Richard Eberhart(b. 1904)
The Fury of Aerial Bombardment
You would think the fury of aerial bombardment
Would rouse God to relent; the infinite spaces
Are still silent. He looks on shock-pried faces.
History, even, does not know what is meant.
You would feel that after so many centuries
God would give man to repent; yet he can kill
As Cain1 could, but with multitudinous will,
No farther advanced than in his ancient furies.
Was man made stupid to see his own stupidity
Is God by definition indifferent, beyond us all
Is the eternal truth man's fighting soul
Wherein the Beast ravens in its own avidity
Of Van Wettering I speak, and Averill,
Names on a list, whose faces I do not recall
But they are gone to early death, who late in schoolrecently
Distinguished the belt feed lever from the belt holding pawl.2