C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

On Refusal of Aid between Nations

NOT that the earth is changing, O my God!

Nor that the seasons totter in their walk,—

Not that the virulent ill of act and talk

Seethes ever as a winepress ever trod,—

Not therefore are we certain that the rod

Weighs in thine hand to smite thy world; though now

Beneath thine hand so many nations bow,

So many kings: not therefore, O my God!—

But because Man is parceled out in men

To-day: because, for any wrongful blow,

No man not stricken asks, “I would be told

Why thou dost thus;” but his heart whispers then,

“He is he, I am I.” By this we know

That the earth falls asunder, being old.