224
POEMS OF THE GREAT WAR
III
O Easter moon that glorious
In highest heaven dost roll,
What saw you on the Caucasus
Great with Prometheus' soul?
Where Calvary's shining road makes up from the dark vale below,
Saw you thorn-crowned beneath a Cross a man of sorrows go,
The Sufferer, who never dies, but bears the whole world's woe?
Saw you from Athens' ghostly hand the torch of truth burn bright,
That spreads within the mind the world where shall be no more night?
Saw you the Tiber, Seine and Thames, the floods that shake the North,
Pour inexhaustibly their hosts of stern-faced freemen forth?
Far as your circling light below hath on our oceans broke,
Saw you the little acorns grown, blown from the English oak,
The tree of liberty, that laughs amid the thunder-stroke?
