BY SCARLET TORCH AND BLADE
A four-league stretch is burning now—the cavalcade of death
Moves on with scarlet torch and blade and with a scarlet breath,
And over all the smoking ridge, the clouds that hang like lead—
Oh, is it any wonder that the moon's a red-hot red!
Moves on with scarlet torch and blade and with a scarlet breath,
And over all the smoking ridge, the clouds that hang like lead—
Oh, is it any wonder that the moon's a red-hot red!
And when the golden ladders of tomorrow's sickly sun
Slant through the mournful tree-tops and the holocaust is done,
There won't be much to interest the breathing things around
In the charred and ashen litter of the scarred and ghastly ground.
There's quite a large community that undertook to change
Its residential section to a more inviting range.
There is a fox—a red, red fox, who took his bouncing luck
And dusted down the pathway of a panic-stricken buck;
There's a corps of gray-backed diggers and a bunch of cottontails
Who didn't tarry very long to figure out their trails;
Slant through the mournful tree-tops and the holocaust is done,
There won't be much to interest the breathing things around
In the charred and ashen litter of the scarred and ghastly ground.
There's quite a large community that undertook to change
Its residential section to a more inviting range.
There is a fox—a red, red fox, who took his bouncing luck
And dusted down the pathway of a panic-stricken buck;
There's a corps of gray-backed diggers and a bunch of cottontails
Who didn't tarry very long to figure out their trails;
[7]
