Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, JEZREEL; ON ITS SEIZURE BY THE ENGLISH UNDER ALLENBY, 1918, by THOMAS HARDY


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JEZREEL; ON ITS SEIZURE BY THE ENGLISH UNDER ALLENBY, 1918, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Did they catch as it were in a vision at shut of day
Last Line: Yea, strange things and spectral may men have beheld in jezreel!
Subject(s): Allenby, Edmund Henry Hynman (1861-1936); Jezreel, Israel; Soldiers; World War I; Allenby Of Megiddo, First Viscount; First World War


Did they catch as it were in a Vision at shut of the day --
When their cavalry smote through the ancient Esdraelon Plain,
And they crossed where the Tishbite stood forth in his enemy's way --
His gaunt mournful Shade as he bade the King hast off amain?

On war-men at this end of time - even on Englishmen's eyes --
Who slay with their arms of new might in the long-ago place,
Flashed he who drove furiously? . . . Ah, did the phantom rise
Of that queen, of that proud Tyrian woman who painted her face?

Faintly marked they the words "Throw her down!" from the night eerily,
Specter-spots of the blood her body on some rotten wall?
And the thin note of pity that came: "A King's daughter is she,"
As they passed where she trodden was once by the chargers' footfall?

Could such be the hauntings of men of today, at the cease
Of pursuit, at the dusk-hour, ere slumber their senses could seal?
Enghosted seers, kings - one on horseback who asked "Is it peace?"
Yea, strange things and spectral may men have beheld in Jezreel!




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