Outlaws
Owls —they whinny down the night;
Bats go zigzag by.
Ambushed in shadow beyond sight
The outlaws lie.
Old gods, tamed to silence, there
In the wet woods they lurk,
Greedy of human stuff to snare
In nets of murk.
Look up, else your eye will drown
In a moving sea of black;
Between the tree—tops, upside down,
Goes the sky—track.
Look up, else your feet will stray
Towards that dim ambuscade
Where spider—like they trap their prey
In webs of shade.
For though creeds whirl away in dust,
Faith dies and men forget,
These aged gods of power and lust
Cling to life yet—
Old gods almost dead, malign,
Starving for unpaid dues;
Incense and fire, salt, blood and wine
And a drumming muse,
Banished to woods and a sickly moon,
Shrunk to mere bogey things,
Who spoke with thunder once at noon
To prostrate kings
With thunder grom an open sky
To warrior, virgin, priest
Bowing in fear with a dazzled eye
Toward the dread East—
Proud gods, humbled, sunk so low,
Living with ghosts and ghouls,
And ghosts of ghosts and last year’s snow
And dead toadstools.
