'Tower of Night

Moonwan and whitely intumescent
in anxious silence of a summer night
the tower
peers out and waits for sanguine tidings
of flame and ruin and fright.

A monody of silence strangles
the bells and hymns within this voiceless shrine,
and the Lord's
tower arises, stares, and trembles
beneath an awesome sign.

Mysterious swimmers of the heavens,
the misty moon clouds move and drift on high,
the tower
salutes the moon orb, this all-knowing
omnibus of the sky.

The moon has seen unnumbered towers
it never hurries and is never late,
it glances
in calm upon this little planet
and its unfolding fate.

This sentinel of our salvation
may gleam with blood beneath tomorrow's moon
as once more
we hear proclaimed the ancient motto,
to victory or ruin.

The tower may confess tomorrow
a dedication to the claw and fang,
and the bells
these iron cubs in spellbound languor,
will ominously clang.

The lonely moon will rumble onward,
so will this vacant and unpeopled earth,
and above
a moonwhite ruin of fallen towers
the peace will come to birth.'

--Endre Ady