Night Sounds
By George Sterling
There clung a silence to the land,
Unbroken since the set of sun;
Then, from the garden, still and un,
A cricket chirruped close at hand.
The moon rose great and slow and cold
Above the woodlands far away;
The shadows of her ghost of day
Were softly dark about the fold.
Then lowed the kine, as if in fear;
Slowly and mournfully they lowed,
Disconsolate. Far down the road
A shot, a cry! A man drew near.
Reeling, he labored toward the gate,
Then on the ancient door-step crashed;
Forth from the room a woman dashed,
To see the life-blood of her mate.
Above his silent breast she screamed.
His setter sprang against its chain,
As, shaft by shaft, beyond the grain
The battle's sudden search-lights gleamed.
Soon tumult wakened left and right,
As, to the roar of gun and shell,
The tempest of the man-made hell
Rushed flaming on the shattered night.
A moment, and the mourner lay
Dead by her dead. A little more,
And that red hurricane of war
Swept, trampling, on its human prey.
But though the loosened thunders wild
Sprang ceaseless from the battle-gloom,
A quiet breathing in the room
Told of the slumber of their child!
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