I met old, lean St. Francis in a dream
Wading knee-deep through the ashes of his town,
The souls that he was helping up to heaven
Were burnt or wrung out of the writhing flesh.
Said I, “When near a thousand are engulfed
In sudden indiscriminate destruction,
And half a million homeless are, I know,
This rotten world most blackly is accurst.”
“When heroes are as countless as the flames;
When sympathy,” said he, “has opened wide
A hundred million generous human hearts,
I know this world is infinitely blest.”
--RODMAN GILDER, _The Outlook_.
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