Classic Poem

So soon!
At 3.15. And would return here ... when?
It didn't say. Who would return? P'raps all,
P'raps none. Then it had come at last!
It had come at last! his own stupendous hour,
Long waited, dreaded, almost hoped-for too,
When all else seemed the foolery of power;
It had come at last! and suddenly the world
Was sharply cut in two. On one side lay
A golden, dreamy, peaceful afternoon,
And on the other, men gone mad with fear,
A hell of noise and darkness, a Last Day
Daily enacted. Now good-bye to one
And to the other ... well, acceptance: that
At least he'd give; many had gone with joy:
He loathed it from his very inmost soul.
The golden world! It lay just over there,
Peacefully dreaming. In its clear bright depths
Friends moved — he saw them going here and there,
Like thistledown above an August meadow:
Gently as in a gentle dream they moved,
Unagonised, unwrought, nor sad, nor proud,
Faces he loved to agony — and none
Could see, or know, or bid him well-adieu.
Blasphemous irony! To think how oft
On such a day a friend would hold his hand
Saying good-bye, though they would meet next day,
And now ... He breathed his whole soul out,
Bidding it span the unbridged senseless miles
And glow about their thought in waves of love.
'Twas time already! Now? As soon as this?
Did his voice hold? How did he look to them?
Poor craven little crowd of human mites!
Now they were crawling over the scarred cheese,
Silently going towards that roaring sea,
Each thinking his own thought, craving perhaps
A body that would fail, or with set teeth
Pitting a human will against the world.
Now every step seemed an eternity:
Each stretch of earth unreachable till it lay
Behind and a stretch longer lay beyond.
Would it be never ended? Crumbling earth,
Dry with the cracks of earthquake, dumbly showed
Death had just trodden there — and there he lay,
Foully deformed in what was once a man.
" Lo! as these are, so shalt thou be," he thought,
Shuddered: then thrilled almost to ecstasy,
As one from hell delivered up to heaven.
How slow they moved in front! Yes, slower still.
Then we must stop: we were not eighty yards.
But to stop here — to wait for it! Oh no!
Backward or forward, anything, but not stop —
Not stand and wait! There's no alternative.
And now he rasps out, " Halt! " They stand and curse,
Eyes furtive, fingers moving senselessly.
There comes a roar nearer and louder till
His head is bursting with noise and the earth shakes.
" A bloody near one, that! " and " What the hell
Are we stuck here for? " come with sudden growls.
He moves without a word, and on they trudge.
So near! Yet nothing! Then how long? How long?...
And slowly in his overheated mind
Peace like a river through the desert flows,
And sweetness wells and overflows in streams
That reach the farthest friend in memory.
Peace now, and dear delight in serving these,
These poor sheep driven innocent to death:
Peace undisturbed, though the poor senses jump,
And horror catches at the heart as when
Death unsuspected flaunts his grisly hand
Under the very eye of quietness:
Peace, peace with all, even the enemy,
Compassion for them deep as for his own.
Quietness now amid the thunderous noise,
And sweet elation in the grave of gloom.