WAR by Herbert Cadett

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 8, 1900

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 26, No. 32.

WAR.

By Herbert Cadett

[Herbert Cadett, in the "Toronto Daily Chronicle."]

PRIVATE SMITH of the Royals; the veldt and a slate-black sky; Hillocks of mud, brick-red with blood, and a prayer—half curse —to die; A lung and a Mauser bullet; pink froth and a half-choked cry.

Private Smith of the Royals; a torrent of freezing rain; A hail of frost on a life half lost; despair and a grinding pain; And the drip, drip, drip of the heavens to wash out the brand of Cain.

Private Smith of the Royals, self-sounding his funeral knell; A burning throat that each gasping note scrapes raw like a broken shell; A thirst like a red-hot iron and a tongue like a patch of hell.

Private Smith of the Royals; the blush of a dawning day; The fading mist that the sun has kissed—and over the hills away The blessed Red Cross, like an angel, in the trail of the men who slay.

Private Smith of the Royals gazed up at the soft blue sky— The rose-tinged morn, like a babe new born, and the sweet-songed birds on high— With the fleck of red on his pallid lip and a film of white on his eye.