The Guns

Menace, hidden, but pulsing in the air of night:
Then a throbbing thunder, split and seared
With the scarlet flashes of innumerable shells,
And against it, suddenly, a shell, closer;
A purr that changes to a whine
Like a beast of prey that has missed its kill,
And again, closer.

But even in the thunder of the guns
There is a silence: and the soul groweth still.
Yea, it is cloaked in stillness:
And it is not fear.

But the torn and screaming air
Trembles under the onset of warring angels
With terrible and beautiful faces;
And the soul is stilled, knowing these awful shapes,
That burden the night with oppression,
To be but the creatures of its own lusts.