I.
The poet shall create or kill,
Bid heroes live, bid braggarts die.
I look against a lurid sky,—
My silent South lies proudly still.
The lurid light of burning lands
Still climbs to God’s house overhead;
Mute women wring white withered hands;
Their eyes are red, their skies are red.
Poor man! still boast your bitter wars!
Still burn and burn, and burning die.
But God’s white finger spins the stars
In calm dominion of the sky.
And not one ray of light the less
Comes down to bid the grasses spring;
No drop of dew nor anything
Shall fail for all your bitterness.
The land that nursed a nation’s youth,
Ye burned it, sacked it, sapped it dry.
Ye gave it falsehoods for its truth,
And fame was fashioned from a lie.
If man grows large, is God the less?
The moon shall rise and set the same,
The great sun spill his splendid flame
And clothe the world in queenliness.
And from that very soil ye trod
Some large-souled seeing youth shall come
Some day, and he shall not be dumb
Before the awful court of God.
II.
The weary moon had turned away,
The far North-Star was turning pale
To hear the stranger’s boastful tale
Of blood and flame that battle day.