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Title: The Bringers Of Good News
Author: Alfred Noyes [
More Titles by Noyes]
Like fallen stars the watch-fires gleamed
Along our menaced age that night!
Our bivouacked century tossed and dreamed
Of battle with the approaching light.
Rumors of change, a sea-like roar,
Shook the firm earth with doubt and dread:
The clouds, in rushing legions bore
Their tattered eagles overhead.
I saw the muffled sentries rest
On the dark hills of Time. I saw
Around them march from East to West
The stars of the unresting law.
I knew that in their mighty course
They brought the dawn, they brought the day;
And that the unconquerable force
Of the new years was on the way.
I heard the feet of that great throng!
I saw them shine, like hope, afar!
Their shout, their shout was like a song,
And O, 'twas not a song of war!
Yet, as the whole world with their tramp
Quivered, a signal-lightning spoke,
A bugle warned our darkling camp,
And, like a thunder-cloud, it woke.
Our searchlights raked the world's wide ends.
O'er the dark hills a grey light crept.
Down, through the light, that host of friends
We took for foemen, triumphing swept.
The old century could not hear their cry,
How should it hear the song they sang?
_We bring good news!_ It pierced the sky!
_We bring good news!_ The welkin rang.
One shout of triumph and of faith;
And then--our shattering cannon roared!
But, over the reeking ranks of death,
The song rose like a single sword.
_We bring good news!_ Red flared the guns!
_We bring good news!_ The sabres flashed!
And the dark age with its own sons
In blind and furious battle clashed.
A swift, a terrible bugle pealed.
The sulphurous clouds were rolled away.
Embraced, embraced, on that red field,
The wounded and the dying lay.
_We bring good news!_ Blood choked the word,
--_We knew you not; so dark the night!--
O father, was I worth your sword?
O son, O herald of the light!_
_We bring good news!_--The darkness fills
Mine eyes!--Nay, the night ebbs away!
And, over the everlasting hills,
The great new dawn led on the day.
[The end]
Alfred Noyes's poem: Bringers Of Good News
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