Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, PHANTOMS, by HARRY MCGUIRE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

PHANTOMS, by                    
First Line: At the end I will bellow my challenge
Last Line: God, forgive!
Subject(s): Ghosts; Supernatural


At the end I will bellow my challenge;
Holding my gun on the stoop;
They will come with the hordes of evening
In a silver sloop.

Their faces fantastic and painted,
Revealed to the look of the moon,
Silently they will disembark --
Weird platoon.

Then I will raise my musket
For its last shot;
There will be a sound in the stillness . .
A barrel hot,

The despairing glance of a watered eye
As the smoke clears, and I see
The phantom marchers moving still . . .
Moving upon me.

Cold as the kiss of hell their steel --
Cold as the dread of cost
To a man who has waited to battle his sins
To the last -- and lost.

Then he will die at the sword-point
Who knew not how to live,
Who thought his sins were phantoms . . .
God, forgive!





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