A BLANKET low and leaden,
Though rent across the west,
Whose darkness seems to deaden
The brightest and the best;
A sunset white and staring
On cloud-wrecks far away?
And haggard house-walls glaring
A farewell to the day.

A light on tower and steeple,
Where sun no longer shines?
My people, Oh my people!
Rise up and read the signs!
Low looms the nearer high-line
(No sign of star or moon),
The horseman on the skyline
Rode hard this afternoon!

(Is he?and who shall know it??
The spectre of a scout?
The spirit of a poet,
Whose truths were met with doubt?
Who sought and who succeeded
In marking danger?s track?
Whose warnings were unheeded
Till all the sky was black?)

It is a shameful story
For our young, generous home?
Without the rise and glory
We?d go as Greece and Rome.
Without the sacrifices
That make a nation?s name,
The elder nation?s vices
And luxuries we claim.

Grown vain without a conquest,
And sure without a fort,
And maddened in the one quest
For pleasure or for sport.
Self-blinded to our starkness
We?d fling the time away
To fight, half-armed, in darkness
Who should be armed to-day.

This song is for the city,
The city in its pride?
The coming time shall pity
And shield the countryside.
Shall we live in the present
Till fearful war-clouds loom,
And till the sullen peasant
Shall leave us to our doom?

Cloud-fortresses titanic
Along the western sky?
The tired, bowed mechanic
And pallid clerk flit by.
Lit by a light unhealthy?
The ghastly after-glare?
The veiled and goggled wealthy
Drive fast?they know not where.

Night?s sullen spirit rouses,
The darkening gables lour
From ugly four-roomed houses
Verandah?d windows glower;
The last long day-stare dies on
The scrub-ridged western side,
And round the near horizon
The spectral horsemen ride.