INCLUSIVE EDITION, 1885-1918 649
REBIRTH
191 4-18
TF ANY God should say
I will restore The world her yesterday
Whole as before
My Judgment blasted it" who would not lift Heart, eye, and hand in passion o'er the gift?
If any God should will
To wipe from mind
The memory of this ill
Which is mankind
In soul and substance now who would not bless Even to tears His loving-tenderness?
If any God should give
Us leave to fly These present deaths we live,
And safely die
In those lost lives we lived ere we were born What man but would not laugh the excuse to scorn?
For we are what we are
So broke to blood And the strict works of war
So long subdued
To sacrifice, that threadbare Death commands Hardly observance at our busier hands.
