Nearing Christmas

The season of the rose and peace is past:     It could not last.     There's heartbreak in the hills and stormy sighs     Of sorrow in the rain-lashed plains and skies,     While Earth regards, aghast,     The last red leaf that flies.     The world is cringing in the darkness where     War left his lair,     And everything takes on a lupine look,     Baring gaunt teeth at every peaceful nook,     And shaking torrent hair     At every little brook.     Cancers of ulcerous flame his eyes, and hark!     There in the dark     The ponderous stir of metal, iron feet;     And with it, heard around the world, the beat     Of Battle; sounds that mark     His heart's advance, retreat.     With shrapnel pipes he goes his monstrous ways;     And, screeching, plays     The hell-born music Havoc dances to;     And, following with his skeleton-headed crew     Of ravening Nights and Days,     Horror invades the blue.     Against the Heaven he lifts a mailed fist     And writes a list     Of beautiful cities on the ghastly sky:     And underneath them, with no reason why,     In blood and tears and mist,     The postscript, "These must die!"     Change is the portion and chief heritage     Of every Age.     The spirit of God still waits its time. And War     May blur His message for a while, and mar     The writing on His page,     To this our sorrowful star.     But there above the conflict, orbed in rays,     Is drawn the face     Of Peace; at last who comes into her own;     Peace, from whose tomb the world shall roll the stone,     And give her highest place     In the human heart alone.