THE SAD YEARS
AN OLD PROVERB
“It will be all the same in a thousand years.”
And in a thousand years
It will be all the same,
Whether or no
Women's tears flow,
Or battles take us
To save or to break us,
Or man against man
Advance but a span;
Hideous in anger,
Tame in death's languor,
Shouting and crying,
Sobbing and dying,
On the red fields of war;
Calling on those afar,
Mother and child and wife
There in the midst of strife.
God, the earth shakes with it!
Down in the hellish pit,
[102]
