Stalingrad - Poem

Stalingrad by Peter Blackman ------------------------------------------- Hushed was the world And oh, dark agony that suspense shook upon us While hate came flooding o’er your wide savannas Plunging pestilence against you - All that stood to state: “Where men meet There meets one human race!“ Therefore did men from Moscow to the Arctic Rounding Vladivostok to the South where Kazbek lifts its peak Still work and working waited news of Stalingrad And from Cape to white Sahara Men asked news of Stalingrad Town and village waited what had come of Stalingrad The tom-tom beat across thick forest While every evening at Palava Old men told of Stalingrad The gauchos caught the pampas whisper The windswept hope of Stalingrad And in the far Canadian north Trappers left their baiting for the latest out of Stalingrad In the factories and coal fields Each shift waited what last had come from Stalingrad While statesmen searched the dispat