# A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919/Shadows and Lights

SHADOWS AND LIGHTS
WHAT gods have met in battle to arouse This whirling shadow of invisible things, These hosts that writhe amid the shattered sods? O Father, and O Mother of the gods, Is there some trouble in the heavenly house? We who are captained by its unseen kings Wonder what thrones are shaken in the skies, What powers who held dominion o'er our will Let fall the sceptre, and what destinies The younger gods may drive us to fulfil.
Have they not swayed us, earth's invisible lords, With whispers and with breathings from the dark? The very border stones of nations mark Where silence swallowed some wild prophet's words That rang but for an instant and were still, Yet were so burthened with eternity, They maddened all who heard to work their will, To raise the lofty temple on the hill, And many a glittering thicket of keen swords Flashed out to make one law for land and sea, That earth might move with heaven in company.
The cities that to myriad beauty grew Were altars raised unto old gods who died, And they were sacrificed in ruins to The younger gods who took their place of pride; They have no brotherhood, the deified, No high companionship of throne by throne, But will their beauty still to be alone.
What is a nation but a multitude United by some god-begotten mood, Some hope of liberty or dream of power That have not with each other brotherhood But warred in spirit from their natal hour, ​Their hatred god-begotten as their love, Reverberations of eternal strife? For all that fury breathed in human life, Are ye not guilty, ye above?
Ah, no, the circle of the heavenly ones, That ring of burning, grave, inflexible powers, Array in harmony amid the deep The shining legionaries of the suns, That through their day from dawn to twilight keep The peace of heaven, and have no feuds like ours. The Morning Stars their labours of the dawn Close at the advent of the Solar Kings, And these with joy their sceptres yield, withdrawn When the still Evening Stars begin their reign, And twilight time is thrilled with homing wings To the All-Father being turned again.
No, not on high begin divergent ways, The galaxies of interlinkèd lights Rejoicing on each other's beauty gaze, 'Tis we who do make errant all the rays That stream upon us from the astral heights. Love in our thickened air too redly burns; And unto vanity our beauty turns; Widsom, that softly whispers us to part From evil, swells to hatred in the heart. Dark is the shadow of invisible things On us who look not up, whose vision fails. The glorious shining of the heavenly kings To mould us to their image naught avails, They weave a robe of many-coloured fire To garb the spirits moving in the deep, And in the upper air its splendours keep Pure and unsullied, but below it trails Darkling and glimmering in our earthly mire.
Our eyes are ever earthwards. We are swayed But by the shadows of invisible light, And shadow against shadow is arrayed So that one dark may dominate the night. ​Though kinsmen are the lights that cast the shade, We look not up, nor see how, side by side, The high originals of all our pride In crowned and sceptred brotherhood are throned, Compassionate of our blindness and our hate That own the godship but the love disowned.
Ah, let us for a little while abate The outward roving eye, and seek within Where spirit unto spirit is allied; There, in our inmost being, we may win The joyful vision of the heavenly wise To see the beauty in each other's eyes.
A. E.