OUTLAWS

Owls--they whinny down the night;

Bats go zigzag by.

Ambushed in shadow beyond sight

The outlaws lie.

Old gods, tamed to silence, there

In the wet woods they lurk,

Greedy of human stuff to snare

In nets of murk.

Look up, else your eye will drown

In a moving sea of black;

Between the tree-tops, upside down,

Goes the sky-track.

Look up, else your feet will stray

Into that ambuscade

Where spider-like they trap their prey

With webs of shade.

For though creeds whirl away in dust,

Faith dies and men forget,

These agèd gods of power and lust

Cling to life yet--

Old gods almost dead, malign,

Starving for unpaid dues:

Incense and fire, salt, blood and wine

And a drumming muse,

Banished to woods and a sickly moon,

Shrunk to mere bogey things,

Who spoke with thunder once at noon

To prostrate kings:

With thunder from an open sky

To warrior, virgin, priest,

Bowing in fear with a dazzled eye

Toward the dread East--

Proud gods, humbled, sunk so low,

Living with ghosts and ghouls,

And ghosts of ghosts and last year's snow

And dead toadstools.

[From Country Sentiment (1920)]