C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
A Wondrous Likeness
By William Watson (1858–1935)
From ‘The Purple East’
S
Woven each hour! Still in august renown,
A great realm watching, under God’s great frown!
Ever the same! The little children cleft
In twain; the little tender maidens reft
Of maidenhood! And through a little town
A stranger journeying, wrote this record down,
“In all the place there was not one man left.”
O friend, the sudden lightning of whose pen
Makes Horror’s countenance visible afar,
And Desolation’s face familiar,
I think this very England of my ken
Is wondrous like that little town, where are
In all the streets and houses no more men.