A bomb has fallen over Notre Dame:
Germans have burned another Belgian town:
Russians quelled in the east: England in qualm:
I closed my eyes, and laid the paper down.
Gray ledge and moor-grass and pale bloom of light
By pale blue seas!
What laughter of a child world-sprite,
Sweet as the horns of lone October bees,
Shrills the faint shore with mellow, odd delight?
What elves are these
In smocks gray-blue as sea and ledge,
Dancing upon the silvered edge
Of darkness-each ecstatic one
Making a happy orison,
With shining limbs, to the low-sunken sun?-
See: now they cease
Like nesting birds from flight:
Demure and debonair
They troop beside their hostess’ chair
To make their bedtime courtesies:
“Spokoinoi notchi!-Gute Nacht!
Bon soir! Bon soir!-Good night!”
What far-gleaned lives are these
Linked in one holy family of art?-
Dreams: dreams once Christ and Plato dreamed:
How fair their happy shades depart!
Dear God! how simple it all seemed,
Till once again
Before my eyes the red type quivered: Slain:
Ten thousand of the enemy.-
Then laughter! laughter from the ancient sea
Sang in the gloaming: Athens! Galilee!
And elfin voices called from the extinguished light:-
“Spokoinoi notchi!-Gute Nacht!
Bon soir! Bon soir!-Good night!”
(Percy MacKaye)
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Based on Topics: God Poems, Night Poems, Light Poems, Dreams Poems, Happiness Poems, Art Poems, Laughter Poems, Dancing Poems, England Poems, Enemy Poems, Courtesy PoemsBased on Keywords: orison, smocks, gray-blue, gute, moor-grass, low-sunken