Page:Fifes and Drums, Poems of America at War, Vigilantes, 1917.djvu/115

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FIFES AND DRUMS
109


You cannot change the written scroll
    Nor alter the charted plan,
Ever must moaning women quail
    And man make war on man;
Out of strength must sweetness come—
    Out of sacrifice
We melt the metal and forge the key
    To enter Paradise.

I thank my fathers for what they paid
    On the altar of the years,
I thank the women who gave me birth
    In agony and tears;
I could not wish that life should ask
    One payment less from me,
And the bugle-call of the arming hosts
    Sets their old passion free.

Willard Wattles.