War & Woe!

Here's a city, a city of fire and stenches,

Where smokes rule the baleful welkin;

The pitch-black meadow is silent,

Silent like a graveyard stone.

Blood is creeping down the walls;

Tears drenching the soils of graves;

Window panes are broken,

Behold the trees — black and grotesque!

Once, I saw wail and woe gamboling,

Like the hounds of the Devil's doleful den;

They were wagging their hideous tails,

In the dusts, conjuring like awful ghoulish tales.

Nests were pillaged,

Sucklings were hurled off mothers' bosoms,

Men mangling men, men mauling men,

Like hollow-bellied wolves, like vicious ghouls.

And, for what?

For whom?

No one knows,

Knows not the unseen source!