The War Elegy

Like bald stone, horror on its face,
That turns plowshares back into swords
To gain violence and its rewards
That moths and thieves will displace.
 
War is less labor of two paths,
Than scatt’ring scant seeds clod in dirt,
Or as such a pray’r for rains dessert:
Giving sweat of brow, blood of calves.
 
Rather men’s blood and seed of minds
Furnish thrones of burnished brass sides
Where Art might grow and Justice dries,
With rip’ling force it spits its rinds.
 
O sullen vict’ry, art thou high
In Heaven with treasures Christ kept,
Or have moths and thieves creeping-crept,
And made a vexing fool of I?