V

Ah, what a dawn of splendour, when her sowers Went forth and bent the necks of populations And of their terrors and humiliations Wove her the starry wreath that earthward lowers Now in the figure of a burning yoke! Her legions traversed North and South and East, Of triumph they enjoyed the glutton’s feast: They grafted the green sprig, they lopped the oak. They caught by the beard the tempests, by the scalp The icy precipices, and clove sheer through The heart of horror of the pinnacled Alp, Emerging not as men whom mortals knew. They were the earthquake and the hurricane, The lightnings and the locusts, plagues of blight, Plagues of the revel: they were Deluge rain, And dreaded Conflagration; lawless Might. Death writes a reeling line along the snows, Where under frozen mists they may be tracked, Who men and elements provoked to foes, And Gods: they were of god and beast compact: Abhorred of all. Yet, how they sucked the teats Of Carnage, thirsty issue of their dam, Whose eagles, angrier than their oriflamme, Flushed the vext earth with blood, green earth forgets. The gay young generations mask her grief; Where bled her children hangs the loaded sheaf. Forgetful is green earth; the Gods alone Remember everlastingly: they strike Remorselessly, and ever like for like. By their great memories the Gods are known.