SE August nights, hushed but for drowsy
Of fledglings, tremble with a strange vibration,
A sound too far for hearing, sullen, dire,
Shaking the earth.
Even within the swaying veils of
We are haunted by a horror, a mistrust,
A muffled perturbation,
Vaguely
Of prodigies in birth,
Of brooding thunders unbelievable,
Fierce forces that
Against mankind.
We start awake;
The purple glooms, all
With dewy fragrance,
Our eyelids down, but still we feel the beat,
Dull, doomful, irretrievable,
Of Europe's marching feet,
Enchanted, blind,
By wizard music
Over crushed blossoms, through the mocking dust,
To baths of blood and fire.
Beyond the seas, in these hushed hills we
That hollow, rhythmic
Of nation against nation,
That ancient, bitter
Of war against a world that might be
As any golden star that rides the air.
We cannot rest for marching feet that
Harvest and home forsake,
Inexorably called to
The road of desolation,
Trampling on hearts that break.
