Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.
Whence Comes the StrangerJoseph Campbell
W
That with hoarse, lifted throat
Threatens the fields?
And the darkness of mystery
Cover him as in a tent
Of two hides.
I looked through the windows of my body,
And, lo!
The sheaves scattered.
And the rooted trees uptorn.
What he has threshed
Only the birds of the air will gather.
Bedstraw and branch
Will lie, and rot,
And dig unseen graves.
(The Gift of Heaven wrote it in Patmos).
I hear the sound thereof,
But cannot tell whence it comes,
Or whither it will go.
On a pale horse
Through quiet places.
His banners are smoking torches;
His trumpets blow horribly.
But not with the crooks of sickles.
The swaths fall slowly,
And the wings of vultures shadow them.
Kin a dove, for sorrow;
Peace the silence of a song.
And the suckling’s cry
Is not heard:
He casts his lightning,
And flame breaks from the roofbeam:
He shakes the earth,
And the stones of the altar
Are dust.
I looked through the windows of my spirit,
And, lo!
A sower had passed,
Sowing.
Are not your thoughts,
Neither are your ways
My ways,
Saith the Lord.