiddle cease. . . To watch the. mouth of a harlot foam ' For the blood of Baptist JohnIs a fine thing while the fiddles play; . . For blood and lust are 1 th« mode to-day, And lust ami blood were the mode- of R omCf -.-"■■. . And we go where Rome has gone.

„ . - „... ' , „ - Not for a littfe news from :hell. •-.. _L bhall. London strive or cry. Though thought would shatter like tl y"!m^,' V ;l' x^'. v These gran.te hills that bury tWe.right, US V- O xl. 7 ■c^ iif -"^^Mw >''^The^Hth'.far-;whroh*i«on-.die.- - ■ '■'■' '-•• • The truth.that all might know, but.all ' With one consent-refuse; • To call on that/to break our pact Of silence, were to make men act. -• Good taste forbids that trumpet-call, And-a censor sends our news. ■ ,;-. . ■ It comes along a tittle wire Sunk m a deep, deep sea; . " It thins m the clubs to a little smoke Between one joke ,and another joke; For a city m flames is less than the ro That comforts you and me.

Play up then, fiddles! 'Play bassoon! The plains are soaked with red. Ten thousand slaughtered fools,' out there, • Clutch at their wounds and taint the ' air; And . : . here is an «xcel|ent cartoon ■/ On what the Kaiser said. • . .«- , On with the dance! In England yet The meadow-grass is green. Play up, play up, and play your partr !t <* not that we lack the heart, But that Fate deftly swings the net And blood is best unseen. * « r • Arourid a shining table sat Five men m black' frock-coats; And. what-their sin wap, none could >ay; ' For eaCh Was honest after iiis way, Tho'one man held - " ■ And j omT'm'aV WaM^^te^ -'•-•• " ■ " :■'■■.''''''"^z^■■"> lii ■■ • ■■' One :waV; the, friend of "a merchant :' '' prmce, ■ •'. - -. ■ °««. wa ,f th« foe^ fa Ppie*V' , °ne had, a brother whose heart was set <>n f 9<^d star and an epaulette. And-where the rotten carcase lies The vultures flock to feast. ... ■ ■>. - ■ But—each, was ho'nesi- after his way, Lukewarm m faith, and old; And blood, to them, was only a word,. And the point of a,phrase their only sword, ' And the cost of war, they reckoned it In little disks of gold.

They were cleanly ■. groomed. They ' were not to be bought, ■ •■ ■ - And their cigars were good. But they pulled so many, strings ' ■ In the tinseled puppet-show of kings That, when they talked of war, they thought , • ; Of sawdust, not of blood; .. : Not of the crimson tempest " Where the shattered city falls. •.•-l. i They: thought, behind their varnished - . r-:--doors, Of diplomats, ambassadors, Budgets, _ and loans, and boundary Coercip|fis;!and recalls; • -><^S

■:, ;■ ":?^X. Forces and B^ances of Power; Shadows and dreams and dust; And how to set their, b*ond aside ' And^ prpvSfthWlied not when they-lied, was '•- — 'stVohg, -,; -^'T *' . But"-neyer which was just. . ■ \;J ■;■, ■ .:^,"; - ['. '; ; . ;■;■ Yet they; were .hontest... honest men. T. c °^ d Uk? n ° wro"9< The bl.rtd of s,t.eel p The mailed hand, the armored heel, Could on£ prove that Just.cc re.gned And that her hands were strong. ■■. ••; -\ •■■"'- For they were strong.. So might is right, " And reason wins the day. And if,'at a touch on a silver bell, They'plunged three nations into hell, The blood of peasants is not red A hundred miles away.

®u^ one touch on a silver bell Beyond their guidance for one hour, A blind,, immeasurable, flobd " No huddled madman, crowned with Unknown, immeasurable powers Could so transgress his own last law— Th** swept, to an unseen goal. So a secretary struck the bell,