Evil

Evil

While the red-stained mouths
of machine guns ring
Across the infinite expanse of day;
While red or green,
before their posturing King,
The massed battalions break and melt away;
And while a monstrous frenzy runs a course
That makes of a thousand men a smoking pile
-- Poor fools! -- dead, in summer, in the grass,
On Nature's breast, who meant these men to smile;
There is a God, who smiles upon us through
The gleam of gold, the incense-laden air,
Who drowses in a cloud of murmured prayer,
And only wakes when weeping mothers bow
Themselves in anguish, wrapped in old black shawls--
And their last small coin into his coffer falls.

Arthur Rimbaud

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