As I beside some winter's fire   Sat writing words strange and steady   Amongst my own internal choir   Came voices to my mind unready   Of those who died on either side   While friends cry o're their bones unburied   Go sighing through the north east winds   These cold days of February      Some clerk with papers and his pen   Some banker with his poison pity   Some captain careless of his men   These fan the flames that maim the cities   And bigots in the name of Christ   By thorny paths obscure and muddy   Can fear to roam through years of cold   Bewailing how their hands are bloody      Whether they were from here or there   Their race and place I would not be heeding   The men who caused such bitterness   If hearts they have let their hearts be bleeding   Who neither for age nor the young child   Would turn the shot of the arms they carried   Go bear the guilt a weary ways   For the cold days of February