Classic Poem

A blanket low and leaden,
Though rent across the west,
Whose darkness seems to deaden
The city to its rest;
A sunset white and staring
On cloud-wrecks far away —
And haggard house-walls glaring
A farewell to the day.

A light on tower and steeple,
Where sun no longer shines —
My people, O my people!
Rise up and read the signs!
Low looms the nearer high line
(No sign of star or moon),
The horseman on the skyline
Rode hard this afternoon!

(Is he — and who shall know it? —
The spectre of a scout?
The spirit of a poet,
Whose truths were met with doubt?
Who sought and who succeeded
In marking danger's track —
Whose warnings were unheeded
Till all the sky was black?)

Without the sacrifices
That make a nation's name,
The elder nation's vices
And luxuries we claim.
Without their rise and glory
We fall like Greece and Rome!
It is a shameful story
That men should tell at home.

Grown vain without a conquest
And sure without a fort,
And maddened in the one quest
For pleasure or for sport.
Self-blinded to our starkness,
We'd fling the time away
To fight, half-armed, in darkness,
Who should be armed to-day.

Cloud-fortresses titanic
Along the western sky —
The tired, bowed mechanic
And pallid clerk flit by.
Lit by a light unhealthy —
The ghastly after-glare —
The veiled and goggled wealthy
Drive fast — they know not where.

Night's sullen spirit rouses,
The darkening gables lour,
From ugly four-roomed houses
Verandah'd windows glower;
The last long day-stare dies on
The scrub-ridged western side,
And round the near horizon
The spectral horsemen ride.