Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE CRIMSON MOON, by WILLIAM SHARP


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE CRIMSON MOON, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Behind the legions of the sun, the star battalions of the night
Last Line: When the hidden people shall march out beneath the crimson moon.
Alternate Author Name(s): Macleod, Fiona
Subject(s): Future Life; Humanity; Moon; Mortality; Redemption; Salvation; Spiritual Life; Retribution; Eternity; After Life


Behind the Legions of the Sun, the Star Battalions of the night,
The reddening of the West I see, from morn till dusk, from dusk till light.
A day must surely come at last, and that day soon,
When the Hidden People shall march out beneath the Crimson Moon.

Our palaces shall crumble then, our towers shall fall away,
And on the plains our burning towns shall flaunt a desolate day:
The cities of our pride shall wear tiaras of red flame,
And all our phantom glory be an idle windblown name.

What shall our vaunt be on that day, or who thereon shall hear
The laughter of our laughing lips become the wail of fear?
Our vaunt shall be the windy dust in eddies far and wide,
The hearing, theirs who follow us with swift and dreadful stride.

A cry of lamentation, then, shall sweep from land to land:
A myriad waving hands shall shake above a myriad strand:
The Day shall swoon before a Shade of vast ancestral Night,
Till a more dreadful Morn awake to flood and spume of light.

This is the prophecy of old, before the roaming tribes of Man
Spread Multitude athwart the heirdom of an earlier Clan—
Before the gods drank Silence, and hid their way with cloud,
And Man uprose and claimed the Earth and all the starry crowd.

So Man conceived and made his dream, till at the last he smiled to see
Its radiant skirts brush back the stars from Immortality:
He crowned himself with the Infinite, and gave his Soul a Home,
And then the quiet gods awoke and blew his life to foam.

This is the Dream I see anew, when all the West is red with light,
Behind the Legions of the Sun, the Star Battalions of the night.
Verily the day may come at last, and that day soon,
When the Hidden People shall march out beneath the Crimson Moon.





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