Fancy Dress

Siegfried Sassoon

Some Brave, awake in you to-night,
Knocked at your heart: an eagle’s flight
Stirred in the feather on your head.
Your wide-set Indian eyes, alight
Above high cheek-bones smeared with red,
Unveiled cragg’d centuries, and led
You, the snared wraith of bygone things—
Wild ancestries of trackless Kings—
Out of the past … So men have felt
Strange anger move them as they knelt
Praying to gods serenely starred
In heavens where tomahawks are barred.

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