Page:A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919.djvu/169

 Rh

Thus may the cloudy fates unroll'd

Retrace the starry circles old,

And the recurrent heavens decree

A Periclean dynasty. W. Macneile Dixon

ND now, while the dark vast earth shakes and rocks

In this wild dream-like snare of mortal shocks,

How look (I muse) those cold and solitary stars

On these magnificent, cruel wars?—

Venus, that brushes with her shining lips

(Surely!) the wakeful edge of the world and mocks

With hers its all ungentle wantonness?—

Or the large moon (pricked by the spars of ships

Creeping and creeping in their restlessness),

The moon pouring strange light on things more strange,

Looks she unheedfully on seas and lands

Trembling with change and fear of counterchange?

O, not earth trembles, but the stars, the stars!

The sky is shaken and the cool air is quivering.

I cannot look up to the crowded height

And see the fair stars trembling in their light,

For thinking of the starlike spirits of men

Crowding the earth and with great passion quivering:—

Stars quenched in anger and hate, stars sick with pity.

I cannot look up to the naked skies

Because a sorrow on dark midnight lies,

Death, on the living world of sense;

Because on my own land a shadow lies

That may not rise;

Because from bare grey hillside and rich city

Streams of uncomprehending sadness pour,

Thwarting the eager spirit's pure intelligence. ..

How look (I muse) those cold and solitary stars

On these magnificent, cruel wars?