Evil

While the red spittle of the grape-shot sings

All day across the endless sky, and while entire battalions

Green or scarlet‚ rallied by their king

Disintegrate in crumpled masses under fire

While an abominable madness seeks to pound

A hundred thousand men into a smoking mess

Pitiful dead in summer grass‚ on the rich ground

Out of which Nature wrought these men in holiness

He is a God who sees it all‚ and laughs aloud

At damask altar-cloths, incense and chalices

Who falls asleep lulled by adoring liturgies

And wakens when some mother, in her anguish bowed

And weeping till her old black bonnet shakes with grief

Offers him a a big sou wrapped in her handkerchief