Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, REQUIEM OF ARCHANGELS FOR THE WORLD, by HERBERT TRENCH


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

REQUIEM OF ARCHANGELS FOR THE WORLD, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Hearts, beat no more! Earth's sleep has come!
Last Line: The torches of thy train of stars!
Subject(s): Angels; Sleep


HEARTS, beat no more! Earth's Sleep has come!
All iron stands her wrinkled Tree,
The streams that sang are stricken dumb,
The snowflake fades into the sea.

Hearts, throb no more! your time is past!
Thousands of years for this pent field
Ye have done battle. Now at last
The flags may sink, the captains yield.

Sleep, ye great Wars, just or unjust!
Sleep takes the gate and none defends.
Soft on your craters' fire and lust,
Civilisations, Sleep descends!

Time it is, time to cease carouse!
Let the nations and their noise grow dim!
Let the lights wane within the house
And darkness cover, limb by limb!

Across your passes, Alps and plains
A planetary vapor flows,
A last invader, and enchains
The vine, the woman, and the rose.

Sleep, Forests old! Sleep in your beds
Wild-muttering Oceans and dark Wells!
Sleep be upon your shrunken heads,
Blind everlasting Pinnacles!

Sleep now ye great, high-shining Kings,
Your torrent glories snapt in death.
Sleep, simple men -- sunk water-springs
And all the ground Man laboureth.

Sleep, Heroes, in your mountain walls --
The trumpet shall not sound again;
And ranged on misty pedestals
Sleep now, O sleepless Gods of men,

Nor keep wide your unfathomed orbs!
These troubled clans that make and mourn
Some heavy-lidded Cloud absorbs
And the lulling snows of the Unborn.

The Earth lies cold. Thou, stooping Night,
Lay forth the limbs and shroud the scars,
And bid with chanting to the rite
The torches of thy train of stars!





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