Who Are the Bandits?

Bandits!
With the wailing of a thousand bleeding infants,
Dying mothers with babes in arms,
And the shattered ruins of a mighty city;
Walls fallen on helpless men and women,
Crushed amid the smouldering debris,
And the pitter-patter of a rain of bullets.

Bandits!
Where the craven lusty men in uniform
Charge with bayonets upon little students,
Raking with shell-fire the homes of peaceful people,
Crying: “This must be for the sake of order and peace.”
Force apologizes to force in the name of civilization
And taunts the weak as pariahs of the earth.
Thus Buddha is avenged as Christ before Him,
And China bathed in blood.

Bandits!
Aye! The Perfect One is now become the scapegoat,
Whose missionaries serve the hand of Mammon,
And murder lurks beneath the yellow robe.
The wisteria is bathed with scarlet hue,
And the cherry blossom a symbol of tyranny.

Is this the best that man can do to man?
To hurl a holocaust upon the timid,
And smash the innocent in Moloch’s arms?
Then doomed is civilization,
And the bystander and warrior down together
Shall go when Justice flees away from earth.

May this not be;
May some mightier power
Arise to sink these murderers in ignominy,
And save the world from falling in the dust.
China! Your night will pass,
The dawn will rise and see you once more free,
Leader in all the humane arts as of yore,
Proving to humanity who are the righteous
And leaving them freest choice to judge
Who are the bandits.