Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, COMING CHANGES, by RICHARD SOLOMON GEDNEY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

COMING CHANGES, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Night came down upon the landscape - night and darkness, fear and gloom
Last Line: But a truthful revelation, and a prophecy of light!
Subject(s): Arms & Armor; Fights; Weapons; Ammunition


Night came down upon the landscape—night and darkness, fear and gloom
Came upon me, sitting thinking in my lonely study room,
Till my heart grew sick within me, and my soul cried out for light;
Then methought I heard deep voices speaking through the vasts of night—

"We are coming! we are coming! with the red-cross banner high,
"Flaming forward and for ever through the darkness of the sky;
"With a stern and high resolving to do battle with the wrong,—
"With earnest hearts and faithful, and with weapons bright and strong.

"We are coming! coming quickly, in the cause of Truth and Right,
"Throbbing heart and bold endeavour thronging onward to the fight;
"Not to tame with soft persuasions, but to trample and destroy,
"Thirsting for the dread encounter with a fierce and awful joy.

"Hark ye, Evil and Injustice, put your strongest armour on,—
"We will try your boasted mettle ere the field be lost and won;
"Not with laughter and with jeering, but with stern and heavy blows,
"Ending not in smarts and stingings, but in terrible death throes.

"We are coming! far away upon the horizon of thought,
"Gathering legion gleams on legion, trampling pity into nought!
"Tremble, ye corrupt of heart, our searching swords shall probe ye deep;
"It is, 'With us or against us,'—ye must sow if ye would reap."

'Tis no fable I am speaking,—look ye out upon the earth,—
There is little food for laughter, there is little time for mirth,
Or for trifling with sharp-edged tools, the sabre or the pen,
While the soil is red beneath us with the blood of fellow men.

Not in jest, but bitter earnestness, I cast the gauntlet down,
And let him who dare, uplift it,—scarlet coat, or silken gown;
'Twas no dream, those thrilling voices, speaking sternly through the night,
But a truthful revelation, and a prophecy of light!





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