I.

I am as awful as my brother War, I am the sudden silence after clamour. I am the face that shows the seamy scar When blood has lost its frenzy and its glamour. Men in my pause shall know the cost at last That is not to be paid in triumphs or tears, Men will begin to judge the thing that’s past As men will judge it in a hundred years.

Nations! whose ravenous engines must be fed Endlessly with the father and the son, My naked light upon your darkness, dread!-- By which ye shall behold what ye have done: Whereon, more like a vulture than a dove, Ye set my seal in hatred, not in love.