<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">To "Little" Belgium</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="subhead">I</p><p class="subhead">"There Was War in Heaven" (Rev. xii. 7)</p><p class="line"><span class="smallcaps">Surely</span> 'twas hell, not heaven, where first was war,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">Where first infernal passions woke and stirred --</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">War, which makes heaven impossible in a word,</p><p class="line">And Murder bids her bloody gate unbar!</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">As well might one, under the Juggernaut car,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">And knowing all annihilate shall be,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">Babble of life and immortality</p><p class="line">As call that "heaven" where hell and hatred are.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Yet there was war in heaven, as on this star,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">Yea, even there was War's red flag unfurled,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">As if High God would warn a craven world</p><p class="line">In heaven itself; worse can befall than war.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="subhead">II</p><p class="subhead">"Give Peace in Our Time, O Lord!" (Prayer Book)</p><p class="line">So runs the ancient prayer, and I who hold</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">War to be bloody, damnable, abhorred,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">Pray: "Not in our time, only, be it Lord,</p><p class="line">But for all time may peace this isle enfold!"</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Yet rather than our England cease to be</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">What England is -- Honour's own diadem;</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">Rather than fail one promised sword to them</p><p class="line">(Our word, God's arm, their surest guarantee),</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">That "little" but loyal race whom, near and far,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">A world acclaims for glorious, deathless deed,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">Rather than fail GREAT Belgium in her need,</p><p class="line">Rather than this, in God's own name, be war!</p></div><p class="byline">COULSON KERNAHAN</p><em>Daily Chronicle, August</em> 10, 1914</body></html> · Great War