Goad them to fresh pastures.
Beside still waters
They drink of blood and neigh a horrible laughter,
And their ponderous tread shakes happy cities down,
And the thresh of their flail-like tails
Makes acres smolder and smoke
Blackened of golden harvest.
The Beasts are back,
And men, in their spreading shadow,
Inhale the odor of their nauseous breath.
Inebriate with it they fashion other gods
Than the gods of day-dream.
Of iron and steel are little images
Made of the Beasts.
And men rush forth and fling themselves for ritual
Before these gods, before the lumbering Beasts,—
And some make long obeisance.
Umber and violet flowers of the sky,
The sun, like a blazing Mars, clanks across the blue
And plucks you to fashion into a nosegay
To offer Venus, his old-time paramour.
And now she shrinks
And pales
