Sombre the night is: And, though we have our lives, we know What sinister threat lurks there. Dragging these anguished limbs, we only know This poison-blasted track opens on our camp— On a little safe sleep. But hark! Joy—joy—strange joy. Lo! Heights of night ringing with unseen larks: Music showering on our upturned listening faces. Death could drop from the dark As easily as song— But song only dropped, Like a blind man’s dreams on the sand By dangerous tides; Like a girl’s dark hair, for she dreams no ruin lies there, Or her kisses where a serpent hides. THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM BY THE BABYLONIAN HORDES They left their Babylon bare Of all its tall men, Of all its proud horses; They made for Lebanon. And shadowy sowers went Before their spears to sow The fruit whose taste is ash, For Judah’s soul to know. They who bowed to the Bull god, Whose wings roofed Babylon, In endless hosts darkened The bright-heavened Lebanon. They washed their grime in pools Where laughing girls forgot The wiles they used for Solomon. Sweet laughter, remembered not! Sweet laughter charred in the flame That clutched the cloud and earth, While Solomon’s towers crashed between To a gird of Babylon’s mirth. THE BURNING OF THE TEMPLE Fierce wrath of Solomon, Where sleepest thou? O see, The fabric which thou won Earth and ocean to give thee— O look at the red skies. Or hath the sun plunged down? What is this molten gold— These thundering fires blown Through heaven, where the smoke rolled? Again the great king dies. His dreams go out in smoke. His days he let not pass And sculptured here are broke, Are charred as the burnt grass, Gone as his mouth’s last sighs. HOME-THOUGHTS FROM FRANCE Wan, fragile faces of joy, Pitiful mouths that strive To light with smiles the place We dream we walk alive, To you I stretch my hands, Hands shut in pitiless trance In a land of ruin and woe, The desolate land of France.