Beyond the Pale

(After reading the French evidence of the German atrocities.)

As men who, in some hideous ju-ju place,
Having found a naked ape with brutish tread
Whom once they knew, before his reason fled,
Decent and sane, a white man of their race,
Will close their eyes in horror for a space —
Then for sheer pity's sake, with no word said,
Since no word may avail, will strike him dead
And strive thereafter to forget his face:
So with these ravening brutes that once were men
A loathing world has held awhile its hand
Unable to believe such things could be.
Now, lest such baseness should be seen again.
Let it in mercy flame across their land
And sweep them to oblivion utterly