Page:Battle-retrospect, and other poems - Wilder - 1923.djvu/13

 BATTLE-RETROSPECT.

sultry nights we used to pass outdoors

And through the cherry orchards to the fields

That stretched down to the floor of the Champagne,

And there that steady thunder in the west

That nightly rolled and echoed without rest

Broke on our ears with new intensity.

As those who come out suddenly upon

The sea, whose murmur reached them in the woods,

Are stunned by the loud-crashing surf that runs

In surging thunder all along the coast,

So the great breakers of this sea of sound

Broke over us when we had reached the fields,

And through the starry silences was borne

That fluctuating roar, its rise and fall

And climaxes that filled the soul with dread.

We saw the febrile flashes, hour by hour,

Incessant, over many miles of front,

Succeeding each the other instantly

As though in some fantastical pursuit,

In ever madder race. They shot their light

To the last stars; the empyrean throbbed

With man's device,—or were they men, or gods?

We saw the soaring signals flare and float,

Likewise incessant, multitudinous,

As though some city of the Vulcans lay

Across the land with flaming forges bright,

And panting furnaces that scorched the night,

Hammering out the ribs of a new earth

Or some new instrument of destiny.

A perturbation deeper far than fear

Took hold on us,

Never did man behold or hear

A thing more ominous;

So regular, so fierce, fatality 7