All down the dark Vienna street,
    Through snow and blinding rain
The mourners go with tottering feet,
    A lamentable train.

With downcast heads, and trembling hands,
    Too weak to dig a grave;
They bear in melancholy bands
    The life they could not save.

Doomed city of a thousand ills;
    Repentant ah! too late!
Cursed by the tyrants’ cruel wills
    –Their lust of power, and hate.

There in these little coffins rest
    Thy hope of future years,
Starved at a mother’s milkless breast,
    And only fed with tears.

To pitiful earth let mercy give
    What pitiless earth has slain;
Though thousands died that these might live
    They fought and died in vain.

Dear Christ, for those Thy Innocents’ sake,
    Who died at Bethlehem,
Send help that tho’ sad hearts must break,
    Our hands may succour them.

(Carlisle Journal, 30 December 1919, p. 4)