Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

The Procession

M. D. Armstrong

PAVEN gray,

The triumphal way

Clove the plain like a javelin-head,

Circled the hill in a broad progression

And up to the white acropolis sped:

Waiting the feet of the great procession

It lay to the noonday sun outspread.

Ninety columns of rough-hewn granite

Edged the way in a lordly line—

Rocks hewn down

From a mountain-crown

In giant ages by kings divine:

Each—the leap of a man might span it—

Towered as high as a forest pine.

Dust looms gray

Down the pillared way,

Foaming to gold where the sun breaks in.

They are coming. The noise grows deeper and duller:

See through the great blocks, out and in,

Flashes of sharp and insolent color

Leap through the crowd with the marching din!

The rumor thickens:—a fear! wonder!

Neighings and shouts and the tramp that casts

Like a smoking pyre

The white dust higher!

The pikes are clustered like harbor-masts,

The chariot-wheels on the pavement thunder,

And the horses leap at the trumpet-blasts.

The heralds troop

In a serried group;

The long bright shafts of their trumpets rise

Like sun-rays over a mountain shooting;

Fire on the bright brass flashes and flies,

Fierce as the raucous music bruiting

Triumph up to the holloing skies.

Banners wavered with lazy flappings

Over the tall crests dancing there.

Like beasts afraid

The long horns brayed

Harsh through the hot and dusty air,

And greens and scarlets of robes and trappings

Threaded the rocks with a sultry glare.

Now they strode

Up the mounting road,

Their rich barbaric music sounding

Tawny and fierce, till it shrank and paled,

As the carolling cohort dwindled, rounding

The curve of the hill, and its echoes hailed

Far, from the loftier crags rebounding.

Fires from the foundering sun-ship curdle

Westering cloud-banks. High and afar,

The marching lines

On the curved inclines

Gleam like a string of jewels that star

The breast of the towering hill they girdle

With emerald, ruby and golden spar.

In the phoenix-glow

Of the sunset, lo

A crown of fire was the far-seen crowd

High on the terraced summit swaying.

The hill that rose to the evening cloud

Stood like an altar where, after the slaying,

Flames of the offering leapt and bowed.

And over that ocean of men impassioned,

Men whom the current of life bore high,

In the great repose

Of godhead rose,

Throned august in the golden sky,

From the pure white splendor of marble fashioned,

The porch of the Temple of Victory.