Riders at the Gate

Three riders pull up at the gate;
The flanks of their horses run red;
Each wears a crown on his head:
They are Death and Destruction and Hate.

They do not stop to dismount;
They are gloved in red to the wrist;
They strike on the gate with their fist;
They call the kings to account;

They summon the lords and the keepers
From factory, field and steeple;
From the palaces filled with people
They waken the terrified sleepers;

And the plow is left in the furrow,
And the kettle boils on the fire,
And the servant deserts his hire,
And the archer lets fall his arrow;

And the child, still heavy with dreaming,
Hugs the toy to his bosom;
And the bride whose mouth is a blossom
Starts up from the bridegroom screaming;

And they break the city asunder,
And they put a curse on the towers
That crumple like atrophied flowers,
And the walls of the world go under;

And they shout, as on Patmos the Prophet
Thundered his feverish vision;
And their voice is the scarlet decision
That spatters the altars of Tophet:

This earth to which you cling
By so unsure and fine
A shadow, or a line
Of shadow like a string ;

This ball on which you build
Of brick and steel and stone
The little Babylon
W hereby your fears were stilled;

This insubstantial mass
Of water, cloud and dream
Is but a blowing gleam
Of night wind over grass:

For you have long betrayed
Its uses to your lust;
And now you cannot trust
Even the gods you made.

We are the ancient Four
And the modern merciless Three ;
Our mark is on every tree,
And our sign is on every door.

You have taken the sword and the spear ;
You have split the world with your schisms;
You are filled with the folly of isms;
You have sent for us: we are here.

You espouse the spear and the drum;
You forget the horror you made,
Though the blood is wet on the blade.
You call us and we are come.

What have you learned since the cave?
And how have you bettered the beast?
You nourish the soil and the priest;
Your bones fatten both in your grave.

The wings on your shoulders and ships
You spatter alike with your blood,
And trample the truth in the mud,
And go down with a lie on your lips.

Your leaders have entrails of brass;
You feed them your daughters and sons:
They glut the black muzzles of guns;
They clutch red fistfuls of grass.

Behold the condors that wheel
High over the horsemen of dread;
We stamp on the face of the dead;
They tear it with talons of steel.

You shout, He lives! He is risen!
Our Christian souls He will save!
Then dig Him a fresh grave,
Then build Him a new prison.

You spurn Man’s love of the good;
You rant about blood and the race;
You spit on your Savior’s face;
You spoil Him and spill His blood.

You mock Man’s love of the true,
Man’s passion for justice and right;
You hurry him off in the night;
You break his body in two.

You are still what that ancient scribe
Who followed the Eagles of Rome
Distrusted as treacherous scum,
Loathed as a barbarous tribe.

You have not altered one whit:
You are still the fiends of the fen,
Not to be numbered with men,
But devils—and proud of it.

If there were only two,
If there were even one
Straight-standing in the sun,
If there were one of you—

In all the world is none.
We ride from gate to gate;
We find greed, fear and hate;
Of clean hearts never one.

This liberty you boast,
This dream you have denied,
Forever, as we ride,
We glimpse its baleful ghost.

We see it in the Jew
Shot, hounded, raped, reviled;
The little Chinese child
A bayonet ran through.

We see it in the shame
Of nations without pity,
And in the fallen city,
The pillage and the flame.

We see it in the clod,
That once looked like a man,
Mopped up because he ran,
Mowed down because he stood.

We see the prison camps
Insane messiahs built;
We see the blood they spilt,
The terror as it tramps.

Green shirt, black shirt, brown,
Streaked with the same foul stain,
The bombs that murder Spain,
That cut Abyssinia down.

We see it in the grins
Of madmen in the Alps,
Belted with woolly scalps,
Trophied with ghoulish skins.

We see it in their eyes,
Cruel, crafty and insane,
Gloating on butchered Spain,
Exchanging sugared lies.

(And one will surely start
From sleep, to read his fate,
The Vandal at the Gate,
The Hun’s knife at his heart.)

So the Dark Years return,
The Beast is loose in the land:
What you cannot kill, you command;
What you cannot devour, you burn.

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