Edmund Kemper Broadus

WE stood at Stonehenge as the evening fell.

A mist had gathered and the reddened sun

Glowed like an altar-fire upon the edge

Of Salisbury Plain. The aged stones,

To whom our thousand years of fear and hope,

Of war and peace, were but as yesterday,

Merged into the shadows. The solemn night,

The mystery, the burden of gray Time

Awed us to silence. And then, from the heart

Of that age-wonted stillness sprang and grew

The iterant throbbing of an aeroplane;

And over our Druid world the marvel sped

And vanished.
With the breaking of the spell

Our thought turned to the gradual perfecting

Of this, the century’s new gift to man,

With all its ruthless toll of human life;—

And suddenly the place in which we stood

Grew peopled with strange forms. A priest was there

With naked blade; and prone before him lay

A victim on whose pallid face was writ

The passion of a willing sacrifice.

And spirit unto shrouded spirit spake:

“I give; ye gain; but shall it always be

That life must take its wage of life, and men

Must die that Man may win the goal he seeks?”

And as we turned away, the mighty stones

Seemed dumbly questioning the quiet stars.