In a War on All Fronts (1943)
Sickness is general in our time.
Wounds we newly understand
Fall on us, rise up from the ground.
The fevers of confusion’s kiss
Leap to confusion in the land
And flame through our divided minds.
Let me not die of this.
Let me come through and live again
To fight the war the world must win.
The hurt child in the fascist street,
The rain of clubs on Negro heads
Demand more blood, cry for defeat.
Cry for a day after defeat:
Day of the world’s discovery
For which we face an age of loss.
Let me not die of this.
Let me strike before I go
But grant me more life than one blow.
The hurt child in the fascist street,
The sickness of our divided state,
Call to the anger and the great
Imaginative gifts of man.
The enemy does his rigid work,
Deals blackness; we grow, in that dark.
Let me grow and fight again.
Let all the living strike in proof
They start the world this war must win.
The enemy does his rigid work,
Deals blackness; we grow, in that dark.
Let me grow and fight again.
Let all the living strike in proof
They start the world this war must win.
