The red range heaves and compulsory
sways, ah see!
in the flush of a march
Softly-impulsive advancing as water towards a
weir
from the arch
Of shadow emerging as blood emerges from
inward
shades of our night
Encroaching towards a crisis, a meeting, a spasm
and
throb of delight.
The wave of soldiers, the coming
wave, the throbbing
red breast of approach
Upon us; dark eyes as here beneath the busbies
glit —
tering, dark threats that broach
Our beached vessel; darkened
rencontre inhuman, and
closed warm lips, and
dark
Mouth-hair of
soldiers passing above us, over the wreck
of our
bark.
And so, it is ebb-time, they turn,
the eyes beneath the
busbies are gone.
But the blood has suspended its timbre, the
heart from
out of oblivion
Knows but the retreat of the burning shoulders,
the
red-swift waves of the sweet
Fire horizontal declining and
ebbing, the twilit ebb of
retreat.