Was in its voice; no power on earth
Could halt that tempest for the briefest space,
Nor cool that mighty furnace, nor reach down
To guard the myriad souls within its blast.
Gazing upon that scene, it seemed there boiled
Red lava from the ground, some mouth of hell
Gaping, and smoking horror to the skies;
Or that some molten tide of death swept down
Beating relentlessly against the fields,
The summer fields that would not be submerged.
And I have seen, or thought I saw, the gods
(Mayhap the saints and devils of our faith)
Gather like planing eagles in the dusk
Above the battle and direct its course,
Clashing in mid-air, sweeping in great troops
To new reliefs and warring in the sky,
Whose immanence translated the dark hour
And sublimized the drama till it seemed
A war of genii and a spectre strife,
Enveloped in an Æschylean shade.
·····
The dead are gone and we are left alive
And those incredible and awful days
Are now no more. Nay, e'en their memory
Grows faded, and the fates that gave us them
Seem jealous that we should retain so much
As of forbidden knowledge. For no doubt
In those days there moved giants on the earth,
And it were better that these secrets lie
Unhinted at to those who never knew
Lest they find faith too easy. It were bad
Were a dull generation born for trade
To know that genii showed themselves those months
Often, scaling horizons, bent on tasks
8
