To The Romantic Traditionists

I have looked at them long,

My eyes blur; sourceless light

Keeps them forever young

Before our ageing sight.

You see them-too strict forms

Of will, the secret dignity

Of our dissolute storms;

They grow too bright to be.

What were they like? What mark

Can signify their charm?

They never saw the dark;

Rigid, they never knew alarm.

Do not the scene rehearse!

The perfect eyes enjoin

A contemptuous verse;

We speak the crabbed line.

Immaculate race! to yield

Us final knowledge set

In a cold frieze, a field

Of war but no blood let.

Are they quite willing,

Do they ask to pose,

Naked and simple, chilling

The very wind's nose?

They ask us how to live!

We answer: Again try

Being the drops we sieve.

What death it is to die!

Therefore because they nod,

Being too full of us,

I look at the turned sod

Where it is perilous

And yawning all the same

As if we knew them not

And history had no name-

No need to name the spot!