’Stand thou still, thou sun upon Gibeon,
Stand thou, moon, in the valley of Ajalon! 
Shout thou, people, a cry like thunder,
For the kings of the earth are broken asunder. 
Now we have said as the thunder says it,
Something is stronger than strength and slays it. 
Now we have written for all time later,
Five kings are great, yet a law is greater. 
Stare, O sun! in thine own great glory,
This is the turn of the whole world’s story. 
Stand thou still, thou sun upon Gibeon,
Stand thou, moon, in the valley of Ajalon!

’Smite! amid spear-blades blazing and breaking. 
More than we know of is rising and making. 
Stab with the javelin, crash with the car! 
Cry! for we know not the thing that we are. 
Stand, O sun! that in horrible patience
Smiled on the smoke and the slaughter of nations. 
Thou shalt grow sad for a little crying,
Thou shalt be darkened for one man’s dying—­
Stand thou still, thou sun upon Gibeon,
Stand thou, moon, in the valley of Ajalon!’

After the battle was broken and spent
Up to the hill the Deliverer went,
Flung up his arms to the storm-clouds flying,
And cried unto Israel, mightily crying,
’Come up, O warriors! come up, O brothers! 
Tribesmen and herdsmen, maidens and mothers;
The bondman’s son and the bondman’s daughter,
The hewer of wood and the drawer of water,
He that carries and he that brings,
And set your foot on the neck of kings.’

This is the story of Gibeon fight—­
Where we smote the lords of the Amorite;
Where the banners of princes with slaughter were sodden. 
And the beards of seers in the rank grass trodden;
Where the trees were wrecked by the wreck of cars,
And the reek of the red field blotted the stars;
Where the dead heads dropped from the swords that sever,
Because His mercy endureth for ever.

‘Vulgarised’

All round they murmur, ’O profane,
  Keep thy heart’s secret hid as gold’;
But I, by God, would sooner be
  Some knight in shattering wars of old,

In brown outlandish arms to ride,
  And shout my love to every star
With lungs to make a poor maid’s name
  Deafen the iron ears of war.

Here, where these subtle cowards crowd,
  To stand and so to speak of love,
That the four corners of the world
  Should hear it and take heed thereof.

That to this shrine obscure there be
  One witness before all men given,
As naked as the hanging Christ,
  As shameless as the sun in heaven.

These whimperers—­have they spared to us
  One dripping woe, one reeking sin? 
These thieves that shatter their own graves
  To prove the soul is dead within.

They talk; by God, is it not time
  Some of Love’s chosen broke the girth,
And told the good all men have known
  Since the first morning of the earth?