Now these were visions in the night of war:
I prayed for peace; God, answering my prayer, Sent down a grievous plague on humankind, A black and tumorous plague that softly slew Till nations and their armies were no more— And there was perfect peace ... But I awoke, wroth with high God and prayer.
I prayed for peace; God, answering my prayer, Decreed the Truce of Life:—Wings in the sky Fluttered and fell; the quick, bright ocean things Sank to the ooze; the footprints in the woods Vanished; the freed brute from the abattoir Starved on green pastures; and within the blood The death-work at the root of living ceased; And men gnawed clods and stones, blasphemed and died— And there was perfect peace ... But I awoke, wroth with high God and prayer.
I prayed for peace; God, answering my prayer, Bowed the free neck beneath a yoke of steel, Dumbed the free voice that springs in lyric speech, Killed the free art that glows on all mankind, And made one iron nation lord of earth, Which in the monstrous matrix of its will Moulded a spawn of slaves. There was One Might— And there was perfect peace ... But I awoke, wroth with high God and prayer.
I prayed for peace; God, answering my prayer, Palsied all flesh with bitter fear of death. The shuddering slayers fled to town and field Beset with carrion visions, foul decay. And sickening taints of air that made the earth One charnel of the shrivelled lines of war. And through all flesh that omnipresent fear Became the strangling fingers of a hand That choked aspiring thought and brave belief And love of loveliness and selfless deed Till flesh was all, flesh wallowing, styed in fear, In festering fear that stank beyond the stars— And there was perfect peace ... But I awoke, wroth with high God and prayer.
I prayed for peace; God, answering my prayer, Spake very softly of forgotten things, Spake very softly old remembered words Sweet as young starlight. Rose to heaven again The mystic challenge of the Nazarene, That deathless affirmation:—Man in God And God in man willing the God to be ... And there was war and peace, and peace and war, Full year and lean, joy, anguish, life and death, Doing their work on the evolving soul, The soul of man in God and God in man. For death is nothing in the sum of things, And life is nothing in the sum of things, And flesh is nothing in the sum of things, But man in God is all and God in man, Will merged in will, love immanent in love, Moving through visioned vistas to one goal— The goal of man in God and God in man, And of all life in God and God in life— The far fruition of our earthly prayer, “Thy will be done!” ... There is no other peace!