Page:The Hope of the Great Community (1916).djvu/151




 * Princes, what of the night? —
 * Night with pestilent breath
 * Feeds us, children of death,
 * Clothes us close with her gloom.
 * Rapine and famine and fright
 * Crouch at our feet and are fed.
 * Earth where we pass is a tomb,
 * Life where we triumph is dead.


 * Martyrs, what of the night? —
 * Nay, is it night with you yet?
 * We, for our part, we forget
 * What night was, if it were.
 * The loud red mouths of the fight
 * Are silent and shut where we are.
 * In our eyes the tempestuous air
 * Shines as the face of a star.


 * Europe, what of the night? —
 * Ask of heaven, and the sea,
 * And my babes on the bosom of me,
 * Nations of mine, but ungrown.
 * There is one who shall surely requite
 * All that endure or that err:
 * She can answer alone:
 * Ask not of me, but of her.


 * Liberty, what of the night? —
 * I feel not the red rains fall,
 * Hear not the tempest at all,
 * Nor thunder in heaven any more.
 * All the distance is white