Page:The Muse in Arms, Osborn (ed), 1917.djvu/159

 XLVI

FALSE, false night! Across the sightless sky

Passed and repassed, again and yet again,

A many-flickering smile of irony,

The hieroglyphic of an evil thought.

A few pale stars glistened like drops of sweat

On the brow o' the east There was no wind—

The wind that was not whispered in the ear

Strange, crimson syllables of gathering doom;

Dread, flaming obsequies were in the eye

Before the fiery pencil traced them out;

And still the omens held, and still was heard

The voice of silence, the unspoken word.

At last! At last the wingèd Worm draws near,

The vulture-ship that dare not voyage by day,

The man-made Dinosaur that haunts the night,

The beast-like creature of a bestial mind,

Which preys by choice on small and innocent lives,

Drinking its blood well soothed with mothers' milk— 117