Classic Poem

Since Athens died, the life that is a light
Has never shone in Europe. Alien moods,
The oriental morbid sanctitudes,
Have darkened on her like the fear of night
In happy augury we dared to guess
That her pure spirit shot one sunny glance
Of paganry across the fields of France,
Clear startling this dim fog of soulfulness.

But now, with arms and carnage and the cries
Of Holy Murder, rolling to the clouds
Her bloody-shadowed smoke of sacrifice,
The Superstition conquers, and the shrouds
Of sick black wonder lay their murky blight
Where shone of old the immortal-seeming light.