As a sword in the sun

Of all its proud horses ;They made for Lebanon.And shadowy sowers wentBefore their spears to sowThe fruit whose taste is ash,For Judah’s soul to know.They who bowed to the Bull god,Whose wings roofed Babylon,In endless hosts darkenedThe bright-heavened Lebanon.They washed their grime in poolsWhere laughing girls forgotThe wiles they used for Solomon.Sweet laughter, remembered not…

For fear that she should cease and leave us darkWe built the bird a feigned throne,Shrined in her gracious glory-giving waysFrom sceptred hands of starred humility-Praising herself the more in giving praiseTo music less than she.

But from the mounds there spring up many flowers,Whose beauty well repays their cost of tears.Time, like a sexton, pileth mould on mould,Minutes on minutes till the tombs are high ;But from the dust there fall some grains of gold,And the dead corpse leaves what will never die-It may be but a thought, the nursling…

Your dim lips as your lids uncloseMurmur your own sad threnody.0 as the soft and frail lights breakUpon your eyelids, and your eyesWider and wider grow and wake,The old pale glory dies.And then, as sleep lies down to sleepAnd all her dreams lie somewhere dead,The iron shepherd leads his sheepTo pastures parched whose green is…

While mystic unrevealed skiesUnfold like pages of a bookWherein new scenes of wonder rareAre imaged, till the sense deceivesItself, and what it sees believes-Even what the soul has pictured there?

What sinister threat lies there.Dragging these anguished limbs, we only knowThis poison-blasted track opens on our camp –On a little safe sleep.But hark! joy – joy – strange joy.Lo! heights of night ringing with unseen larks.Music showering our upturned list’ning faces.Death could drop from the darkAs easily as song –But song only dropped,Like a blind…