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one last long look they saw him send,

At Drake his judge and his one time friend

who dared not meet his eye.

The axe flashed silver in the sun,

a red arch slashed the sand;

A voice cried out as the head fell clear,

and the watchers flinched in sudden fear,

Though 'twas but a sea bird wheeling near

above the lonely strand.

"This be every traitor's end!"

Drake cried, and yet again.

Slowly his captains turned and went

and the admiral's stare was elsewhere bent

Than where the cold scorn with anger blent

in the eyes of Solomon Kane.

Night fell on the crawling waves;

the admiral's door was closed;

Solomon lay in the stenching hold;

his irons clashed as the ship rolled.

And his guard, grown weary and overbold,

lay down his pipe and dozed.

He woke with a hand at his corded throat

that gripped him like a vise;

Trembling he yielded up the key,

and the somber Puritan stood free,

His cold eyes gleaming murderously

with the wrath that is slow to rise.

Unseen, to the admiral's door,

went Solomon Kane from the guard,

Through the night and silence of the ship,

the guard's keen dagger in his grip;

No man of the dull crew saw him slip

through the door unbarred.

Drake at the table sat alone,

his face sunk in his hands;

He looked up, as from sleeping --

but his eyes were blank with weeping

As if he saw not, creeping,

death's swiftly flowing sands.

He reached no hand for gun or blade

to halt the hand of Kane,

Nor even seemed to hear or see,

lost in black mists of memory,

Love turned to hate and treachery,

and bitter, cankering pain.

A moment Solomon Kane stood there,

the dagger poised before,

As a condor stoops above a bird,

and Francis Drake spoke not nor stirred

And Kane went forth without a word

and closed the cabin door.

One Who Comes at Eventide

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I think when I am old a furtive shape

Will sit beside me at my fireless hearth,

Dabbled with blood from stumps of severed wrists,

And flacked with blackened bits of mouldy earth.

My blood ran fire when the deed was done;

Now it runs colder than the moon that shone

On shattered fields where dead men lay in heaps

Who could not hear a ravished daughter's moan.

(Dim through the bloody dawn on bitter winds

The throbbing of the distant guns was brought

When I reeled like a drunkard from the hut

That hid the horror my red hands had wrought.)

So now I fire my veins with stinging wine,

And hoard my youth as misers hug their gold,

Because I know what shape will come and sit

Beside my crumbling hearth - when I am old.

An Open Window

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Behind the Veil what gulfs of Time and Space?

What blinking mowing Shapes to blast the sight?

I shrink before a vague colossal Face

Born in the mad immensities of Night.

Orientia

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Castinet, castanet!

When the floating sun has set,

And the silver splendor falls

Of the moon on harem walls,

Hear the bangles clashing chime—

While feet flit in dreamy rhyme.

Dark eyes flashing in the dusk

Luring scents of spice and musk,

White roofs ’neath a gen-set sky,

Floating songs from the dim serai.

Castinet, castanet!

Through the years I hear you yet.

Through the years of toil and fret.

Castinet, castanet!

Poet

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My soul is a blaze

Of passionate desire;

My soul is a blaze

That sets my pen on fire.

Private Magrath of the A.E.F.

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The night was dark as a Harlem coon

Smoke and clounds once lin' the moon;

Flares goin' up with a venomous sound,

Bustin' and throwin' a green light around.

An', yeah, there was me cursin' my soul

For losin' meself from the raidin' patrol.

Creepin' along in the mud and the slime,

Cussin' and havin' the Devil's own time.

Smeared and spattered with Flanders mire,

Tearin' me clothes on the loose barbwire.

I'm crawlin' along, keepin' close to the ground,

When all of a sudden I hears me a sound.

I halt and I listen, it's too dark for sight

But some bird's ahead of me there in the night.

I reached for my gun—then I swear through me teeth

For somewhere the thing's fallen out of its sheath.

But before I can move, I hear feet a-slush

And something to meself: "Come right ahead Fritz,

I've lost me gat but I've got me mitts."

I sidestep quick as he makes his spring,

His bay'net flashes, I duck, I swing!

Flush on the jaw my right he stops,

Down in the muck on his face he flops.

I'm cursin' him for a bloody Hun

As I loosen the bay'net off his gun.

I feel for his ribs 'neath his tunic drab

For I've only time for a single stab.

I feel a locket a-danglin there,

I jerk it out, then a rockets flare

Limns it in light like crimson flame

And I see the face of a white haired dame

And German letters beneath it run,

Which I take to mean "To my darlin' son."

I haul that Hun up onto his pegs,

And I says, "Get goin'; and shake your legs.

Your line are that way, now get gone."

And I hends him a boot to help him on.

Saying, "Make tracks on your homeward path,

With the compliments of Monk Magrath."

Prude

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I dare not join my sisters in the street;

    I think of people's talk, the cynic stare.

Fierce envy makes me scornful of their play,