Page:Armistice Day.djvu/134

112 Decks out the slender arrowy towers of its Temple

With ribbons of ticker-tape, so all the peaks

Are caught in cobwebs...

Rolls the sound along

Like some tempestuous Te Deum played on the great pipes of the town

By multi-fingered Chaos pulling blindly at the stops.

The ships that lie in the harbor—daubed sea-cockles

With grotesque bodies and gray guns poking overside—

Blow their white breath into the blue air

And swell the sonorous choir. No more they need go twisting

Through wreck-strewn waters, or run with smothered ports,

Hugging the darkness, cursing the moon in God's hand,

Dreading the phosphorus that burns their bows

As a necklace burns a woman's throat—

None gladder than the ships,

None more joyful than the ships,

That pen has scratched paper in the hushed railway carriage

In the great Forest at Compiègne yonder....