A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919/Light after Darkness

by Edward Wyndham Tennant

For other versions of this work, see Light after Darkness.

LIGHT AFTER DARKNESS

ONCE more the Night like some great dark drop-scene
Eclipsing horrors for a brief entr'acte
Descends, lead-weighty. Now the space between,
Fringed with the eager eyes of men, is racked
By spark-tailed lights, curvetting far and high
Swift smoke-flecked coursers, raking the black sky.

And as each sinks in ashes grey, one more
Rises to fall, and so through all the hours
They strive like petty empires by the score,
Each confident of its success and powers,
And hovering at its zenith each will show
Pale rigid faces, lying dead, below.

There shall they lie, tainting the innocent air,
Until the Dawn, deep veiled in mournful grey,
Sadly and quietly shall lay them bare,
The broken heralds of a doleful day.

E. Wyndham Tennant

Hulluch Road, October, 1915.