The Retirement Of Mars
He pauses on his way, and gazing back
across the desert ways of splintered steel
recalls the noon, and sees his weary track,
and sees the bloody imprint of his heel.
A Mars long tired he stands-a noble Mars!
Stiff with the staggering day, and fields hard won.
His bruised helm is glittering with scars
that gleam afar and spy the setting sun.
With red plumes doffed and foe-revering face
he moves adroop, to seek the sea, the waves,
to seek the sighing winds, the shades of space,
and rest his heart within Twilight Caves.
The dazzling axe is deep, its lord abed.
The dead are lying with the friendly dead!
poem by Leon Gellert
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The Trumpets Of Heaven
A silver cry is calling from a height
Leaving the awful pause that follows song,
And through the silence shines a stretching light-
A stretching light that quietly runs along
The path of stars, and pierces cloud on cloud.
Pure things in space across the guiltless sky
Rustle with wings that bear in flight the proud
Revenge of God, with God's intensity.
Among the lighted ways-to move unheard,-
A great-unseen assembly seems to shine
To gather silently in line on line,
And wait and wait for some expected word,
A call on the height! And from the blinding skies
Come white battalions with their blinding eyes.
poem by Leon Gellert
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The Australian Muse
Uplift thy lyre, and touch the tender strings;
But leave unsung the epics of thy land
Til thou and time have made a song both grand
And mellow with thy long imaginings.
Breathe forth the secret whisperings of thy birth,
And play the soft tunes of thine infancy;
Nor sing the dull oft-told reality
Of worldly ways; but rather let the earth
Grow old; then sing the great songs of its youth.
Then thou, whilst ageing in the pass of time,
Add fame to fame, and rhyme to gloried rhyme
Till fit thy lyre is for song of Truth.
But now, a child-song sweet with laughs and
Tears,
And let the unripe ripen with the years.
poem by Leon Gellert
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The Cry Of Mammon
The dazzling earth is rich with easy thrones.
The corn is golden in the golden sun.
The amber day is set with blazing stones,
And yellow kingdoms waiting to be won.
The ruby cries,' My Lord, my lord return!'
The emerald is greener than the trees
Of Proserpine. The bursting sapphires burn
In searching brilliance on the burnished seas.
The hall is empty of its rightful lord,
That lord that sleeps, and hugs his rusty sword.
Could he but step upon these coral lands,
And hurl his polished spear but once, and hold
The shining realm, - within his jewelled hands
Would lie the jewelled stars, and gold , and gold!
poem by Leon Gellert
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The Blind Man
Within a corner of this windowed room
He sits, and seldom speaks, and seldom
moves.
Forever left within eternal gloom,
He thinks of those he left, and those he loves.
The clouds were his, the colours of the day,
The purple mists, the deepest shades of blue,
The yellow flames, the stars, the milky way,
And smiles and frowns, and stretching moon-
light too.
He knew the sun upon the eastern sea,
And watched it set behind a western hill.
He saw the depth of waters, - space, - the free
Ascent of birds. All these he knew until
The bursting shell. And now, as life is long,
He sits alone, and whistles some old song.
poem by Leon Gellert
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Dreams of France
Oh, dreams of France! Oh, faded dreams of France!
Ohm France, that I had ever dreamed of thee!
I thought to help thee bear thy brandished lance,
But, lo, I sail the blue Aegean sea!
Sweet thought of thee sill stand before mine eyes
While I lie fettered in this stagnant cage;
Unseen by me the golden Grecian skies,
Forgotten is the Grecian Golden Age.
Drear and dank this stale Ionian bark,
That plods its path alone Aegean ways.
Could I but see old Homer, tall and dark,
And hear the battle-laughter of his lays!
Farewell, oh France! Farewell, thou tortured West!
Bear strong thy shield above thine outraged breast.
poem by Leon Gellert
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The Epileptic
His splendid heart is set within a frame
Of manly massiveness, and giant limbs.
And strong to move, he helps the maimed and the lame,
While his pride of strength the laugher brims
His eyes and spreads. He heaves his might chest
In mirth at every feeble joke and jest.
But sometimes in the height of joy he’ll start
Pale-cheeked, as though within his ear he heard
Some shocking whisper calling at this heart,
And knew the call, and trembled at its word.
And so he passes into horridness,
Within the claw of some hot fiend of prey,
And fights with blinded hands and pitiless,
Till back again he lisps his dreary way.
poem by Leon Gellert
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The Husband
Yes, I have slain, and taken moving life
From bodies. Yea! And laughed upon the taking;
And, having slain, have whetted still the knife
For more and more, and heeded not the making
Of things that I was killing. Such 'twas then!
But now the thirst so hideous has left me.
I live within a coolness, among calm men,
And yet am strange. A something has bereft me
Of a seeing, and strangely love returns;
And old desires half-known, and hanging sorrows.
I seem agaze with wonder. Memory burns.
I see a thousand vague and sad tomorrows.
None sees my sadness. No one understands
How I must touch her hair with bloody hands.
poem by Leon Gellert
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Again the Clash is East
Again the clash is East, the Gates are barred.
The rolling echoes of of Troy arise
With trebled sound: its weary threshold scarred
With scattered dead once more, and wild with cries.
The noise that dinned when siting Hellas reeled
Before the brave defence of Hector’s horde,
The blows that burst on Agamemmnon’s shield,
Or echoed from Achilles’ threshing sword
Were weak and small. Before this mighty blast
They seem the tinklings of a timid past.
To-day the Grecian arms are still and deep
Within the tomb: those heroes deep in dust;
The eyes of Attic honour closed with sleep,
And wise Ulysses’ arrows red with rust.
poem by Leon Gellert
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The Coming Of War
Strong from the hills it comes, and flowing
rivers;
Swift from the waters of the rising seas;
Swift on the chilling heart that waits and quivers
With a terror of hideousies.
Behind grey mist it comes, and creeping cloud
That licks the fading earth with foetid breath.
From plains it comes, and silent lakes – a shroud
That holds unloosed the damned brigades of
death.
It sweeps and passes. Everything is dead-
Broken with foulness-ravished as it bled!
A blow, a weeping! Then a silence lies.
Faint bells low-tinkling from the bloody sod
Rise from the depths of heart, and touch the skies,
And murmur at the very stairs of God.
poem by Leon Gellert
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