Page:Poems of the Great War - Cunliffe.djvu/84

 58 LINCOLN COLCORD

��VISION OF WAR

��1.

��I WENT out into the night of quiet stars ;

I looked up at the wheeling heavens, at the myste- rious firmament ;

I thought of the awful distances out there, of the incredible magnitudes, of space and silence and eternity ;

I thought of man, his life, his love, his dream ;

I thought of his body, how it is born and grows, and of his spirit that cannot be explained.

All about me slept the land in peace, and nature

slept in deep serenity ; An off-shore wind had died at sunset, the bay was

calm and golden as twilight fell ; Not a cloud broke the clear and tender blue of the

evening sky. Then the quiet stars came out, the air grew cool with

the breath of night ; A land-breeze flurried, wafting the odor of damp

woods and late hay-fields ; A gentle breeze, that scarcely turned the sleeping

leaves.

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