I met a man when night was nigh,

   Who said, with shining face and eye

   Like Moses’ after Sinai:—

   “I have seen the Moulder of Monarchies,

      Realms, peoples, plains and hills,

   Sitting upon the sunlit seas!—

   And, as He sat, soliloquies

Fell from Him like an antiphonic breeze

      That pricks the waves to thrills.

   “Meseemed that of the maimed and dead

      Mown down upon the globe,—

   Their plenteous blooms of promise shed

   Ere fruiting-time—His words were said,

Sitting against the western web of red

      Wrapt in His crimson robe.

   “And I could catch them now and then:

      —‘Why let these gambling clans

   Of human Cockers, pit liege men

   From mart and city, dale and glen,

In death-mains, but to swell and swell again

      Their swollen All-Empery plans,

   “‘When a mere nod (if my malign

      Compeer but passive keep)

   Would mend that old mistake of mine

   I made with Saul, and ever consign

All Lords of War whose sanctuaries enshrine

      Liberticide, to sleep?

   “‘With violence the lands are spread

      Even as in Israel’s day,

   And it repenteth me I bred

   Chartered armipotents lust-led

To feuds . . . Yea, grieves my heart, as then I said,

      To see their evil way!’

   —“The utterance grew, and flapped like flame,

      And further speech I feared;

   But no Celestial tongued acclaim,

   And no huzzas from earthlings came,

And the heavens mutely masked as ’twere in shame

      Till daylight disappeared.”

Thus ended he as night rode high—

The man of shining face and eye,

Like Moses’ after Sinai.

1916.