of Battle am I,
And the evil men speak about me has moved me to fierce reply.
Does not the surgeon's knife
Torture--to save a life?
So, for the life of nations, men learn to fight and die--
Even die!

Craven through love or fear do the weak of the earth await me
Tensely, with bated breath--yea, teaching their sons to hate me.
Lured by my rolling drum,
Nevertheless they come
Proudly, their youth and manhood offering up to sate me!

You who would grudge me aught but harvest of woe and shame--
Answer me, you who hate me, cursing my very name--
When was a serf made free,
Save and alone through me?
When was a tyrant vanquished, save through my purging flame?

After an age of peace do your sons wax soft, their weakness
Shown in a love of ease, of sensuousness, and sleekness;
Then, lest a nation die,
Loud rings my battle-cry!
Lo, they forsake snug warmth for desolate cold and bleakness!

I am the God of War--yea, God of Battle am I,
And the bolts of my savage anger I hurl from a threatening sky.
Speak of me as you will,
Swift though I be to kill,
I have made men of weaklings--I teach men how to die--
Even I!

"I am the Gravest Danger"

By George Bernard Shaw

_In a cablegram to_ THE NEW YORK TIMES, _dated July 17, 1915, it is
reported that an article by George Bernard Shaw in The New Statesman
begins with a review of Professor Gilbert Murray's book, "The Foreign
Policy of Sir Edward Grey," and ends with the following characteristic
reference to himself:_

"Like other Socialists, I have been too much preoccupied with the
atrocities of peace and the problems they raise to pay due attention
to the atrocities of war, but I have not been unconscious of the
European question and I have made a few shots at solutions from time
to time. None of these have been received with the smallest approval,
but at least I may be permitted to point out that they have all come
out right.

"I steadily ridiculed anti-armament agitation, and urged that our
armaments should be doubled, trebled, quadrupled, as they might have
been without costing the country one farthing that we were not wasting
in the most mischievous manner.

"I said that the only policy which would secure the peace of Europe
was a policy of using powerful armament to guarantee France against
Germany and Germany against Rus