Page:The roamer and other poems (1920).djvu/70

And blackness rolled upon the solid world,
And drowned it; and there broke a yellow shaft
Like some great rift of sunset smiting through,
And on the mighty beam the bird, full flight,
Came singing out of heaven, songless till then,
A little cluster of rich-warbled notes,
Ever the same, one thrill, and o'er and o'er,
That fell upon my heart like dropping flames,
So strange, it seemed I knew not song before.
I woke; the music slept within my breast—
And over me the ancient walls leaned down
As with some statue's marble utterance;
'How fair he comes who brings his country peace!'
I heard, as plain as winds on olive groves.
'What peace?' I cried, and climbed the straitened ways
To where upon the City's sacred brow,
As to the breath of the Eternal Morn,
The mystic Rose of Christ unfolds its leaves,
The bower of his earthly memory;
And there I marked the priests go ever in,
Like flies and gnats; and on me came the Voice:
'Wouldst thou bring peace? Then haste thee; now, even now,
The eagles of the Christ fly forth to war!'

The bird was gone—a white and quivering point.