Classic Poem

Swirl, down from the skies with a trumpet-shout, ye wild riders
Whistle the wind in the blowing of your white skirts as ye sing to the Earth,
Break up, break up with the hoofs of the divine horses the ice of our rivers ...
Send tumult of waters to the sea ... Valkyries, the Gods
Lie slain: it is dusk of the Gods ...

The clouds have split open for a moon-pour on an amazed wide world of death ...
Row by row the dead stare moon-eyed into their tomb of the stars,
And great marble Gods are scattered among them, broken by the hammers of the swarthy Fate-Makers;
The Nazarene is shattered; and the Heavenly Father is an idol of quartz crumbled and dust;
And the Mother of Heaven is a shoal of pebbles where the sea chants her eternal dirge ...

Doom of the dead: the dead shall live no more:
Sweep to the dead from the skies with a final trumpet-shout, ye wild riders:
Sweep swirling to the dead, pealing triumphant glory-song of the unresurrectable Christ ...
Cleanse the planet of the fetid flesh, of the vulture-torn corpses of the Ages ...
Bear the great ghosts on your backs to invisible Valhalla...

For as ye pass, the ice of our rivers cracks and is shivered and shattered
And tumult of Spring rides down, and the shout of the dawn,
And young Gods, never seen before, laugh to the dance and laughter of Man.