'Twas so like night, the sun was dim,
Some black men settled down to rest,
But none made murmur or request.
The dead were dead, and that were best;
The living leaning follow'd him,
In huddled heaps, half nude, and grim.
The day through high mid-heaven rode
Across the sky, the dim red day;
Awest the warlike day-god strode
With shoulder'd shield away, away.
The savage, warlike day bent low,
As reapers bend in gathering grain,
As archer bending bends yew bow,
And flush'd and fretted as in pain.
Then down his shoulder slid his shield,
So huge, so awful, so blood-red
And batter'd as from battle-field:
It settled, sunk to his left hand,
Sunk down and down, it touch'd the sand,
Then day along the land lay dead,
Without one candle at his head.