| While the red spittle of the grape-shot sings
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| All day across the endless sky, and while entire battalions
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| Green or scarlet‚ rallied by their king
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| Disintegrate in crumpled masses under fire
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| While an abominable madness seeks to pound
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| A hundred thousand men into a smoking mess
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| Pitiful dead in summer grass‚ on the rich ground
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| Out of which Nature wrought these men in holiness
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| He is a God who sees it all‚ and laughs aloud
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| At damask altar-cloths, incense and chalices
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| Who falls asleep lulled by adoring liturgies
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| And wakens when some mother, in her anguish bowed
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| And weeping till her old black bonnet shakes with grief
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| Offers him a a big sou wrapped in her handkerchief |