[Editor: This poem by Marie E. J. Pitt was published in The Horses of the Hills and Other Verses (1911).]
To-night.
It is to-night! The tense strings sob no more:
Close fast the doors, and draw the sheltering blinds
Against the vampire broods that hover near,
Shapeless similitudes of nameless fears.
Here, love, upon the outmost beetling crag
Of black oblivion, soft-winged Sleep shall guard
From fierce, familiar terrors that pursue
With scourges sharp as death and ’wildering cries
Of red-fanged packs that hunt in paths of Day.
It is to-night! To-morrow’s wolves are far!
Beloved, kind is Sleep — but still more kind
The cradling arms of Death. Here on the verge
Of great forgetfulness, canst thou not hear
Departing clangour of the ’leaguering hosts
Swoon on the void, and — like a wailing wind
From some far shore — the beat of Sorrow’s wings
Die down to peace! Beloved, sleep, nor dream!
It is to-night! To-morrow’s wolves are far!
Source:
Marie E. J. Pitt, The Horses of the Hills and Other Verses, Melbourne: Specialty Press, 1911, pages 44
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