AT an hour before the rosy-fingered Morning should come To wonder again what meant these sties, These wailing shots, these glaring eyes, These moping mum, Through the black reached strange long rosy fingers All at one aim Protending, and bending: down they swept, Successions of similars after leapt And bore red flame To one small ground of the eastern distance, And thunderous touched. East then and west false dawns fan-flashed And shut, and gaped; false thunders clashed. Who stood and watched Caught piercing horror from the desperate pit Which with ten men Was centre of this. The blood burnt, feeling The fierce truth there and the last appealing, "Us? Us? Again?" Nor rosy dawn at last appearing Through the icy shade Might mark without trembling the new deforming Of earth that had seemed past further storming. Her fingers played, One thought, with something of human pity On six or seven Whose looks were hard to understand, But that they ceased to care what hand Lit earth and heaven. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE WAY TO ARCADY by HENRY CUYLER BUNNER THE MESSAGE, FR. THE FAIR MAID OF THE EXCHANGE by THOMAS HEYWOOD BLACK AND BLUE EYES by THOMAS MOORE THE KNIGHT OF THE BURNING PESTLE by FRANCIS BEAUMONT DEPARTURE OF THE PIONEER by JOHN GARDINER CALKINS BRAINARD THE KIRK'S ALARM by ROBERT BURNS EPIGRAM ON AN OLD LADY WHO HAD SOME CURIOUS NOTIONS by GEORGE GORDON BYRON |