TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11254, 7 December 1914, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

A.D. 1914. — '—■*• — ■ The searchlight's sword thrust, blinding bright, s Stabs thro' the starry summer night. bhrapnel and shell tear shrieking by Where late the white doves circled high. Gone from the once fair village street The lovers' laugh, the childish feet. Where smilled Peace, Life and Hope before Red Madness raves, —And this is War.

I Crushed lies that on the sodden earth To which some woman's pangs gave birth. | Wasted the love, the toil, the care, The father-pride, the mother-prayer, The baby's hug, iho'young wife's kiss, Now but a nameless, shapeless this That from its roten foulness gory Stinks to the skies, —And this is Glory. Where red flames streak : the cannon's pall, Beside her dead home's smouldering . wall, ** She crouches in the ashen dust Twin victim of the conqueror's lust. Her butchered husband has been shown ' Mercy, beside what she has known— . Black terror, outroge, burning shame That moans for death, —And this is Fame. Wasted upon the barren olain The dead Christ's blood drips fresh again. A people conquering crown the wrong With brutal force ajid drunken sor-.». A people conquered curse their fate, Outraged and ravished, mad with hato Some later murder oount to tell— And this is war, And War is Hell. —Frank Stevens, in "Mother 'arbh."