KAISER, BEWARE
Reading edition
Dost thou, mad Kaiser, for historic name, Set fire to Europe? Is it joy to gaze At blacker smoke than Etna's, and a blaze That wakes up Chaos, wild to come and claim The World, since Light, God-bidden though it came, Has failed to dawn upon our human ways? O Twin of Chaos! peer thou through the haze! 'Tis Human Beings feed the crackling flame. Beware, the smoke, like Etna's, is the curse Of widows on thy people-dooming throne, And in no country, more than in thine own, Cry out all mothers: "Wherefore bear and nurse? To feed war with our sons, our flesh and bone, That chaos may reclaim the Universe?"