A wholly unknown poem
The following poem, written by Alfred Noyes in 1914 or 1915, has, to the best of my knowledge, never been reprinted, anthologized, or quoted, anywhere. So I would like my friends to read it and answer this question: do you think, as I think, that it is a good poem? Purely as a poem, I mean? Do you think it's right or wrong to have completely neglected it? All of you who read would do me a great favour if you commented, individually, as much as you can, because this is part of my research for the book I am writing.
THE REDEMPTION OF EUROPE
...donec templa refeceris.
Under what banner? It was night
Beyond all nights that ever were.
The Cross was broken. Blood-stained might
Moved like a tiger from its lair;
And all that Heaven had died to quell
Awoke, and mingled Earth with Hell.
For Europe, if it held a Creed,
Held it through custom, not through faith.
Chaos returned in dream and deed;
Right was a legend; love - a wraith;
And That from which the world began
Was less than even the best in man.
God in the image of a Snake
Dethroned that dream, too fond, too blind,
The man-shaped God, whose heart could break,
Live, die, and triumph with mankind.
A Super-Snake, a Juggernaut
Dethroned the highest of human thought.
The lists were set. The eternal foe
Within us as without grew strong
By many a super-subtle blow
Blurring the lines of right and wrong
In Art and Thought, till naught seemed true
But that soul-slaughtering cry of new!
New wreckage of the shrines we made
Through centuries of forgotten tears...
We knew not where their scorn had laid
Our Master. Twice a thousand years
Had dulled the uncapricious Sun,
Manifold words obscured the One:
Obscured the reign of Love, our stay,
Our compass through this darkling sea,
The one sure light, the one sure way,
The one firm base of Liberty;
The one firm road that men have trold
Through Chaos to the Throne of God.
Choose ye, a hundred legions cried,
Dishonour or the instant sword!
Ye chose. Ye met that blood-stained tide;
A little kingdom kept its word;
And, dying, cried across the night:
Hear us, o Earth, we chose the Right!
Whose is the victory? Though ye stood
Alone against the unmeasured foe;
By all the tears, by all the blood
That flowed, and has not ceased to flow;
By all the legions that you hurled
Back, through the thunder-shaken world;
By the old who have not where to rest,
By lands laid waste, and hearths defiled;
By every lacerated breast
And every mutilated child;
Whose is the victory? Answer ye
Who, dying, smiled at tyranny:
Under the sky's triumphal arch
The glories of the dawn begin.
Our dead, our shadowy armies march
E'en now, in silence, through Berlin;
Dumb shadows, tattered blood-stained ghosts,
But cast by which swift following hosts?
And answer, England! At thy side,
Through seas of blood, through mists of tears,
Thou that for Liberty hast died,
And livest, to the end of years! -
And answer, Earth! Far off, I hear
The paeans of a happier sphere:
The trumpet blown at Marathon
Resounded over earth and sea,
But burning angel lips have blown
The trumpets of thy Liberty:
For who, beside their dead, would deem
The faith, for which they died, a dream?
Earth has not been the same since then.
Europe from thee received a soul,
Whence nations moved in law, like men,
As members of a mightier whole,
Till wars were ended... On that day,
So shall our children's children say.
THE REDEMPTION OF EUROPE
...donec templa refeceris.
Under what banner? It was night
Beyond all nights that ever were.
The Cross was broken. Blood-stained might
Moved like a tiger from its lair;
And all that Heaven had died to quell
Awoke, and mingled Earth with Hell.
For Europe, if it held a Creed,
Held it through custom, not through faith.
Chaos returned in dream and deed;
Right was a legend; love - a wraith;
And That from which the world began
Was less than even the best in man.
God in the image of a Snake
Dethroned that dream, too fond, too blind,
The man-shaped God, whose heart could break,
Live, die, and triumph with mankind.
A Super-Snake, a Juggernaut
Dethroned the highest of human thought.
The lists were set. The eternal foe
Within us as without grew strong
By many a super-subtle blow
Blurring the lines of right and wrong
In Art and Thought, till naught seemed true
But that soul-slaughtering cry of new!
New wreckage of the shrines we made
Through centuries of forgotten tears...
We knew not where their scorn had laid
Our Master. Twice a thousand years
Had dulled the uncapricious Sun,
Manifold words obscured the One:
Obscured the reign of Love, our stay,
Our compass through this darkling sea,
The one sure light, the one sure way,
The one firm base of Liberty;
The one firm road that men have trold
Through Chaos to the Throne of God.
Choose ye, a hundred legions cried,
Dishonour or the instant sword!
Ye chose. Ye met that blood-stained tide;
A little kingdom kept its word;
And, dying, cried across the night:
Hear us, o Earth, we chose the Right!
Whose is the victory? Though ye stood
Alone against the unmeasured foe;
By all the tears, by all the blood
That flowed, and has not ceased to flow;
By all the legions that you hurled
Back, through the thunder-shaken world;
By the old who have not where to rest,
By lands laid waste, and hearths defiled;
By every lacerated breast
And every mutilated child;
Whose is the victory? Answer ye
Who, dying, smiled at tyranny:
Under the sky's triumphal arch
The glories of the dawn begin.
Our dead, our shadowy armies march
E'en now, in silence, through Berlin;
Dumb shadows, tattered blood-stained ghosts,
But cast by which swift following hosts?
And answer, England! At thy side,
Through seas of blood, through mists of tears,
Thou that for Liberty hast died,
And livest, to the end of years! -
And answer, Earth! Far off, I hear
The paeans of a happier sphere:
The trumpet blown at Marathon
Resounded over earth and sea,
But burning angel lips have blown
The trumpets of thy Liberty:
For who, beside their dead, would deem
The faith, for which they died, a dream?
Earth has not been the same since then.
Europe from thee received a soul,
Whence nations moved in law, like men,
As members of a mightier whole,
Till wars were ended... On that day,
So shall our children's children say.