Sonnets of the Great Peace: IV.

Ghosts of great flags that billowed in the sun
With glorious colors above the crowded street,
Lifting our hearts to know the rent world one,
Teaching the march of Man to hurrying feet,
Shall ye not haunt those skyward spaces still
With memory of your sun-illumined streaming,
Bright brother-angels heralding goodwill,
Beckoners of sordid spirits to noble dreaming?
Or shall your many beauteous blazonries
Fade out from the dulled sense and be forgot,
And intimations so august as these
Lapse into silence even as they were not,
Comrades turn rivals, and heart-fast allies
Weavers of schemes, peering with insect eyes?