An Age of Iron

An age of iron is done; the fighter's steel,
Once steeped in the scalding gore of bloody fray,
Now rusts upon the departed battlefield,
And the ravens' night falls on the slaughter-day.
And the buzzing flies and the heaving groans of men
Who bleed and curse their last shall be the heralds
Of a wicked era's long-awaited end,
And dawn, in gloomy frost and grey apparel,
Shall come to drape its shroud of mourning-mist
Upon the warrior's code of victory:
Upon his dreams of valor, monarch's crowns,
The cries of conquered maids in conquered towns,
And shall we weep in tears of ecstasy,
As Earth seals up their bones in morbid bliss.