Page:Poems of the Great War - National Relief Fund.djvu/29



ND now, while the dark vast earth shakes and rocks In this wild dreamlike 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 quiver- ing:— Stars quenched in anger and hate, stars sick with pity.