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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
IF!, by BARTHOLOMEW GRIFFIN Poet's Biography First Line: Suppose 'twere done! Last Line: Of lingering smile on satan's face! Subject(s): Arms & Armor; Death; Devil; Satire (as Poetic Genre); War; Weapons; Ammunition; Dead, The; Satan; Mephistopheles; Lucifer; Beelzebub | |||
Suppose 'twere done! The lanyard pulled on every shotted gun; Into the wheeling death-clutch sent Each millioned armament, To grapple there On land, on sea and under, and in air! Suppose at last 'twere come Now, while each bourse and shop and mill is dumb And arsenals and dockyards hum, Now all complete, supreme, That vast, Satanic dream! Each field were trampled, soaked, Each stream dyed, choked, Each leaguered city and blockaded port Made famine's sport; The empty wave Made reeling dreadnought's grave; Cathedral, castle, gallery, smoking fell 'Neath bomb and shell; In deathlike trance Lay industry, finance; Two thousand years' Bequest, achievement, saving disappears, In blood and tears, In widowed woe That slum and palace equal know, In civilization's suicide, What served thereby, what satisfied? For justice, freedom, right, what wrought? NAUGHT! Save, after the great cataclysm, perhap On the world's shaken map New lines, more near or far, Binding to King or Czar In fostering hate Some newly vassaled state; And passion, lust and pride made satiate; And just a trace Of lingering smile on Satan's face! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE DEVIL'S SERMON by PHILIP JAMES BAILEY AND THE GREATEST OF THESE IS WAR by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON THE TEMPTRESS by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON ADDRESS TO THE DEIL by ROBERT BURNS THE DEVIL'S WALK [ON EARTH] by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE THE SIFTING OF PETER by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW FIDESSA: 23 by BARTHOLOMEW GRIFFIN |
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