"Watchmen, what of the night?"
"Rumours clash from the towers;
The clocks strike different hours;
The vanes point different ways.
Through darkness leftward and right
Voices quaver and boom,
Pealing our victory's praise,
Tolling the tocsin of doom."
"Optimist, what of the night?"
"Night is over and gone;
See how the dawn marches on,
Triumphing, over the hills.
Armies of foemen in flight
Scatter dismay and despair,
Wild is the terror that fills
War-lords that crouch in their lair."
"Pessimist, what of the night?"
"Blackness that walls us about;
The last little star has gone out,
Whelmed in the wrath of the storm.
Exhaustless, resistless in might,
The enemy faints not nor fails;
Thundering, swarm upon swarm,
He sweeps like a flood through the vales.
"Pacifist, what of the night?"
"We hear the thunder afar,
But all is still where we are;
Good and evil are friends.
Here in the passionless height
War and morality cease,
And the noon with the midnight blends
In perennial twilight of peace."
H. E. WILKES.
Feb. 6, 1918.