Margaret Widdemer

From “Voices of Women”

MUST I always sing at the gate to hearten the men who fight

For causes changeful as wind and as brief as the summer night?

Must I always herald the wisdom of Man who is blind, blind-led,

Of kings who rule for an hour and die when the hour is dead;

Of right that is wrong tomorrow, of truths that were last year’s lies,

Of little strifes and upbuildings that die when a nation dies?

For all Assyria’s captains are dead with the dead they made,

Dust of the gyve and anklet with dust of the casque and blade;

But wonderful dreams blow still in the swirl of a smoke new-gone,

As they blew from a fire at dusk for my brother in Ascalon.

And Rome is withered, and Hellas; but leaves in the wind bow still,

As they bowed for my brother’s dreaming who sang by some dead god’s hill:

For all of the mighty walls men have built to sweep down again

Are shadows of visions spun by some poet far from men.

I am tired of praising the deeds that are brief as a wind may be,

That change with the mocking turn of a year or a century:

I go to spin dreams in dark, that shall last until men are hurled

Out into the space of the Timeless with ash of a burning world!