Then suddenly they all shudder as they see
A young man move before them wearily,
Pallid and gaunt as one already dead;
And they are strangely troubled as he stands
With arms outstretched and drooping, thorn-crowned head,
The nail-marks glowing in his feet and hands.
3
AIR-RAID.
Night shatters in mid-heaven: the bark of guns,
The roar of planes, the crash of bombs, and all
The unshackled skiey pandemonium stuns
The senses to indifference, when a fall
Of masonry near by startles awake,
Tingling wide-eyed, prick-eared, with bristling hair,
Each sense within the body crouched aware
Like some sore-hunted creature in the brake.
Yet side by side we lie in the little room,
Just touching hands, with eyes and ears that strain
Keenly, yet dream-bewildered, through tense gloom,
Listening in helpless stupor of insane
Drugged nightmare panic fantastically wild,
To the quiet breathing of our sleeping child.
4
IN WAR-TIME.
As gaudy flies across a pewter plate,
On the grey disk of the unrippling sea,
Beneath an airless, sullen sky of slate
Dazzled destroyers zig-zag restlessly,
While underneath the sleek and livid tide,
Blind monsters nosing through the soundless deep,
Lean submarines among blind fishes glide
And through primeval weedy forests sweep.
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