High in the sun the sneering airmen glide,
    Glance at wrist-watches:  scarce a minute gone
  And London, Paris, or New York has died! 
    Scarce twice they look, then turn and hurry on. 
  And, far away, one in his quiet room
    Dreams of a fiercer dust, a deadlier fume: 
  The wireless crackles him, “Complete success”;
    “Next time,” he smiles, “in half a minute less!”
  To this the climbing brain has won at last—­
    A nation’s life gone like a shrivelled scroll—­
  And thus To-Day outstrips the dotard Past! 
    I envy not that man his devil’s soul.

  UNDER WHICH KING . . . ?

  The fight I loved—­the good old fight—­
  Was clear as day ’twixt Might and Right;
  Satrap and slave on either hand,
  Tiller and tyrant of the land;
  One delved the earth the other trod,
  The writhing worm, the thundering god. 
  Lords of an earth they deemed their own,
  The tyrants laughed from throne to throne,
  Scattered the gold and spilled the wine,
  And deemed their foolish dust divine;
  While, ’neath their heel, sublimely strove
  The martyred hosts of Human Love.

  Such was the fight I dreamed of old
  ’Twixt Labour and the Lords of Gold;
  I deemed all evil in the king,
  In Demos every lovely thing. 
  But now I see the battle set—­
  Albeit the same old banners yet—­
  With no clear issue to decide,
  With Right and Might on either side;
  Yet small the rumour is of Right—­
  But the bared arms of Might and Might
  Brandish across the hate-filled lands,
  With blood alike on both their hands.

  MAN, THE DESTROYER

  O spirit of Life, by whatsoe’er a name
    Known among men, even as our fathers bent
  Before thee, and as little children came
    For counsel in Life’s dread predicament,
  Even we, with all our lore,
    That only beckons, saddens and betrays,
  Have no such key to the mysterious door
    As he that kneels and prays.

  The stern ascension of our climbing thought,
    The martyred pilgrims of the soaring soul,
  Bring us no nearer to the thing we sought,
    But only tempt us further from the goal;
  Yea! the eternal plan
    Darkens with knowledge, and our weary skill
  But makes us more of beast and less of man,
    Fevered to hate and kill.

  Loves flees with frightened eyes the world it knew,
    Fades and dissolves and vanishes away,
  And the sole art the sons of men pursue
    Is to out-speed the slayer and to slay: 
  And lovely secrets won
    From radiant nature and her magic laws
  Serve but to stretch black deserts in the sun,
    And glut destruction’s jaws.