Уильям Эверсон. Пыль и Слава

Dust and Glory 

Till the sky changed,  the long wounds healed, 
till the rain fell


On a low Lorainian knoll a leaning peasant 
sinking a pit meets rotted rock 
and a slab.
The slab cracks and is split, 
the old grave opened, his spade
strikes iron and keenly rings.
Out of the earth he picks an ancient 
sword, hiltless which rust 
and the blade a long double 
curve,  steel of no Roman
nor Teuton king,  but metal 
struck in the sleeping East
and lost in the raids,  
he turns it awhile in the thick 
hands, his thumb searching 
the eaten edge,  and throws
it aside. 
The brown strip winks in the 
light and it sunk.
Winks once in a thousand years, 
in the sun and the singing.
air, and is lost again in the 
ground.

Atilla,  you rode your hordes 
from the Asian slopes and 
sewpt to the West,
In the screaming dawns you
struck the rich earth and left
it smoking, 
Struck and butchered and 
lived like the crimson arc 
of a cutting knife roaring down
Rome and the north-born Goths,
through the reeling years 
you run like a wolf.