IV
But now above the thunder of the drums—
Where, brightening on, the face of Victory comes—
Hark to a mighty sound,
A cry out of the ground:
Let there be no more battles: field and flood
Are weary of battle blood.
Even the patient stones
Are weary of shrieking shells and dying groans.
Lay the sad swords asleep:
They have their fearful memories to keep.
And fold the flags: they, weary of battle days,
Weary of wild flights up the windy ways.
Quiet the restless flags,
Grown strangely old upon the smoking crags.
Look where they startle and leap—
Look where they hollow and heap—
Now greatening into glory and now thinned,
Living and dying momently on the wind.
And bugles that have cried on sea and land
The silver blazon of their high command—
Bugles that held long parley with the sky—
Bugles that shattered the nights on battle walls,
Lay them to rest in dim memorial halls;
For they are weary of that curdling cry
That tells men how to die.
