OH, where are you, Huns, who are coming? As a cloud you swell over us here. I can hear iron footsteps a-drumming On the yet undiscovered Pamir. From your camps in the mist let the gathered Hordes drunkenly fall in a flood; Give new life to our bodies withered With your free and fiery blood. Obeying your unfettered spirit, Set your tents as of old at our door, And let the glad ploughland inherit The hall where the throne stood before. Pile up books for a conflagration And dance in the gladdening light. In the church do abomination, -- You are blameless as babes in men's sight. And we who are wise men and singers, Who protect hidden truth from the grave, Will carry a flame that still lingers In catacomb, desert and cave. And what, when the hurricane's raving In the murderous thunderstorm, Will the gamester Chance be saving From the secret shapes that we form? Past tracking, may be, it will perish What alone of the living we knew; But the death that you bring me I cherish, And my hymns give a welcome to you! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE FALCONER OF GOD by WILLIAM ROSE BENET A PRAYER TO THE WIND by THOMAS CAREW WHISPERS OF IMMORTALITY by THOMAS STEARNS ELIOT PRE-EXISTENCE by PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE EPITAPHS OF THE WAR, 1914-18: CONVOY ESCORT by RUDYARD KIPLING THE PORTENT by HERMAN MELVILLE |