Why ask to know the date the clime?

Why ask to know the date the clime?

More then mere words they cannot be

Men knelt to God and worshipped crime

And crushed the helpless even as we

But they had learnt from length of strife

Of civil war and anarchy

To laugh at death and look on life

With somewhat lighter sympathy

It was the autumn of the year

The time to labouring peasants dear

Week after week from noon to noon

September shone as bright as June

Still, never hand a sickle held

The crops were garnered in the field

Trod out and ground by horse's feet

While every ear was milky sweet

And kneaded on the threshing floor

With mire of tears and human gore

Some said they thought that heaven's pure rain

Would hardly bless those fields again

Not so - the all benignant skies

Rebuked that fear of famished eyes

July passed on with showers and dew

And August glowed in showerless blue

No harvest time could be more fair

Had harvest fruits but ripened there

And I confess that hate of rest

And thirst for things abandoned now

Had weaned me from my country's breast

And brought me to that land of woe

Enthusiast in a name delighting

My alien sword I drew to free

One race, beneath two standards fighting

For Loyalty and Liberty

When kindred strive God help the weak

A brothers ruth 'tis vain to seek

At first it hurt my chivalry

To join them in their cruelty

But I grew hard I learnt to wear

An iron front to terror's prayer

I learnt to turn my ears away

From tortures groans as well as they

By force I learnt what power had I

To say the conquered should not die?

What heart one trembling foe to save

When hundreds daily filled the grave?

Yet there were faces that could move

A moment's flash of human love

And there were fates that made me feel

I was not to the centre steel

I've often witnessed wise men fear

To meet distress which they foresaw

And seeming cowards nobly bear

A doom that thrilled the brave with awe

Strange proofs I've seen how hearts could hide

Their secret with a lifelong pride

And then reveal it as they died

Strange courage and strange weakness too

In that last hour, when most are true

And timid natures strangely nerved

To deeds from which the desperate swerved

These I may tell but leave them now

Go with me where my thoughts would go

Now all today, and all last night

I've had one scene before my sight

Wood shadowed dales a harvest moon

Unclouded in its glorious noon

A solemn landscape wide and still

A red fire on a distant hill

A line of fires and deep below

Another duskier, drearier glow

Charred beams and lime and blackened stones

Self piled in cairns o'er burning bones

And lurid flames that licked the wood

Then quenched their glare in pools of blood

But yestereve No never care

Let street and suburb smoulder there-

Smoke-hidden, in the winding glen

They lay too far to vex my ken

Four score shot down all veterans strong

One prisoner spared their leader young

And he within his house was laid

Wounded, and weak and nearly dead

We gave him life against his will

For he entreated us to kill

And statue-like we saw his tears

And harshly fell our captain's sneers

'Now, heaven forbid' with scorn he said

that noble gore our hands should shed

Like common blood - retain thy breath

Or scheme, If thou canst purchase death

When men are poor we sometimes hear

And pitying grant that dastard prayer

When men are rich we make them buy

The pleasant privilege to die

O we have castles reared for kings

Embattled towers and buttressed wings

Thrice three feet thick, and guarded well

With chain and bolt and sentinel!

We build our despots dwellings sure

Knowing they love to live secure

And our respect for royalty

Extends to thy estate and thee

The supplicant groaned his moistened eye

Swam wild and dim with agony

The gentle blood could ill sustain

Degrading taunts, unhonoured pain

Bold had he shown himself to lead

Eager to smite and proud to bleed

A man amid the battle's storm

An infant in the after calm

Beyond the town his mansion stood

Girt round with pasture land and wood

And there our wounded soldiers lying

Enjoyed the ease of wealth in dying

For him, no mortal more then he

Had softened life with luxury

And truly did our priest declare

Of good things he had had his share

We lodged him in an empty place

The full moon beaming on his face

Through shivered glass, and ruins, made

Where shell and ball the fiercest played

I watched his ghastly couch beside

Regardless if he lived or died

Nay, muttering curses on the breast

Whose ceaseless moans denied me rest

Twas hard, I know, 'twas harsh to say

'Hell snatch thy worthless soul away!

But then 'twas hard my lids to keep

Through this long night, estranged from sleep

Captive and keeper, both outworn

Each in his misery yearned for morn

Even though returning morn should bring

Intenser toil and suffering

Slow slow it came Our dreary room

Grew drearier with departing gloom

Yet as the west wind warmly blew

I felt my pulses bound anew

And turned to him nor breeze nor ray

Revived that mould of shattered clay

Scarce conscious of his pain he lay

Scarce conscious that my hands removed

The glittering toys his lightness loved

The jewelled rings and locker fair

Forsake the world without regret

I murmured in contemptuous tone

The world poor wretch will soon forget

Thy noble name when thou art gone

And words of such contempt I said

Cold insults o'er a dying bed

Which as they darken memory now

Disturb my pulse and flush my brow

I know that Justice holds in store

Reprisals for these days of gore

Not for the blood, but for the sin

Of stifling mercy's voice within

The blood spilt gives no pang at all

It is my conscience haunting me

Telling how oft my lips shed gall

On many a thing too weak to be

Even in thought, my enemy

And whispering ever, when I pray

'God will repay - God will repay!

He does repay and soon and well

The deeds that turn his earth to hell

The wrongs that aim a venomed dart

Through nature at the Eternal Heart

Surely my cruel tongue was cursed

I know my prisoner heard me speak

A transient gleam of feeling burst

And wandered o'er his haggard cheek

And from his quivering lips there stole

A look to melt a demon's soul

A silent prayer more powerful far

Then any breathed petitions are

Pleading in mortal agony

To mercy's Source but not to me

My plunder taken I left him there

Without one breath of morning air

To struggle with his last despair

Regardless of the wildered cry

Which wailed for death yet wailed to die

I left him there unwatched alone

And eager sought the court below

W'ere o'er a trough of chiselled stone

An ice cold well did gurgling flow

The water in its basin shed

A stranger tinge of fiery red

I drank and scarcely marked the hue

My food was dyed with crimson too

As I went out a ragged child

With wasted cheek and ringlets wild

A shape of fear and misery

Raised up her helpless hands to me

And begged her fathers face to see

I spurned the piteous wretch away

Thy fathers face is lifeless clay

As thine mayst be ere fall of day

Unless the truth be quickly told

Where thou hast hid thy father's gold

Yet in the intervals of pain

He heard my taunts and moaned again

And mocking moans did I reply

And asked him why he would not die

In noble agony uncomplaining

Was it not foul disgrace and shame

To thus disgrace his ancient name?

Just then a comrade came hurrying in

Alas, he cried sin genders sin

For every soldier slain they've sworn

To hang up five come morn

They've taken of stranglers sixty three

Full thirty from one company

And all my father's family

And comrade thou hadst only one

They've taken thy all thy little son

Down at my captive's feet I fell

I had no option in despair

As thou wouldst save thy soul from hell

My heart's own darling bid them spare

Or human hate and hate divine

Blight every orphan flower of thine

He raised his head from death beguiled

He wakened up he almost smiled

Twice in my arms twice on my knee

You stabbed my child and laughed at me

And so with choking voice he said

I trust I hope in God she's dead

Yet not to thee not even to thee

Would I return such misery?

Such is that fearful grief I know

I will not cause thee equal woe

Write that they harm no infant there

Write that it is my latest prayer

I wrote - he signed and thus did save

My treasure from the gory grave

And oh my soul longed wildly then

To give his saviour life again

But heedless of my gratitude

The silent corpse before me lay

And still methinks in gloomy mood

I see it fresh as yesterday

The sad face raised imploringly

To mercy's God and not to me

I could not rescue him his child

I found alive and tended well

But she was full of anguish wild

And hated me, hated to hell

And weary with her savage woe

One moonless night I let her go