The Wild Knight and Other Poems | Page 8

but between?I saw a man stand, saying, 'To me at least
The grass is green.
'There was no star that I forgot to fear
With love and wonder.?The birds have loved me'; but no answer came--
Only the thunder.
Once more the man stood, saying, 'A cottage door,
Wherethrough I gazed?That instant as I turned--yea, I am vile;
Yet my eyes blazed.
'For I had weighed the mountains in a balance,
And the skies in a scale,?I come to sell the stars--old lamps for new--
Old stars for sale.'
Then a calm voice fell all the thunder through,
A tone less rough:?'Thou hast begun to love one of my works
Almost enough.'
TO A CERTAIN NATION
We will not let thee be, for thou art ours.?We thank thee still, though thou forget these things,?For that hour's sake when thou didst wake all powers?With a great cry that God was sick of kings.
Leave thee there grovelling at their rusted greaves,?These hulking cowards on a painted stage,?Who, with imperial pomp and laurel leaves,?Show their Marengo--one man in a cage.
These, for whom stands no type or title given?In all the squalid tales of gore and pelf;?Though cowed by crashing thunders from all heaven.?Cain never said, 'My brother slew himself.'
Tear you the truth out of your drivelling spy,?The maniac whom you set to swing death's scythe.?Nay; torture not the torturer--let him lie:?What need of racks to teach a worm to writhe?
Bear with us, O our sister, not in pride,?Nor any scorn we see thee spoiled of knaves,?But only shame to hear, where Danton died,?Thy foul dead kings all laughing in their graves.
Thou hast a right to rule thyself; to be?The thing thou wilt; to grin, to fawn, to creep:?To crown these clumsy liars; ay, and we?Who knew thee once, we have a right to weep.
THE PRAISE OF DUST
'What of vile dust?' the preacher said.?Methought the whole world woke,?The dead stone lived beneath my foot,?And my whole body spoke.
'You, that play tyrant to the dust,?And stamp its wrinkled face,?This patient star that flings you not?Far into homeless space.
'Come down out of your dusty shrine?The living dust to see,?The flowers that at your sermon's end?Stand blazing silently.
'Rich white and blood-red blossom; stones,?Lichens like fire encrust;?A gleam of blue, a glare of gold,?The vision of the dust.
'Pass them all by: till, as you come?Where, at a city's edge,?Under a tree--I know it well--?Under a lattice ledge,
'The sunshine falls on one brown head.?You, too, O cold of clay,?Eater of stones, may haply hear?The trumpets of that day
'When God to all his paladins?By his own splendour swore?To make a fairer face than heaven,?Of dust and nothing more.'
THE BALLAD OF THE BATTLE OF GIBEON
Five kings rule o'er the Amorite,?Mighty as fear and old as night;?Swathed with unguent and gold and jewel,?Waxed they merry and fat and cruel.?Zedek of Salem, a terror and glory,?Whose face was hid while his robes were gory;?And Hoham of Hebron, whose loathly face is?Heavy and dark o'er the ruin of races;?And Piram of Jarmuth, drunk with strange wine,?Who dreamed he had fashioned all stars that shine;?And Debir of Eglon wild, without pity,?Who raged like a plague in the midst of his city;?And Japhia of Lachish, a fire that flameth,?Who did in the daylight what no man nameth.
These five kings said one to another,?'King unto king o'er the world is brother,?Seeing that now, for a sign and a wonder,?A red eclipse and a tongue of thunder,?A shape and a finger of desolation,?Is come against us a kingless nation.?Gibeon hath failed us: it were not good?That a man remember where Gibeon stood.'?Then Gibeon sent to our captain, crying,?'Son of Nun, let a shaft be flying,?For unclean birds are gathering greedily;?Slack not thy hand, but come thou speedily.?Yea, we are lost save thou maintain'st us,?For the kings of the mountains are gathered against us.'
Then to our people spake the Deliverer,?'Gibeon is high, yet a host may shiver her;?Gibeon hath sent to me crying for pity,?For the lords of the cities encompass the city?With chariot and banner and bowman and lancer,?And I swear by the living God I will answer.?Gird you, O Israel, quiver and javelin,?Shield and sword for the road we travel in;?Verily, as I have promised, pay I?Life unto Gibeon, death unto Ai.'
Sudden and still as a bolt shot right?Up on the city we went by night.?Never a bird of the air could say,?'This was the children of Israel's way.'
Only the hosts sprang up from sleeping,?Saw from the heights a dark stream sweeping;?Sprang up straight as a great shout stung them,?And heard the Deliverer's war-cry among them,?Heard under cupola, turret, and steeple?The awful cry of the kingless people.
Started the weak of them, shouted the strong of them,?Crashed we a thunderbolt into the throng of them,?Blindly with heads bent, and shields forced before us,?We heard the dense roar of the strife closing o'er us.?And drunk with the crash of the song that it sung