It was near evening, the room was cold <br />Half dark; Uncle Ben's brass bullet-mould <br />And powder-horn and Major Bogan's face <br />Above the fire in the half-light plainly said: <br />There's naught to kill but the animated dead. <br />Horn nor mould nor major follows the chase. <br />Being cold I urged Lytle to the fire <br />In the blank twilight with not much left untold <br />By two old friends when neither's a great liar. <br />We sat down evenly in the smoky chill. <br />There's precious little to say between day and dark, <br />Perhaps a few words on the implacable will <br />Of time sailing like a magic barque <br />Or something as fine for the amenities, <br />Till dusk seals the window, the fire grows bright, <br />And the wind saws the hill with a swarm of bees. <br />Now meditating a little on the firelight <br />We heard the darkness grapple with the night <br />And give an old man's valedictory wheeze <br />From his westward breast between his polar jaws; <br />Then Lytle asked: Who are the dead? <br />Who are the living and the dead? <br />And nothing more was said. <br />So I, leaving Lytle to that dream, <br />Decided what it is in time that gnaws <br />The ageing fury of a mountain stream <br />When suddenly as an ignorant mind will do <br />I thought I heard the dark pounding its head <br />On a rock, crying: Who are the dead? <br />Then Lytle turned with an oath-By God it's true!<br /><br />Allen Tate<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-oath/
