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Show THE DEVIL'S PRA YER 17 By Fred Emerson Brooks. The Devil made a prayer and said: "Who started hell Just overhead? These war lords set the earth aflame And rob the devil of his fame; While Christians slay their fellowmen And make the earth a slaughter pen. Aye, let them rave and belch and roar And millions slaughter millions more; Mow down the quivering ranks of men, The shattered phalanx Alls again. Grim Death has laid his scythe away To harvest by machine, the day. I hear them falling as they tread: Count those that live, I'll count the dead! Turn on the thunder-guns of hate; Tear men to fragments call it fate; Loose poison gas and burning oil; With dead, in trenches, plant the soil. "Thou shalt not kill" means thou alone, But not the legions of the throne. Though murder retail be a crime, Yet murder wholesale is sublime. 'Tis slaughter brings the Victor bays: The dead are dead for all their days. Like Pharaoh they seem to me To flounder in a bloody sea. Kill off the righteous and the wise, Who would the planet civilize. Destroy the arts, the poor condemn And let the heathen finish them; Turn on the furnaces of hell, Blow up the globe, 'tis but a shell; Plant death-bulbs in the hungry sea And blame the righteous don't blame me. Bid submarines to lie in wait; Sow death and reap a world of hate; Let monster vultures crowd the skies And do dark deeds that men despise; Show heathen what you battle for And how the Christians go to war. All peace destroy, all joy and mirth, And bid me come and rule the earth. Excuse the lengthy prayer I've made 'Tis the only time I ever prayed." San Francisco News-Letter. |