And as it died along the trailing smoke,
Upon the gap of starry silence broke
In jumbled yelps, threaded by wailings through,
The coyotes by the lake-side in the Zoo;
As if first startled in the prairie nest
By the first locomotive rolling west—
That line of moving lights they've ne'er forgot,
Behind the low stack flanging like a pot.
III
So blew the whistles at the armistice...
The coyotes answered as they answered this....
IV
Oh, never think that all of life is vain,—
Though towns be built on dead-men's bones in mud,
And fields, even when they best put forth their grain,
Be curst, as fertile but with dead-men's blood—
Yes, though still issue from the Mountain Door
The unborn generations to be slain,
With unknown flags and engines for new war,
Till self-destroyed, on coast and hill and plain,
Mankind with town and harvest is no more!...
