World Voices :: :: University of Virginia Library

The World has walked with fever in its veins
For many and many a day. Oh, poor sick World!
Not knowing all its dreams of greed and gain
Of selfish conquest and possession, were
Disordered visions of a brain diseased.

Now the World's malady is at its height
And there is foul contagion in its breath.
It raves of death and slaughter; and the stars
Shake with reverberations of its cries,
And the sad seas are troubled and dismerged.

So must it rave—this sick and suffering world—
Until the old secretions in its blood
Are emptied out and purged away by war;
And the deep seated cankers of the mind
Begin the healing process. Then a calm
Shall come upon the earth; and that loved word
PEACE, shall be understood from shore to shore.

Shriek on, mad World. The Great Physician sits
Serenely conscious of the coming change,
Nor seeks to check the fever; it must run
Until its course is finished. He can wait.

He feels but pity for His ailing charge—
Not blame or anger. And He knows the hour
Will surely dawn when that sick child shall wake
Free from all frenzied fancies, and shall turn
Clear-seeing eyes upon the face of God.

In His vast Solar Systems He has seen
So many other Worlds delirious.