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The Black Riders & Other Lines/God lay dead in heaven

From Wikisource
God lay dead in heaven
by Stephen Crane

This poem was published in 1905 in the volume The Black Rider & Other Lines.

4242God lay dead in heavenStephen Crane

God lay dead in heaven;
Angels sang the hymn of the end;
Purple winds went moaning,
Their wings drip-dripping
With blood
That fell upon the earth.
It, groaning thing,
Turned black and sank.
Then from the far caverns
Of dead sins
Came monsters, livid with desire.
They fought,
Wrangled over the world,
A morsel.
But of all sadness this was sad --
A woman's arms tried to shield
The head of a sleeping man
From the jaws of the final beast.