<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">Ultimate Hell</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line"><span class="smallcaps">Satan</span>? I am.</p><p class="line">The Other One? "The Great I am"?</p><p class="line">Who knows? Millenniums ago</p><p class="line">Some rumor ran that He existed yet!</p><p class="line">I half believed it true, as loath to think</p><p class="line">That He'd outwitted me, or suffered harm</p><p class="line">To rob me of a thrill. Eternity</p><p class="line">Is deadly now, I own.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">His name, you say, was God.</p><p class="line">As I recall, it was. Priests mumbled it,</p><p class="line">And cutthroats bawled it for an oath,</p><p class="line">Then, all at once, the priests began to think,</p><p class="line">And ceased to pray.</p><p class="line">'Twas quite the oddest thing that I have known,</p><p class="line">And my dear Foe became thenceforth a myth,</p><p class="line">Or faded, like the morning cloud, with man's</p><p class="line">Immortal hope (poor Tyndall's, eke, whose word</p><p class="line">I'll not forget) into the azure past.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">What of my kingdom now?</p><p class="line">I have no kingdom now. Long time ago</p><p class="line">I tired of kings, as God in His day tired.</p><p class="line">They were too boist'rous in their wickedness,</p><p class="line">Too bloody and uncouth. They weren't well bred.</p><p class="line">I heard the last of them</p><p class="line">Reigned somewhere on the Baltic Sea,</p><p class="line">A sodden Hohenzollern prince,</p><p class="line">Descended from that self-drunk one</p><p class="line">Who made a War -- the only war</p><p class="line">That lately I had cared about.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">It promised well, but soon went wrong.</p><p class="line">Ten million men, yea, twice ten million men,</p><p class="line">Swarmed forth to fight for what they called ideals:</p><p class="line">From Belgium's mills and mines, from England's marts,</p><p class="line">From fairest France and sun-warm Italy,</p><p class="line">From Serbia and the Russian steppe, to fight</p><p class="line">For Right! Oh God! (old habits rise in me)</p><p class="line">For Liberty! They left their little ones,</p><p class="line">Their wives, their gold! They flung away their lives</p><p class="line">As storms throw pearls of rain. They wearied me!</p><p class="line">They were too much like Christ, the crazy one</p><p class="line">Who died forgiving all, and took a thief</p><p class="line">With him to Paradise.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">And so there is no Hel1? I'll not say that.</p><p class="line">The name is out of date, but things sometimes</p><p class="line">Survive their names, as names so oft live on</p><p class="line">When things and men are dead. There is a land</p><p class="line">That once was dedicate to Liberty:</p><p class="line">A land that cast off kings and set slaves free.</p><p class="line">But when it gathered wealth, and fame, and power,</p><p class="line">And could have struck the blow that might have saved</p><p class="line">Throughout the world the things for which men died,</p><p class="line">The things for which long rows of graves were made,</p><p class="line">It would not strike.</p><p class="line">It let its own go gurgling down to death,</p><p class="line">And did not smite.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Self-made, self-damned, self-governing,</p><p class="line">It hammers now, and smelts;</p><p class="line">And ever, as it pounds, it sings,</p><p class="line">This Tubal Cain -- of Peace!</p><p class="line">And golden dollars jingle in the song,</p><p class="line">Beneath a sulphuring sky it dwells -- at peace --</p><p class="line">In riveless unity of self-content.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">I'm growing old? I do not relish quite</p><p class="line">The modern way, a Democratic Hell?</p><p class="line">I'm growing old? I wonder if I sometimes wish</p><p class="line">That God would come again!</p></div><p class="byline">-- Franklin H. Giddings.</p><p> New York, December 5, 1915. </p></body></html> · Great War