Proem



IN the black night, along the mud-deep roads,
Amid the threatening boughs and ghastly streams,
Hark! sounds that gird the darknesses like goads,
Murmurs and rumours and reverberant dreams,
Trampling, breaths, movements, and a little light. —
The marching of the Army of the Night!
The stricken men, the mad brute-beasts are keeping
No more their places in the ditches or holes,
But rise, and join us, and the women, weeping
Beside the roadways, rise like demon-souls.
Fill up the ranks! What shimmers there so bright?
The bayonets of the Army of the Night!
Fill up the ranks! We march in steadfast column,
In wavering lines yet forming more and more;
Men, women, children, sombre, silent, solemn,
Rank follows rank like billows to the shore.
Dawnwards we tramp, towards the hills and light.
On, on and up, the Army of the Night!

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

43 sec read
63

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABCCDEDECCFGFGCC
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 821
Words 144
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 18

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

Francis William Lauderdale Adams was an essayist poet dramatist novelist and journalist who produced a large volume of work in his short life more…

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    "Proem" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 31 Oct. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/14044/proem>.

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