Louis Untermeyer, ed. (1885–1977). Modern American Poetry. 1919.
Percy MacKaye18751956The Child-Dancers
A
Germans have burned another Belgian town:
Russians quelled in the east: England in qualm:
By pale blue seas!
What laughter of a child world-sprite,
Sweet as the horns of lone October bees,
Shrills the faint shore with mellow, odd delight?
What elves are these
In smocks gray-blue as sea and ledge,
Dancing upon the silvered edge
Of darkness—each ecstatic one
Making a happy orison,
With shining limbs, to the low-sunken sun?—
See: now they cease
Like nesting birds from flight:
Demure and debonair
They troop beside their hostess’ chair
To make their bedtime courtesies:
“Spokoinoi notchi!—Gute Nacht!
Bon soir! Bon soir!—Good night!”
Linked in one holy family of art?—
Dreams: dreams once Christ and Plato dreamed:
How fair their happy shades depart!
Till once again
Before my eyes the red type quivered: Slain:
Ten thousand of the enemy.—
Then laughter! laughter from the ancient sea
Sang in the gloaming: Athens! Galilee!
And elfin voices called from the extinguished light:—
“Spokoinoi notchi!—Gute Nacht!
Bon soir! Bon soir!—Good night!”