El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1919-03-12


Spilled things around some.
E Accidentally
/ Blowing up their wonderful
] Museum.
T Belgium. and
Z France, had
4 Their treasures too.
{ The widest imagination could
] Never picture as Il really is,
[ A modern battlefield such as
] Those. for example. Of
Nerdun, where millions fell
Pompen half eXcavated might
Perhaps give some idea Of the
D Ruined towns, though many
villages in France were
{ Literally pulverized either by the
Smelling or later by being
b Broken up 20 make military
I Roads But the
Battlefields-the worst Of them
I cannot imagine anything
> With which to compare them
Unless il be the crater
D OF volcano
4 After q recent eruption.
Hundreds Of square miles
3 Upturned by shells. and where
The blowing was sometimes
20 or 80 feet deep
Hills lowered,
Rivers damned
Forests mere torn up roots.
The waste material Of war
Rotting in the debris
Universal destruction.
Ugly and foul,
Monstrous. horrible,
Grotesque distortion
No straight or curved line
or level space or form
Or plan or upright thing.
Not even round hole
or a normal crater
~ hon Il - " oh
But everything crooked and broken
A world not merely dead
But leering Its clOWnish face
"a CHASTITY cadaver OF a world
At any living being
Who passes there
7 say clownish. because
Things do pass the last
Farthest boundary Of horror.
OF woe and GRIEF and sacrifice.
And seem to sink into the
Chaos Of a world unmade-
Such a mockery Of human pride
As one can only smile at
Because the power TO feel
Any deep emotion has been
Altogether lost
There was a woman once
Lay dying
with a malignant disease
That caused such ceaseless
OverpoWering pain that she
Smiled
Because she was so miserable"
As one looked upon the waste
OF war over here
Upon the mangled men.
Their vital organs exposed
To be rained on
Upon the tortured cities,
The spent treasures Of
Ages OF 'civilized'' mans work
Upon the once fair forests
Turned to black rucl1s OF cinder
And slime
one should have felt
Deeply. emotional1y,
Passionately, stirred
And should have clenched
The fists. and grit the teeth,
And kissed the bayonet,
And spit on the hand grenades
With tncantatiOns.
And breathed hard. and
Taken solemn oaths, and
Detained heroics. and
Even dragged God IN
With prayers and
Sanctified curses.
III one had followed the
Program Of the Poets
And Of all the imaginative
writers and orators
But il didn't work
That way. No, Il
Seemed as II a wall
Were placed around the heart
So that the heart was
Guarded against the blows,
The struggle and feverish
Heaving Of emotion.
And one grew TO look upon
These things
With pulse as quiet and
Eyes as dry and
Nerves as relaxed
As II one in the moonlight
With music playing
Watched little children
Dence their rinE-games.
You may have thought
That the sights Of war,
And the reality Of the
Wrongs that had been done
BY Germany in trying
To rape Civilization.
And the weird wreckage
or Germany's crazy orgy,
Would have transformed our men
But they did not.
Our men were not fiercs
OF blood-lusty,
But they took the measure
or the Super-men
At first glance
And they went forward
Into the storm
with the secure confidence
And obedience TO fate
OF an old ship's-captain
Defying all the tempests
OF the seven seas
They killed the enemy
Without compunction
Almost as fmpersoually
As the lightning kills,
But to fulfil a duty;
Not 20 indulge a lust,
And not lawlessly-
Not passion. not emotion,
Not religion. not reason,
But Unconquerable VIII
Enlisted in a right cause
Gave them the power
To drive and to overcome
For the time being, their VIII
Was to exterminate the enemy
Their aim was single
And they pursued It
Soberly and confidently
With sustained eagerness
Like a long-distancs runner
But hardly with
Poetic enthusiasm
And with more thought
For the home folks than for
All the world beside
II was. for them.
Self-defense, home-defense,
Not a moral crusade.
And II they fell.