THE CAUSE (1918) By Paul Scott Mowrer Poet laureate of New Hampshire
Let but the cause seem beautiful, dear God, If we must die. Make us believe, in truth, For all mankind we thus forswear our youth, To stay till end of time the oppressor's rod; That but for us, harsh power would ride rough-shod Through freedom's delicate gardens, and the tooth Of hatred rend our people without ruth; So might we sleep contented, under the sod.
For else, who knows what gladness here on earth Was destined us, what nobly high employ? Oh, hard it is that youth should cease to be! For now came love, with a great glad rebirth To company our way, and now came joy! Not death we fear, but death's futility.
Thank you to all veterans, past & present, who have sacrificed their time and lives to maintain our freedom.
TURNING and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?