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The Watcher
RIDGELY TORRENCE
THE WATCHER
.The gemlike eyes for sight,
The vision that lights the being,
The glories of day and night
That wait the glory of seeing,
All these will not avail
Against that blinding power
Before whose glare grow pale
All hues of flesh and flower.
Against the doom to which
The nations rush, divided,
And leave the furrows rich,
Fear-fevered, folly-guided,
To that which waits to grind
The reaping with the reaper,
Which looks upon the blind
And strikes their darkness deeper,
Which ever, from our birth,
Leads down the deathward dances,
For hourly on the earth
War casts its bayonet glances.