<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">Sonnets Written in the Fall of 1914</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="subhead">I</p><p class="line"><span class="smallcaps">Awake</span>, ye nations, slumbering supine,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Who round enring the European fray!</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Heard ye the trumpet sound? "The Day! the Day!</p><p class="line">The last that shall on England's Empire shine!</p><p class="line">The Parliament that broke the Right Divine</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Shall see her realm of reason swept away,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And lesser nations shall the sword obey --</p><p class="line">The sword o'er all carve the great world's design!"</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">So on the English Channel boasts the foe</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">On whose imperial brow death's helmet nods.</p><p class="line">Look where his hosts o'er bloody Belgium go,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And mix a nation's past with blazing sods!</p><p class="line">A kingdom's waste! a people's homeless woe!</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Man's broken Word, and violated gods!</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="subhead">II</p><p class="line">Far fall the day when England's realm shall see</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">The sunset of dominion! Her increase</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Abolishes the man-dividing seas,</p><p class="line">And frames the brotherhood on earth to be!</p><p class="line">She, in free peoples planting sovereignty,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Orbs half the civil world in British peace;</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And though time dispossess her, and she cease,</p><p class="line">Rome-like she greatens in man's memory.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Oh, many a crown shall sink in war's turmoil,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And many a new republic light the sky,</p><p class="line">Fleets sweep the ocean, nations till the soil,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Genius be born and generations die,</p><p class="line">Orient and Occident together toil,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Ere such a mighty work man rears on high!</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="subhead">III</p><p class="line">Hearken, the feet of the Destroyer tread</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">The wine-press of the nations; fast the blood</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Pours from the side of Europe; in the flood</p><p class="line">On the septentrional watershed</p><p class="line">The rivers of fair France are running red!</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">England, the mother-acne of our brood,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">That on the summit of dominion stood,</p><p class="line">Shakes in the blast: heaven battles overhead!</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Lift up thy head, O Rheims, of ages heir</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">That treasured up in thee their glorious sum;</p><p class="line">Upon whose brow, prophetically fair,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Flamed the great morrow of the world to come;</p><p class="line">Haunt with thy beauty this volcanic air</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Ere yet thou close, O Flower of Christendom!</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="subhead">IV</p><p class="line">As when the shadow of the sun's eclipse</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Sweeps on the earth, and spreads a spectral air,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">As if the universe were dying there,</p><p class="line">On continent and isle the darkness dips</p><p class="line">Unwonted gloom, and on the Atlantic slips;</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">So in the night the Belgian cities flare</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Horizon-wide; the wandering people fare</p><p class="line">Along the roads, and load the fleeing ships.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">And westward borne that planetary sweep</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Darkening o'er England and her times to be,</p><p class="line">Already steps upon the ocean-deep!</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Watch well, my country, that unearthly sea,</p><p class="line">Lest when thou thinkest not, and in thy sleep,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Unapt for war, that gloom enshadow thee.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="subhead">V</p><p class="line">I pray for peace; yet peace is but a prayer.</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">How many wars have been in my brief years!</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">All races and all faiths, both hemispheres,</p><p class="line">My eyes have seen embattled everywhere</p><p class="line">The wide earth through; yet do I not despair</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Of peace, that slowly through far ages nears;</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Though not to me the golden morn appears,</p><p class="line">My faith is perfect in time's issue fair.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">For man doth build on an eternal scale,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And his ideals are framed of hope deferred;</p><p class="line">The millennium came not; yet Christ did not fail,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Though ever unaccomplished is His word;</p><p class="line">Him Prince of Peace, though unenthroned, we hail,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Supreme when in all bosoms He be heard.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="subhead">VI</p><p class="line">This is my faith, and my mind's heritage,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Wherein I toil, though in a lonely place,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Who yet world-wide survey the human race</p><p class="line">Unequal from wild nature disengage</p><p class="line">Body and soul, and life's old strife assuage;</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Still must abide, till heaven perfect its grace,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And love grown wisdom sweeten in man's face,</p><p class="line">Alike the Christian and the heathen rage.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">The tutelary genius of mankind</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Ripens by slow degrees the final State,</p><p class="line">That in the soul shall its foundations find</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And only in victorious love grow great;</p><p class="line">Patient the heart must be, humble the mind,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">That doth the greater births of time await!</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="subhead">VII</p><p class="line">Whence not unmoved I see the nations form</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">From Dover to the fountains of the Rhine,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">A hundred leagues, the scarlet battle-line,</p><p class="line">And by the Vistula great armies swarm,</p><p class="line">A vaster flood; rather my breast grows warm,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Seeing all peoples of the earth combine</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Under one standard, with one countersign,</p><p class="line">Grown brothers in the universal storm.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">And never through the wide world yet there rang</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">A mightier summons! O Thou who from the side</p><p class="line">Of Athens and the loins of Cæsar sprang,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Strike, Europe, with half the coming world allied</p><p class="line">For those ideals for which, since Homer sang,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">The hosts of thirty centuries have died.</p></div><p class="byline">George Edward Woodberry</p></body></html> · Great War