And in what cataclysms of flame and foam
Shall the first Heaven sink—as red as sin—
When God hath Cast aside His ancient home
As far too mean to house His Children in!
GHOSTS
SOME dismal nights there are when spirits walk
Who lived and died unhappy in their time,
To waste the air with vows and whispered talk
Of tarnished love or hate or secret crime—
But now the moon moves splendid through the sky;
The night is brilliant like a silver shield;
And in their cavalcades come riding by
The mighty dead of many a tented field.
On this one night at least of all the year
The lists are set again, the lines are drawn;
Again resounds the clang of horse and spear;
The sweet applause of ladies, till the dawn
Makes glad the souls of vizored knights—then they,
Hearing that seneschal, the cock, all troop away.
PROCESSIONAL
SEE how the plated gates unfold,
How swing the creaking doors of brass!
With drums and gleaming arms, behold
Christ’s regal cohorts pass!
Shall Christ not have His chosen men,
Nor lead His crested knights so tall,
Superb upon their horses, when
The world’s last cities fall?
Ah, no! These few, the maimed, the dumb,
The saints of every lazar’s den,
The earth’s off-scourings—they come
From desert and from fen
To break the terror of the night,
Black dreams and dreadful mysteries,
And proud, lost empires in their might,
And chains and tyrannies.