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