Page:A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919.djvu/160

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A learned land of wise old books

And men with meditative looks,

Who move in quaint red-gabled towns

And sit in gravely-folded gowns,

Divining in deep-laden speech

The world's supreme arcana—each

A homely god to listening Youth

Eager to tear the veil of Truth;

Mild votaries of book and pen—

Alas, the dreams, the dreams of men!

A music land, whose life is wrought

In movements of melodious thought;

In symphony, great wave on wave—

Or fugue, elusive, swift, and grave;

A singing land, whose lyric rhymes

Float on the air like village chimes:

Music and Verse—the deepest part

Of a whole nation's thinking heart!

Oh land of Now, oh land of Then!

Dear God! the dreams, the dreams of men!

Slave nation in a land of hate,

Where are the things that made you great?

Child-hearted once—oh, deep defiled,

Dare you look now upon a child?

Your lore—a hideous mask wherein

Self-worship hides its monstrous sin:—

Music and Verse, divinely wed—

How can these live where love is dead?

Oh depths beneath sweet human ken,

God help the dreams, the dreams of men! Kathleen Knox