War is Kind. Crane Stephen

of steel flickered and gleamed

      Like riot of silver lights,

      And the gold of the knight's good banner

      Still waved on a castle wall.

      .       .       .       .       .       .       .

      A horse,

      Blowing, staggering, bloody thing,

      Forgotten at foot of castle wall.

      A horse

      Dead at foot of castle wall.

      Forth went the candid man

      And spoke freely to the wind—

      When he looked about him he was in a far

          strange country.

      Forth went the candid man

      And spoke freely to the stars—

      Yellow light tore sight from his eye.

      “My good fool,” said a learned bystander,

      “Your operations are mad.”

      “You are too candid,” cried the candid man.

      And when his stick left the head of the

          learned bystander

      It was two sticks.

      You tell me this is God?

      I tell you this is a printed list,

      A burning candle and an ass.

      On the desert

      A silence from the moon's deepest

          valley.

      Fire rays fall athwart the robes