Aftermath

(By Harold Begble,[1] in the Observer, London.)

...unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.

The hand of God is holden,

The lips of God are still;

Freely His creature chooses

To cherish or to kill;

And you laugh as the altar crashes,

And the wine of the cup is spilt,

And you shout that your sword shall answer

To a pagan god for your guilt;

But when this night is ended,

But when new days begin,

Bitterly shall your children

Pay for their fathers’ sin.

The wrath of many nations

Shall drive you to your place,

Man’s soul is risen against you,

Man’s judgment you shall face—

When the blood has dried in the valley,

And the guns come down from the hill,

And the armies melt in the vineyards,

And the harvest goes to the mill,

Then, when the men are sowing,

Then, when the women spin,

Bitterly shall your children

Pay for their fathers’ sin.

The gates of life shall open,

The feast of love be spread,

Joy shall come in with music,

Bringing earth’s wine and bread;

And the nations shall draw together,

And the peoples shall be as one,

But you shall come in unwelcomed

And you shall sit down by none.

Slowly man’s heart shall open

His doors to let you in;

Bitterly shall your children

Pay for their fathers’ sin.

The eyes of all shall mark you,

Lips as you pass be dumb,

Into the path you follow

No other guest shall come;

You shall sit at the feast unfriended,

You shall go from the house unstayed,

You shall be on the earth a stranger

Till the debt that you owe is paid.

Hardly to man’s forgiveness

Shall Belgium’s slayer win,

Bitterly shall your children

Curse for their fathers’ sin.

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[1] Edward Harold Begbie (the above selection misspells his surname) lived from 1871 to 1929.  He was an English author and journalist who published nearly 50 books, poems and contributed to periodicals. At first Begbie took up farming, but later moved to London and joined the Daily Chronicle and later the Globe. He wrote books of popular verse, and much literature for children. At the outbreak of World War I he wrote a number of recruiting poems and visited America on behalf of his paper. Some of the articles he wrote there were used as propaganda.

By 1916, dismayed by the attacks being made on Lord Haldane by L.J. Maxse in the National Review, he began to question the Government’s domestic policy. In 1917, he publicly defended the rights of Pacifists and Conscientious Objectors to oppose the War. He later wrote his best known work under the pseudonym of “A Gentleman with a Duster,” in which various anomalies and injustices were exposed. Among his other works, the best known were Broken Earthware, Other Sheep, In the Hands of the Potter, and his Life of General Booth.  (Source: The Modern World Encyclopedia, 1935)