The End of the Age / Janet Lewis

The End of the Age  (1920)  by Janet Lewis

from Poetry, June 1920

The End of the Age

Flash flood, Chirichua National Monument, Arizona. Courtesy Expedition Portal.

With wash and ripple and with wave,
Slow moving lip the long deserted sand,
The little moon went watching the white tide
Flood in and over, spread above the land,
Flood the low marshes, make a silver cover
Where the green sea-weed in a floating mist
Creeps under branch and over.
The wide water spreads, the night goes up the sky,
The era ends.
 
Tomorrow comes warm blood with a new race,
Warm hearts that ache for lovers and for friends,
And the pitiful grace
Of young defeated heads.
Tomorrow comes the sun, color and flush
And anguish. Now let the water wash
Out of the evening sky the lingering reds,
And spread its coolness higher than the heart
Of every silver bush.
Night circles round the sky. The era ends.

This poem is in the public domain