Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967). Picture-Show. 1920.

18. Fancy Dress

SOME Brave, awake in you to-night,

Knocked at your heart: an eagle’s flight

Stirred in the feather on your head.

Your wide-set Indian eyes, alight

Above high cheek-bones smeared with red,

Unveiled cragg’d centuries, and led

You, the snared wraith of bygone things—

Wild ancestries of trackless Kings—

Out of the past … So men have felt

Strange anger move them as they knelt

Praying to gods serenely starred

In heavens where tomahawks are barred.