Prone, where the sire his life-blood shed,
The mother on the child lies dead;
The torch, the axe, the bomb, the shell
Paint earth and heaven in hues of hell;
Famine, massacre, slavery fall
On man in horrid carnival.
Great is thy triumph, modern age!
Progress thy bane, science thy scourge,
In sea and air new wars to wage,
And aye to evil fates, incessant, urge
Man's miserable race, on ruin's awful verge!
II
Meanwhile, on blue-horizoned shores, against Floridian skies,
Lone, white cranes, standing, fish; from sunset-colored caves
The darting mullet hues the shadow-haunted waves;
In pale, pellucid depths the rude crustacean lies.
There, with the dædal earth
The great Creator toys;
A thousand shapes of mirth,
A million vivid joys,
Like grains of coral sand,
Drop from His listless hand.—
How should man understand?
