EUROPE — 1914

Since Athens died, the life that is a light

Has never shone in Europe. Alien moods,

The oriental morbid sanctitudes,

Have darkened on her like the fear of night.

In happy augury we dared to guess

That her pure spirit shot one sunny glance

Of paganry across the fields of France,

Clear startling this dim fog of soulfulness.

But now, with arms and carnage and the cries

Of Holy Murder, rolling to the clouds

Her bloody-shadowed smoke of sacrifice,

The Superstition conquers, and the shrouds

Of sick black wonder lay their murky blight

Where shone of old the immortal-seeming light.