Page:Armistice Day.djvu/91

Rh Vulcan came to her arms in the grimy garb

Of toil, he smelt of the forge and the racketing workshop,

But not of blood.

And, if she smells these flowers, they bubble ruby blood

That trickles between her fingers.

Yet is a dream flowing over the red country,

Yet is a light growing, for all the black furrows of the red country ...

The machines are foe or friend

As the world desires.

The Beasts shall sleep again.

And in that sleep, when the land is twilight-still

And men take thought among the frozen waves of the dead,

The Sowers go forth once more,

Sowers of vision, sowers of the seed

Of peace or war.

Shall it be peace indeed?

Great shadowy figures moving from hill to hill

Of tangled bodies, with rhythmic stride and cowled averted head,

What do you sow with hands funereal—

New savageries imperial,

Unthinking pomps for arrogant, witless men?

Or seed for the people in strong democracy?

What do you see

With your secret eyes, and sow for us, that we must reap again?