Panama and Other Poems Narrative and Occasional By Stephen Phillips: With a Frontispiece by Joseph Pennell |
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SAVE WATERLOO! |
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 | Panama and Other Poems Narrative and Occasional |  |
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SAVE WATERLOO!
[_]
There is a danger that the field of Waterloo may shortly be let in plots to the speculating builder.
This soil too sanguine for thy stucco lies!
Shall Earth, where reeled “the Guard,” thy villa pen,
Where nations groaned, be heard the cackling hen?
A mansion mark where in the gathering murk,
Those terrible grey horsemen so did work?
Here wilt thou dare to live where such men died,
And on that memorable dust reside?
Here only ever let the solemn moon
Uninterrupted weave a spirit noon;
Here only falter down a pensive dew
From skies too wistful to be purely blue!
But shouldst thou build on consecrated ground,
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Of clashing battle, and the ghostly war,
Of charging hosts against the battered door!
Let solemn bellow of hollow cannon boom,
A dreadful cavalry invade the gloom!
Until in awe of those who fell or fled,
The living flee from the more living dead!
That silence now too conscious is for sound,
It broods upon itself and is self-bound.
Then let no builder of this field have lease,
'Tis let to Time, the property of Peace!
March, 1914.
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