Original Poetry.

Cromwell Argus, Volume 2, Issue 81, 30 May 1871, Page 6

Original Poetry.

.—-* “ RED ” RHYMES, on WAR WARBLES, “ Cry havock, and let slip the dogs of War.” —Henry V, War, with all its horrors, over, Piillii Peace comes trembling back. Sorrowing, toilsome years won’t cover Bloody battle's scathing track : Cities rained ; to a desert Turned the fertile, blooming plain ; Gallant France, all gory chafing, Zoned in tyrant Teuton chain. Moloch, grimmest of Hell legions, Seldom had such sacrifice Offered o’er the earth’s wide regions As the host that now lowl ies : Flower of Europe’s civilization ; Tens of thousands—ten times ten ; Gaul and German, mangled, mingled ; Beardless boys, and grey-haired men ! Maidens’, mothers’ lamentation ; Widows’ wail, ’lorn orphans’ cry ; Famine, rapine, desolation ; Curses, groans of agony, Wrung from slaughter’s tortured victims, Ere the heavy eye, aglaze With the death-mist, frenzied closes ; Smoke, of homesteads fierce ablaze, Hov’ring, in fell gloom Satanic, O’er time-spared ancestral wall ; While, with wild-despairing panic, Outcasts watch, aghast, the fall Of the hallowed natal dwelling : Such, to him, is homage rare, Incense precious, sweetest musicj Love gifts, efficacious prayer. Trae, hut cruel—hitter, seemeth The sad saying to the mind : “ Peace is what the sages dreameth ; War, the hist’ry of mankind.” From the earliest noted period, Man, like rabid beast of prey, Reeks with sanguinary straggle ; Fierce is, yet, his race to slay. Kot until we all most truly .Act the Gospel works enjoined, Will the Heaven-bud Peace bloom fully To fruition for mankind, Then, no more incarnadined, the Sword unholily shall gleam ! Then, the glorious realising Of the sages’ trow dim dream ! John Meade, Bendigo Gully.