Bay : A Book of Poems

The red range heaves and compulsory sways, ah see!in the flush of a marchSoftly-impulsive advancing as water towards a weirfrom the archOf shadow emerging as blood emerges from inwardshades of our nightEncroaching towards a crisis, a meeting, a spasm andthrob of delight.The wave of soldiers, the coming wave, the throbbingred breast of approachUpon us; dark eyes as here beneath the busbies glittering, dark threats that broachOur beached vessel; darkened rencontre inhuman, andclosed warm lips, and darkMouth-hair of soldiers passing above us, over the wreckof our bark.And so, it is ebb-time, they turn, the eyes beneath thebusbies are gone.But the blood has suspended its timbre, the heart fromout of oblivionKnows but the retreat of the burning shoulders, thered-swift waves of the sweetFire horizontal declining and ebbing, the twilit ebb ofretreat.