 | The Stranger at the Gate |  |
IV
IN THE NIGHT
OVER the steep cloud-crags
The marching Day went down—
Bickering spears and flags,
Slant in a wind of Doom!
Blear in the huddled shadows
Glimmer the lights of the town;
Black pools mottle the meadows,
Swamped in a purple gloom.
The marching Day went down—
Bickering spears and flags,
Slant in a wind of Doom!
Blear in the huddled shadows
Glimmer the lights of the town;
Black pools mottle the meadows,
Swamped in a purple gloom.
Is it the night wind sobbing
Over the wheat in head?
Is it the world-heart throbbing,
Sad with the coming years?
Is it the lifeward creeping
Ghosts of the myriad dead,
Livid with wounds and weeping
Wild, uncleansing tears?
Over the wheat in head?
Is it the world-heart throbbing,
Sad with the coming years?
Is it the lifeward creeping
Ghosts of the myriad dead,
Livid with wounds and weeping
Wild, uncleansing tears?
'Twas not a lone loon calling
There in the darkling sedge,
Still as the prone moon's falling
Where in the gloom it slinks!
Hark to the low intoning
There at the hushed grove's edge—
Is it the pitiless, moaning
Voice of the timeless Sphinx?
There in the darkling sedge,
Still as the prone moon's falling
Where in the gloom it slinks!
11
There at the hushed grove's edge—
Is it the pitiless, moaning
Voice of the timeless Sphinx?
Woven of dusk and quiet,
Winged with the dim starlight,
Hideous dream-sounds riot,
Couple and breed and grow;
Big with a dread to-morrow,
Flooding the hollow night
With more than a Thracian sorrow,
More than a Theban woe!
Winged with the dim starlight,
Hideous dream-sounds riot,
Couple and breed and grow;
Big with a dread to-morrow,
Flooding the hollow night
With more than a Thracian sorrow,
More than a Theban woe!
Dupe of a lying pleasure,
Dying slave of desire!
Dreading the swift erasure,
The swoop of the grisly Jinn,
Lo, you have trammeled with dust
A spark of the slumbering Fire,
Given it nerves for lust
And feet for the shards of sin!
Dying slave of desire!
Dreading the swift erasure,
The swoop of the grisly Jinn,
Lo, you have trammeled with dust
A spark of the slumbering Fire,
Given it nerves for lust
And feet for the shards of sin!
Woe to the dreamer waking,
When the Dream shall stalk before him,
With terrible thirsts for slaking
And hungers mad to be fed!
Oh, he shall sicken of giving,
Cursing the mother that bore him—
Earth, so lean for the living,
Earth, so fat with the dead!
When the Dream shall stalk before him,
With terrible thirsts for slaking
And hungers mad to be fed!
Oh, he shall sicken of giving,
Cursing the mother that bore him—
Earth, so lean for the living,
Earth, so fat with the dead!
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Peace, mysterious Flouter!
Lo, where the sacred mother
Sleeps in her starry bed,
Dreams of the blessed Comer,
A white awe flung about her,
Wrapped in the hopeful Summer,
The starlight round her head!
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| The Stranger at the Gate | |