The Dark Lord Cometh [1914]

And the Dark Lord cometh
Across the heavens
Vaulting empires
Across mountains
Burning cultures
Seeking peaceful people
Unaware
Of the arrival of ravening Death.

But the Dark Lord is amongst them
Joyous
Sated
Wading in the grotesqueness
Of his overwhelming hatred
And Satanic will
To lay waste the trembling bodies
Of the youngest, early-dying boys and men.

What joy, what satisfaction has this Lord
That the fifty fools who rule
Old Europe
Are so held
In the palms of his avenging claws
That their horrid pride and pomp
Execute so sweetly
The Dark Lord’s will.

Armed with ploughshares heated
Twisted, riveted, re-formed
And darkened
Into terrible implements of war
Men still hoarsely call
For blessings from the Dear Lord Jesus
That they may slip untouched
Through the biting, thirsty, bullety steel
That seeks to make nothing of what has been
Annihilating utterly, utterly
Any continuation of life itself.

Drink deep, mighty Lord
Thy time is now
Thy time has come
When men shall be swept
Into the pit of Annihilation
And junketing madmen
Clad as generals, kings and marshals
Tolerate no thought of pause
No thought other than victory
Whatever, whatsoever
The cost in human souls.

May this nightmare damn such fools
And warn the present brazen madmen
That the Dark Lord is never
Gone forever, only absent
Quieted in our present thoughts.

The Dark Lord cometh
And he may come again.