Marching Feet

THESE August nights, hushed but for drowsy peep

Of fledglings, tremble with a strange vibration,

A sound too far for hearing, sullen, dire,

Shaking the earth.

Even within the swaying veils of sleep

We are haunted by a horror, a mistrust,

A muffled perturbation,

Vaguely aware

Of prodigies in birth,

Of brooding thunders unbelievable,

Fierce forces that conspire

Against mankind.

We start awake;

The purple glooms, all sweet

With dewy fragrance, bear

Our eyelids down, but still we feel the beat,

Dull, doomful, irretrievable,

Of Europe's marching feet,

Enchanted, blind,

By wizard music led

Over crushed blossoms, through the mocking dust,

To baths of blood and fire.

Beyond the seas, in these hushed hills we dread

That hollow, rhythmic tread

Of nation against nation,

That ancient, bitter thrust

Of war against a world that might be fair

As any golden star that rides the air.

We cannot rest for marching feet that must

Harvest and home forsake,

Inexorably called to take

The road of desolation,

Trampling on hearts that break.