Robert Laurence Binyon

The Winds of All the World

The winds of all the world bring agonies,
Day by day, hour by hour, into our ears;
Not only desolation, blood, and tears,
But cloud on cloud of suffocating lies.

The human strives with the inhuman there,
Enduring things beyond belief, and still
Because of one unconquerable will
Confronts, clear--eyed, what it has yet to bear.

Before the sunrise, under naked trees
On grass that sparkled in the dew, I paced.
I thought of all the torment, all the waste;
I thought of beauty, justice, mercy, peace.

Beyond the raging of the powers of night
What from of old stood, still was dear, was true.
Far in the East the sky to glory grew,
And slowly earth rolled onward into light.