What wall upon what hinges turned stands open like a door?
Too simple for the sight of faith, too huge for human eyes,
What light upon what ancient way shines to a far off floor,
The line of the lost land of France or the plains of Paradise?

"Caesar smiled above the gods, his lip of stone was curled,
His iron armies wound like chains round and round the world.
And the strong slayer of his own that cut down flesh for grass,
Smiled, too, and went to his own tower like a walking tower of brass,
And the songs ceased and the slaves were dumb: and far towards the foam
Men saw a shadow on the sands; and her father coming home....

"Blood of his blood upon the sword stood red but never dry,
He wiped it slowly, till the blade was blue as the blue sky:
But the blue sky split with a thunder-crack, spat down a blinding brand,
And all of him lay back and flat as his shadow on the sand."

The touch and the tornado; all our guns give tongue together,
St. Barbara for the gunnery and God defend the right--
They are stopped and gapped and battered as we blast away the weather,
Building window upon window to our lady of the light;
For the light is come on Liberty, her foes are falling, falling,
They are reeling, they are running, as the shameful years have run,
She is risen for all the humble, she has heard the conquered calling,
St. Barbara of the Gunners, with her hand upon the gun.

They are burst asunder in the midst that eat of their own flatteries,
Whose lip is curled to order as its barbered hair is curled ...
--Blast of the beauty of sudden death, St. Barbara of the batteries!
That blew the new white window in the wall of all the world.