Now is the evening dipped knee-deep in blood

And the dun hills stand fearful in their places.

Cunning in sin, we shuffle down the streets

With burdens of vainglory on our backs,

Spinning with spider-hands the miser's web

Or sitting placid, gay and fat with ease.

But out beyond, the armies of the world

March doomwards to the rhythm of the drum

Under the thirsting sun. Death holds his state:

His skeleton hands are filled with scarlet spoil:

He stands on flaming ramparts, waving high

The ensign of decay. All his bones are dressed

With livid roses; all his pillars black

Are girt in ashen poppies, and on dust

He raises up his awful golden throne.

Oh! your fierce shrieks have fainted on deaf ears;

Your tears have flowed on feet of carven stone;

Your blood is spilt for the boiling-pot of God

Where good and evil mix; and all your rage

Is but a thin smoke wafted in His face.

Blow upon blow they bruise the daylight wan,

Scar upon scar they rend the quiet shore;

They ride on furious, leaving every man

Crushed like a maggot by the hoofs of war:

Gods that grow tired of paradisial water

And fill their cups with steaming wine of slaughter.

I fear a thing more terrible than death:

The glamour of the battle grips us yet—

As crowds before a fire that hold their breath

Watching the burning houses, and forget

All they will lose, but marvel to behold

Its dazzling strength, the glamour of its gold.

I fear the time when slow the flame expires,

When this kaleidoscope of roaring color

Fades, and rage faints; and of the funeral-fires

That shone with battle, nothing left of valour

Save chill ignoble ashes for despair

To strew with widowed hands upon her hair.

Livid and damp unfolds the winding-sheet,

Hiding the mangled body of the Earth:

The slow grey aftermath, the limping feet

Of days that shall not know the sound of mirth,

But pass in dry-eyed patience, with no trust

Save to end living and be heaped with dust.

That stillness that must follow where Death trod,

The sullen street, the empty drinking-hall,

The tuneless voices cringing praise to God,

Deaf gods, that did not heed the anguished call,

Now to be soothed with humbleness and praise,

With fawning kisses for the hand that slays.

The maiden loverless shall go her ways,

And child unfathered feed on crust and husk;

The sun that was the glory of our days

Shining as tinsel till the moody dusk

Into our starving outstretched arms shall lay

Her silent sleep, the only boon we pray.

A ragged drummer rides along the street,

And at his coming

The silence fills with tunes and rustling feet

And voices humming.

He rode a year ago from far away,

On charger prancing,

With bright new buttons and with ribbons gay,

And banners dancing.

Oh, he was fatter than the bursting drum

He bore so proudly,

His roaring music woke the silence dumb

To thunder loudly.

And by his side the old men and the young

Had followed cheering

Into the sunset smiling as they sung,

Nor thought of fearing.

They left their lovers and their mothers' lap,

Their homes demolish,

"For, look, I have a ribbon for my cap,

A sword to polish!"

And so the town was silent once again,

Though tunes of battle

Beat fearful in the wind, or in the rain

Ghost drums would rattle.

But at the chuckling dice or careful loom,

Or candled churches

A few forgot or prayed or followed doom

With drunken lurches....

Now loom and bar and church disgorge the throng,

In huddled masses

They stand aghast to hear the drummer's song

As back he passes—

Palsied and drear and bent he turns alone

In rags and tatters,

And on a soundless barrel with a bone

He beats and batters.

"Where march your feet so gaily, careless crowd,