s: And twice he thought, "Gave I not charge


s: She should be safe, though not at large?


s: Their host the Palmer's speech had heard,


s: "A clerk could tell what years have flown


s: His shoes were marked with cross and spell,


s: 'I know,' he said--his voice was hoarse,


s: And thus, well pleased, his speech renewed:


s: 'There spoke the blood of Malcolm!--mark:


s: Couch then thy lance, and spur thy steed -


s: Sir Knight, you well might mark the mound


s: The trench, long since, in blood did trace:


s: For there the earliest wildflowers grow;


s: Denmark's grim ravens cowered their wings.


s: And many a knight hath proved his chance,


s: The quaighs were deep, the liquors strong,


s: And, with their lord, the squires retire;


s: Oppressed with toil and ale, they snore:


s: Yon churl's wild legend haunts my breast,


s: And graver thoughts have chafed my mood;


s: Thou dost not rouse these drowsy slaves;


s: While, whispering, thus the baron said:  -


s: Saint George, who graced my sire's chapelle,


s: Vain thought! for elves, if elves there be,


s: Or round the green oak wheel their ring."


s: Though thou o'er realms and seas hast ranged,


s: Marked cities lost, and empires changed,


s: Though varying wishes, hopes, and fears,


s: Yet now, days, weeks, and months but seem


s: Their vexed boughs streaming to the sky,


s: And Blackhouse heights, and Ettrick Pen,


s: Mixed with the rack, the snow mists fly;


s: Viewed the light clouds with vacant look,


s: The sounds that drive wild deer, and fox,


s: Where, fiercest though the tempest blow,


s: Oft he looks back, while, streaming far,


s: Drives through the gloom his lagging sheep.


s: Whose joys are chastened by their grief.


s: When thou, of late, wert doomed to twine -


s: "The widow's shield, the orphan's stay."


s: To thee, perchance, this rambling strain


s: Even when it flagged, as oft will chance,


s: And scarce suppressed their ancient feud.


s: And blithesome nights, too, have been ours,


s: When fires were bright, and lamps beamed gay,


s: Who shunned to quaff the sparkling bowl.


s: Who breathes the gales of Devon's shore,


s: With laughter drowned the whistling wind.


s: Such nights we've had; and, though the game


s: The sprightly thought inspires my strain!


s: Some brawled and wrangled with the host;


s: That some false Scot has stol'n my spear!"


s: Young Blount, Lord Marmion's second squire,


s: Found his steed wet with sweat and mire;


s: Last night he dressed him sleek and fair.


s: While chafed the impatient squire like thunder,


s: "Help, gentle Blount! help, comrades all!


s: Fitz-Eustace, who the cause but guessed,


s: His comrades' clamorous plaints suppressed;


s: And found deep plunged in gloomy thought,


s: "Dost see, thou knave, my horse's plight?


s: Through Humbie's and through Saltoun's wood;


s: Here, too, are twilight nooks and dells;


s: On prancing steeds they forward pressed,


s: From his steed's shoulder, loin, and breast,


s: With Scotland's arms, device, and crest,


s: "Though Scotland's king hath deeply swore


s: With eyes scarce dried, the sorrowing dame,


s: Had marched that morning with their lord,


s: Come sweeping back through Crichtoun Dean.


s: Here while they dwelt, did Lindesay's wit


s: Lord Marmion's powerful mind, and wise -


s: Said, Marmion might his toil have spared,


s: Still in his conscience burns the sting.


s: "When last this ruthful .month was come,


s: So thrilled through vein, and nerve, and bone:-


s: But, lighter than the whirlwind's blast,


s: And, three days since, had judged your aim


s: But I have seen, since passed the Tweed,


s: The thoughts which broke his sleep, he seems


s: What could he 'gainst the shock of hell?


s: High o'er my head, with threatening hand,


s: With Highland broadsword, targe, and plaid,


s: Hill, brook, nor dell, nor rock, nor stone,


s: Where chiefs reviewed their vassal rank,


s: While frequent flashed, from shield and lance,


s: Where the night-watch their fires had made.


s: And there were Borthwick's Sisters Seven,


s: Broad, narrow, swallow-tailed, and square,


s: The staff, a pine-tree strong and straight,


s: Where, in proud Scotland's royal shield,


s: Lord Marmion viewed the landscape bright -


s: For, by Saint George, were that host mine,


s: When peace and wealth their land has blessed,


s: For on the smoke-wreaths, huge and slow,


s: Like that which streaks a thunder-cloud.


s: Cried, "Where's the coward that would not dare


s: Thus while they looked, a flourish proud,


s: The whilst the bells, with distant chime,


s: "Nor less," he said, "when looking forth,


s: 'Gainst Southern sack and fires to guard


s: He breaks the champion's spear and shield -


s: That England's dames must weep in bower,


s: When short and scant the sunbeam throws,


s: When wrinkled news-page, thrice conned o'er,


s: Stern then, and steel-girt was thy brow,


s: Thou sitt'st, like empress at her sport,


s: That hung o'er cliff, and lake, and tower,


s: Which forced each knight to kiss the ground -


s: Not she more changed, when, placed at rest,


s: She charmed at once, and tamed the heart,


s: Still canst thou send thy children forth.


s: Since first, when conquering York arose,


s: Truce to these thoughts!--for, as they rise,


s: Knights, squires, and lovely dames, to see


s: Famed Beauclerc called, for that he loved


s: And break his glass, and shear his wing,


s: Come, listen, then! for thou hast known,


s: Through links of mail, and plates of steel,


s: Like iron towers for strength and weight,


s: Young knights and squires, a lighter train,


s: But burnished were their corslets bright,


s: Than theirs, who, scorning danger's name,


s: Nor harp, nor pipe, his ear could please


s: The light-armed pricker plied his trade -


s: Burghers to guard their townships bleed,


s: These, as Lord Marmion's train passed by,


s: Nor marvelled aught, well taught to know


s: Canst guess which road they'll homeward ride?


s: Might chance to lose his glistering hide;


s: Just then the chiefs their tribes arrayed,


s: Their frame was sinewy, short, and spare,


s: Back from their shoulders hung the plaid;


s: And quivers, bows, and shafts,--but, oh!


s: Loud were their clamouring tongues, as when


s: Thus through the Scottish camp they passed,


s: Armed burghers kept their watch and ward.


s: As through the bustling streets they go,


s: Page, groom, and squire, with hurrying pace,


s: Through street and lane and market-place


s: Which high o'erlooked the crowded street;


s: That night with wassail, mirth, and glee:


s: Through this mixed crowd of glee and game,


s: Wrought with the badge of Scotland's crown,


s: But, 'mid his mirth, 'twas often strange


s: Scours doubly swift o'er hill and plain.


s: And charged him, as her knight and love,


s: And strike three strokes with Scottish brand,


s: Were worth one pearl-drop, bright and sheen,


s: His own Queen Margaret, who, in Lithgow's bower,


s: All lonely sat, and wept the weary hour.


s: And first she pitched her voice to sing,


s: And laughed, and blushed, and oft did say


s: She could not, would not, durst not play!


s: Oh! young Lochinvar is come out of the west,


s: Through all the wide Border his steed was the best;


s: And save his good broadsword, he weapons had none,


s: He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone;


s: So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war,


s: There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.


s: He stayed not for brake, and he stopped not for stone;


s: He swam the Esk river, where ford there was none;


s: The bride had consented, the gallant came late;


s: Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar.


s: Among bride's-men, and kinsmen, and brothers, and all;


s: Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword -


s: For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word -


s: "Oh! come ye in peace here, or come ye in war,


s: Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?"


s: "I long wooed your daughter, my suit you denied;


s: Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide;


s: And now am I come, with this lost love of mine,


s: To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine.


s: There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far,


s: That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar."


s: The bride kissed the goblet:  the knight took it up,


s: He quaffed off the wine, and he threw down the cup.


s: She looked down to blush, and she looked up to sigh,


s: With a smile on her lips and a tear in her eye.


s: He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar -


s: "Now tread we a measure!" said young Lochinvar.


s: So stately his form, and so lovely her face,


s: That never a hall such a galliard did grace;


s: While her mother did fret, and her father did fume,


s: And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume:


s: And the bride's-maidens whispered, "'Twere better by far


s: To have matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar."


s: One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear,


s: When they reached the hall-door, and the charger stood near;


s: So light to the croup the fair lady he swung,


s: So light to the saddle before her he sprung.


s: "She is won! we are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur;


s: They'll have fleet steeds that follow," quoth young Lochinvar.


s: There was mounting 'mong Graemes of the Netherby clan;


s: Forsters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they ran:


s: There was racing and chasing on Cannobie Lee,


s: But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see.


s: So daring in love, and so dauntless in war,


s: Have ye e'er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar?


s: With something like displeased surprise:


s: Straight took he forth the parchment broad


s: Stout Barton killed, his vassals ta'en -


s: And, when his blood and heart were high,


s: Though fall'n its muscles' brawny vaunt,


s: Huge-boned, and tall, and grim, and gaunt,


s: And with the slaughtered favourite's name


s: His proud heart swelled well-nigh to break:


s: That sight his kind heart could not brook:


s: The old man's tears fell down like rain.


s: Displeased was James, that stranger viewed


s: "Laugh those that can, weep those that may,"


s: Ere Scotland's king shall cross the Trent:


s: Yet pause, brave prince, while yet you may."


s: Rung out "Blue Bonnets o'er the Border."


s: Nor knew which saint she should implore;


s: To Marmion's, as their guardian, joined;


s: Through the faint wreaths of silvery smoke,


s: Perchance in prayer or faith he swerved;


s: Else how could guiltless champion quail,


s: That Clare shall from our house be torn;


s: And with his squire forged letters laid,


s: (For such vile thing she was) should scheme


s: What ail'st thou?  Speak!"  For as he took


s: It flits, expands, and shifts, till loud,


s: That e'er hath soiled your hearts within;


s: Shift we the scene.  The camp doth move;


s: Some half-hour's march behind, there came,


s: Which made him burst through honour's laws


s: The courteous speech that passed between.


s: O'erjoyed, the nuns their palfreys leave;


s: She deemed she heard her death-doom read.


s: "Cheer thee, my child," the Abbess said;


s: He spoke, and blushed with earnest grace;


s: Grieve not, nor dream that harm can fall


s: "Submit we, then, to force," said Clare,


s: Thirsting to pour forth blood for blood,


s: And scarce rude Blount the sight could bide.


s: But scant three miles the band had rode,


s: Broad, massive, high, and stretching far,


s: Through studded gates, an entrance long,


s: Here was square keep, there turret high,


s: And, first, they heard King James had won


s: They gorged upon the half-dressed steer;


s: While round, in brutal jest, were thrown


s: While scalds yelled out the joys of fight.


s: They make such barbarous mirth the while,


s: Loved, when the year its course had rolled,


s: And brought blithe Christmas back again,


s: That night might village partner choose;


s: The fire, with well-dried logs supplied,


s: Scrubbed till it shone, the day to grace,


s: Then the grim boar's head frowned on high,


s: Garnished with ribbons, blithely trowls.


s: 'Twas Christmas broached the mightiest ale;


s: The poor man's heart through half the year.


s: Even when, perchance, its far-fetched claim


s: Where cordial friendship gives the hand,


s: My thoughts should, Heber, turn to thee!


s: And heard the chimes of midnight's tone.


s: These ancients, as Noll Bluff might say,


s: Amassed through rapine and through wrong,


s: Whose withering glance no heart can brook,


s: Since 'twixt them first the strife begun,


s: When Franchemont locked the treasure cell.


s: That warned, in Lithgow, Scotland's king,


s: Hoards, not like theirs whose volumes rest


s: Like treasures in the Franchemont chest,


s: Whilst these things were, the mournful Clare


s: The formal state, the lengthened prayer,


s: Half breeze, half spray, came whistling by.


s: Gateworks and walls were strongly manned;


s: And thus these lines, and ramparts rude,


s: Or slow, like noontide ghost, would glide


s: And, sighing, thought--"The Abbess, there,


s: With him, that taught them first to glow?


s: From Red De Clare, stout Gloucester's Earl:


s: He ne'er shall bend, although he break."


s: "But see;--what makes this armour here?"


s: Targe, corslet, helm;--she viewed them near.


s: "The breast-plate pierced!--Ay, much I fear,


s: Weak fence wert thou 'gainst foeman's spear,


s: Gave their strange wildness to his eyes.


s: Alternate conquering, shifting, blending.


s: My friend at length fell sick, and said,


s: And women, priests, and grey-haired men;


s: Go, then, to fight!  Clare bids thee go!


s: Through loophole, and through embrazure,


s: Much was there need; though, seamed with scars,


s: Chequering the silvery moonshine bright,


s: A friend, which, though in danger tried,


s: "Let the hawk stoop, his prey is flown."


s: "Though something I might plain," he said,


s: "My manors, halls, and bowers, shall still


s: Burned Marmion's swarthy cheek like fire,


s: Fierce he broke forth--"And dar'st thou then


s: "Horse! horse!" the Douglas cried, "and chase!"


s: When the King praised his clerkly skill.


s: They crossed the heights of Stanrig Moor.


s: His troop more closely there he scanned,


s: But all night long, with clink and bang,


s: Old Cheviot forth, the earl's best steed;


s: A matchless horse, though something old,


s: Thou sworn horse-courser, hold thy peace.


s: 'Twas therefore gloomed his rugged brow.


s: 'Gainst Marmion, charge disproved and vain?


s: Yet Clare's sharp questions must I shun;


s: Stung with these thoughts, he urged to speed


s: His troop, and reached, at eve, the Tweed,


s: Where Lennel's convent closed their march;


s: Their front now deepening, now extending


s: Their flank inclining, wheeling, bending,


s: And heedful watched them as they crossed


s: Troop after troop their banners rearing;


s: Between him and Tweed's southern strand,


s: What 'vails the vain knight-errant's brand?


s: Or well-skilled Bruce, to rule the fight,


s: And England's host has gained the plain;


s: Wheeling their march, and circling still,


s: "Stint in thy prate," quoth Blount, "thou'dst best,


s: Stoutly they braved the current's course,


s: And though far downward driven per force,


s: And breathed his steed, his men arrayed,


s: Their marshalled lines stretched east and west,


s: That breathes the voice of modern battle,


s: The hillock gained, Lord Marmion stayed:


s: Short greeting serves in time of strife:


s: With thee their charge will blithely share:


s: Could plain their distant comrades view:


s: Announced their march; their tread alone


s: Scarce could they hear or see their foes,


s: They close, in clouds of smoke and dust,


s: With sword-sway, and with lance's thrust;


s: Long looked the anxious squires; their eye


s: Then marked they, dashing broad and far,


s: Spears shook, and falchions flashed amain;


s: Crests rose, and stooped, and rose again,


s: And with both hands the broadsword plied,


s: With fickle smile, cheered Scotland's fight.


s: With wavering flight, while fiercer grew


s: Advanced--forced back--now low, now high,


s: When rent are rigging, shrouds, and sail,


s: "By heaven and all its saints!  I swear,


s: Like pine-trees, rooted from the ground,


s: Bloodshot his eyes, his nostrils spread,


s: With that, straight up the hill there rode


s: His hand still strained the broken brand;


s: His arms were smeared with blood and sand.


s: He opes his eyes," said Eustace; "peace!"


s: When, doffed his casque, he felt free air,


s: "Where's Harry Blount?  Fitz-Eustace where?


s: His life-blood stains the spotless shield


s: Page, squire, or groom, one cup to bring


s: "Drink . weary . pilgrim . drink . and . pray .


s: For . the . kind . soul . of . Sybil . Gray .


s: Who . built . this . cross . and . well . "


s: Short space, few words, are mine to spare;


s: And strove to staunch the gushing wound:


s: Charge, Chester, charge!  On, Stanley, on!"


s: Such blast might warn them, not in vain,


s: And round it toils, and bleeds, and dies,


s: Near Sybil's Cross the plunderers stray.


s: There all the night they spent in prayer,


s: More desperate grew the strife of death.


s: In headlong charge their horse assailed;


s: Front, flank, and rear, the squadrons sweep


s: But yet, though thick the shafts as snow,


s: Though charging knights like whirlwinds go,


s: Groom fought like noble, squire like knight,


s: Led back from strife his shattered bands;


s: Their king, their lords, their mightiest low,


s: When streams are swoll'n and south winds blow,


s: Tweed's echoes heard the ceaseless plash,


s: Where shivered was fair Scotland's spear,


s: Chiefs, knights, and nobles, many a one:


s: But, oh! how changed since yon blithe night!


s: But, thanks to Heaven, and good Saint Chad,


s: And priest for Marmion breathed the prayer,


s: One of those flowers, whom plaintive lay


s: The spoilers stripped and gashed the slain,


s: Thou left'st the right path for the wrong;


s: With sword in hand, for England's right."


s: That, all through Flodden's dismal night,


s: That when brave Surrey's steed was slain,


s: 'Twas Wilton's brand that deepest hewed,


s: That, after fight, his faith made plain,


s: More, Sands, and Denny, passed the joke:


s: And Katherine's hand the stocking threw;


s: Sound head, clean hand, and piercing wit,


s: And pleasing dreams, and slumbers light!


s: In the present edition of the "Nursery Songs," which has been


s: carefully revised, the original name given by its parent and best


s: American edition, omitted in the English, are restored.


s: I will hope that the little folks will welcome the little book in


s: STOP! STOP! PRETTY WATER, . . . . . Buy a Broom,


s: BUTTERFLIES ARE PRETTY, . . . . . . The White Cockade,


s: IT IS A PLEASANT DAY, . . . . . . . The Schoolmaster,


s: O, LOOK AT THE MOON,  . . . . . . . Buy a Broom,


s: And through the bright clouds we would roam;


s: "Never mind, though you cut such a figure;


s: The little dog said, (and he looked very wise,)


s: With your back and your great green eyes.


s: Till it gives one the fidgets to hear you.


s: Where none but the pigs, ma'am, are near you."


s: The duck was good-natured, and she ran away;


s: Let the stars now have their turn at play;


s: Since you've put the thought into my head,


s: Then good night, and a kiss, and to bed.


s: How brightly then my house would shine!"


s: He'll be a month older when comes next moon.


s: There! this, boys and girls, is the way.


s: "The trees, that looked so stiff and gray,


s: "Go forth, my child, and laugh and play,


s: Good night, my friends both far and near,


s: Three little kittens lost their mittens;


s: The three little kittens found their mittens,


s: The three little kittens put on their mittens,


s: The three little kittens washed their mittens,


s: When her voice shall awake from the tomb


s: But with visions and dreams of the night,


s: But with hope, and the patience of passion,


s: That I knew her, the world's banner-bearer,


s: Shall cast down, shall build up, shall bring home;


s: From eyes and tresses flowers and tears,


s: Youth's dreams hung singing, and Time's truth


s: Was half not harsh in the ears of Youth.


s: Youth talked with joy and grief an hour,


s: Felt the winds round him shake and shower


s: Of strength, and his cloak woven of thought.


s: Air, light, and night, hills, winds, and streams,


s: And seeks not strength from strengthless dreams.


s: And doubt they had better not been born,


s: And charm their doomsman from their doom


s: Whence hopes and fears with helpless eyes,


s: Wrapt loose in cast-off cerecloths, rise


s: And dance and wring their hands and laugh,


s: And weep thin tears and sigh light sighs,


s: And drain his soul of faith and strength


s: He hath given himself to time, whose fold


s: Earth, heaven, and time, death, life, and he,


s: They say, "what better wouldst thou try,


s: The limbs and locks that vine-wreaths bound.


s: But the fierce flute whose notes acclaim


s: That turned the high chill air to flame;


s: But weak is change, but strengthless time,


s: Songs they can stop that earth found meet,


s: Flowers they can slay that spring thought sweet,


s: But the stars keep their spring sublime;


s: Through the rent air that foam-flakes fill


s: Past youth where shoreward shallows are,


s: Through age that drives on toward the red


s: By their own light, and watch things roll,


s: Known of souls only, and those souls free,


s: The trumpets of the four winds of the world


s: From the ends of the earth blow battle; the night heaves,


s: With breasts palpitating and wings refurled,


s: With passion of couched limbs, as one who grieves


s: Sleeping, and in her sleep she sees uncurled


s: Dreams serpent-shapen, such as sickness weaves,


s: Down the wild wind of vision caught and whirled,


s: Dead leaves of sleep, thicker than autumn leaves,


s: The reaping men that reap men for their sheaves,


s: Thronged thick with men pursuing and fugitives,


s: Leaves blood-coloured and golden, blown from deep to deep.


s: I hear the midnight on the mountains cry


s: With many tongues of thunders, and I hear


s: Sound and resound the hollow shield of sky


s: With trumpet-throated winds that charge and cheer,


s: And through the roar of the hours that fighting fly,


s: Through flight and fight and all the fluctuant fear,


s: A sound sublimer than the heavens are high,


s: A voice more instant than the winds are clear,


s: A rallying music in the void night's ear,


s: Till, as through sleep false life knows true life near,


s: Thou know the morning through the night,


s: And through the thunder silence, and through darkness light."


s: The height of night is shaken, the skies break,


s: The winds and stars and waters come and go


s: By fits of breath and light and sound, that wake


s: Built up of sleep, when all her strengths forsake


s: The sense-compelling spirit; the depths glow,


s: The heights flash, and the roots and summits shake


s: And wellsprings of her fast-bound forces quake;


s: Till change unmake things made and love remake;


s: Seeing reason is the sunlight shed from love the sun.


s: The night is broken eastward; is it day,


s: Or but the watchfires trembling here and there,


s: In moonless wastes of planet-stricken air?


s: O multitudinous bosom, and breasts that bare


s: The weanling peoples and the tribes that were,


s: Dim face with deathless eyes and withered hair,


s: Wove the world's web with divers races fair


s: The waters of the centuries, where thou sat'st to dream;


s: Asia, that sawest their westering waters sweep


s: With all the ships and spoils of time to carry


s: And all the fears and hopes of life to keep,


s: And thy veiled head, night's oldest tributary,


s: We know not if it speak or smile or weep.


s: And first-born fire of deeds to burn and leap,


s: And the first freedom moved upon the deep,


s: Moving, a present spirit, seen of men sublime;


s: There where our east looks always to thy west,


s: Our mornings to thine evenings, Greece to thee,


s: These lights that catch the mountains crest by crest,


s: Are they of stars or beacons that we see?


s: The light is Athens where those remnants rest,


s: The leaves are of that time-unstricken tree


s: Made it her sign to men whose shield was she;


s: Here, as dead time his deathless things,


s: Eurotas and Cephisus keep their sleepless springs.


s: O hills of Crete, are these things dead?  O waves,


s: O many-mouthed streams, are these springs dry?


s: Earth, dost thou feed and hide now none but slaves?


s: Heaven, hast thou heard of men that would not die?


s: Is the land thick with only such men's graves


s: Ye dead, whose name outfaces and outbraves


s: Death, is the seed of such as you gone by?


s: With fire and earthquake and a cleaving cry?


s: Though all the face of the hour be overborne with night.


s: The night is broken northward; the pale plains


s: And footless fields of sun-forgotten snow


s: Feel through their creviced lips and iron veins


s: Such quick breath labour and such clean blood flow


s: As summer-stricken spring feels in her pains


s: When dying May bears June, too young to know


s: The fruit that waxes from the flower that wanes;


s: Lands that are loud all through their length with chains,


s: And anguish of blind snows and rack-blown rains,


s: And ice that seals the White Sea's lips,


s: Whose monstrous weights crush flat the sides of shrieking ships;


s: Horrible sights and sounds of the unreached pole,


s: And shrill fierce climes of inconsolable air,


s: That hangs about the north-wind's hurtling hair,


s: Dawn of the dayless heaven where suns despair;


s: Earth, skies, and waters, smitten into soul,


s: Feel the hard veil that iron centuries wear


s: And clothe with form all substance and strip bare;


s: Take soul of life too keen for death to bear;


s: Life, conscience, forethought, will, desire,


s: Flood men's inanimate eyes and dry-drawn hearts with fire.


s: Light, light, and light! to break and melt in sunder


s: All clouds and chains that in one bondage bind


s: Eyes, hands, and spirits, forged by fear and wonder


s: And sleek fierce fraud with hidden knife behind;


s: There goes no fire from heaven before their thunder,


s: Nor are the links not malleable that wind


s: Round the snared limbs and souls that ache thereunder;


s: The hands are mighty, were the head not blind.


s: And fettered flesh with devastated mind.


s: Thy bonds and thy beliefs are one in kind,


s: Hang weights upon thee fashioned out of thine own thought.


s: To night and day their lightning and their light!


s: With heat of heart thou kindlest the quick sea,


s: And the dead earth takes spirit from thy sight;


s: The natural body of things is warm with thee,


s: And the world's weakness parcel of thy might;


s: Thou seest us feeble and forceless, fit to be


s: Slaves of the years that drive us left and right,


s: But if thy finger touch us, these take flight.


s: What man shall stop us, and what God shall smite?


s: They are stars that light each other till thy sundawn rise.


s: Thou art the eye of this blind body of man,


s: Time is wan And hope is weak with waiting, and swift thought


s: Hath lost the wings at heel wherewith he ran,


s: And on the red pit's edge sits down distraught


s: And dreams and fights long since dreamt out and fought;


s: The firewhite faith of Poland without spot;


s: Of the green Rhineland where thy spirit wrought;


s: Canst thou wax dark as they do, thou whose light is fire?


s: The night is broken westward; the wide sea


s: From world's end unto world's end, and shall be


s: When nought now grafted of men's hands shall grow


s: And as the weed in last year's waves are we


s: From its sharp tresses down the storm to lee,


s: Doth it not hear change coming, or not see?


s: To catch no light or sound from landward of mankind?


s: O thou, clothed round with raiment of white waves,


s: Thy brave brows lightening through the grey wet air,


s: Thou, lulled with sea-sounds of a thousand caves,


s: And lit with sea-shine to thine inland lair,


s: Whose freedom clothed the naked souls of slaves


s: And stripped the muffled souls of tyrants bare,


s: O, by the centuries of thy glorious graves,


s: By the live light of the earth that was thy care,


s: With the same splendour on thine helmless hair


s: Who on thy glory gazed away their sacred sight;


s: Who loved and looked their sense to death on thee;


s: Who taught thy lips imperishable things,


s: And in thine ears outsang thy singing sea;


s: Who made thy foot firm on the necks of kings


s: And thy soul somewhile steadfast--woe are we


s: It was but for a while, and all the strings


s: Set to such tunes and clothed it with such wings


s: And woundless of the worm that waits and stings,


s: The king-snake whose life kindles with the spring's,


s: And while she marks not turn her temple to her tomb.


s: By those eyes blinded and that heavenly head


s: O Milton's land, what ails thee to be dead?


s: Thine ears are yet sonorous with his shell


s: That all the songs of all thy sea-line fed


s: With motive sound of spring-tides at mid swell,


s: And through thine heart his thought as blood is shed,


s: Requickening thee with wisdom to do well;


s: Thy name is not yet writ with theirs that fell,


s: Lit thee with latter watch-fires; why wilt thou be blind?


s: Though all were else indifferent, all that live


s: Spiritless shapes of nations; though time wait


s: In vain on hope till these have help to give,


s: And faith and love crawl famished from the gate;


s: Canst thou sit shamed and self-contemplative


s: With soulless eyes on thy secluded fate?


s: Though time forgive them, thee shall he forgive,


s: Whose choice was in thine hand to be so great?


s: And made thee and thine old name separate?


s: Build up our one Republic state by state,


s: England with France, and France with Spain,


s: And Spain with sovereign Italy strike hands and reign.


s: O known and unknown fountain-heads that fill


s: Our dear life-springs of England!  O bright race


s: Of streams and waters that bear witness still


s: To the earth her sons were made of!  O fair face


s: Of England, watched of eyes death cannot kill,


s: How should the soul that lit you for a space


s: Fall through sick weakness of a broken will


s: Such breath of record from so high a place,


s: Her feet should keep truth's bright and burning trace,


s: Whose hearts are one with man's; she must be dead or thus.


s: Whose heart of all men's hearts is one with man's?


s: Where art thou that wast prophetess and bride,


s: When truth and thou trod under time and chance?


s: What latter light of what new hope shall guide


s: Out of the snares of hell thy feet, O France?


s: What heel shall bruise these heads that hiss and glide,


s: What wind blow out these fen-born fires that dance


s: From thy dead eyes and lips shall take the trance,


s: Who treads through blood and passes, time shall glance


s: And Rome arise up whom thou slewest, and bid thee live.


s: The night is broken southward; the springs run,


s: The daysprings and the watersprings that flow


s: Forth with one will from where their source was one,


s: Out of the might of morning:  high and low,


s: The hungering hills feed full upon the sun,


s: The thirsting valleys drink of him and glow


s: As a heart burns with some divine thing done,


s: Till the whole tree take flower in unison,


s: And prince that clogs and priest that clings


s: Be cast as weeds upon the dunghill of dead things.


s: Ah heaven, bow down, be nearer!  This is she,


s: Italia, the world's wonder, the world's care,


s: Free in her heart ere quite her hands be free,


s: And lovelier than her loveliest robe of air.


s: The earth hath voice, and speech is in the sea,


s: Sounds of great joy, too beautiful to bear;


s: All things are glad because of her, but we


s: Most glad, who loved her when the worst days were.


s: Thou hadst no stripe wherein we had no share.


s: Have we not worn thee at heart whom none would wear?


s: First love and last love, light of lands,


s: Shall we not touch thee full-blown with our lips and hands?


s: O too much loved, what shall we say of thee?


s: What shall we make of our heart's burning fire,


s: The passion in our lives that fain would be


s: That shall burn up thy foemen, and set free


s: The flame whence thy sun-shadowing wings aspire?


s: Love of our life, what more than men are we,


s: That this our breath for thy sake should expire,


s: Great gods drop down from heaven to serve for hire?


s: What shall we do for thee with our desire?


s: How shall we die to do thee service, or how live?


s: The very thought in us how much we love thee


s: Makes the throat sob with love and blinds the eyes.


s: How should love bear thee, to behold above thee


s: His own light burning from reverberate skies?


s: They give thee light, but the light given them of thee


s: Makes faint the wheeling fires that fall and rise.


s: What love, what life, what death of man's should move thee,


s: What face that lingers or what foot that flies?


s: But thou that heaven is lit from in such wise.


s: Earth too that bore thee and yearns to thee and cries;


s: Till as the sun's name through all nations be thy name.


s: I take the trumpet from my lips and sing.


s: And fear like winter leading hope like spring,


s: Whose flower-bright brows the day-star sits above,


s: Whose hand unweariable and untiring wing


s: Strike music from a world that wailed and strove,


s: Each bright soul born and every glorious thing,


s: But gives the music swifter feet to move


s: More tender-tuned than heart or throat of dove,


s: Life changing into life, by laws that work not wrong;


s: O natural force in spirit and sense, that art


s: One thing in all things, fruit of thine own fruit,


s: O thought illimitable and infinite heart


s: Whose blood is life in limbs indissolute


s: That still keeps hurtless thine invisible part


s: Whence all sweet shafts of green and each thy dart


s: Of sharpening leaf and bud resundering shoot;


s: And heights that souls outshining suns salute,


s: And thunder and laughter and lightning of the sovereign sea;


s: Rivers and springs, and storms that seek your prey;


s: With strong wings ravening through the skies by night;


s: Spirits and stars that hold one choral way;


s: O light of heaven, and thou the heavenlier light


s: All generations of all years with might;


s: Swift Revolution, changing depth with height;


s: Thou, Freedom, whence the soul's springs ran;


s: Praise earth for man's sake living, and for earth's sake man.


s: Make yourselves wings, O tarrying feet of fate,


s: And hidden hour that hast our hope to bear,


s: A child-god, through the morning-coloured gate


s: Dead on whose threshold lies heart-broken hate,


s: Dead discord, dead injustice, dead despair;


s: O love long looked for, wherefore wilt thou wait,


s: And shew not yet the dawn on thy bright hair.


s: Thine hand reconquering heaven, to seat man there?


s: And light to make man's day of manhood fair:


s: Hasten thine hour and halt not, till thy work be done.


s: Nor behind us, but straight on the skies;


s: Till the curse of the kings and the chain


s: By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept,


s: That for ages of agony hast endured, and slept,


s: By the waters of Babylon we stood up and sang,


s: That a blast of deliverance in the darkness rang,


s: And with trumpets and thunderings and with morning song


s: And thy spirit uplifted thee to forget thy wrong


s: And thy sons were dejected not any more, as then


s: When thy lovers went heavily without heart, as men


s: In the desolate distances, with a great desire,


s: With our hearts going back to thee, they were filled with fire,


s: It was said to us:  "Verily ye are great of heart,


s: Ye are bondmen and bondwomen, to be scourged and smart,


s: And with harrows men harrowed us, and subdued with spears,


s: And the summer and winter was, and the length of years,


s: By the rivers of Italy, by the sacred streams,


s: There was feasting with revelling, there was sleep with dreams,


s: And they slept and they rioted on their rose-hung beds,


s: And with love-locks vine-chapleted, and with rose-crowned heads


s: And they knew not their forefathers, nor the hills and streams


s: Nor the gods that were good to them, but with songs and dreams


s: By the rivers of Italy, by the dry streams' beds,


s: By the horn of Eridanus, by the Tiber mouth,


s: They arose up and girded them to the north and south,


s: As a water in January the frost confines,


s: As a water in April is, in the new-blown vines,


s: And thy lovers that looked for thee, and that mourned from far,


s: We rejoiced in the light of thee, in the signal star


s: In thy grief had we followed thee, in thy passion loved,


s: In thy shame we stood fast to thee, with thy pangs were moved,


s: By the hillside of Calvary we beheld thy blood,


s: As a mother's in bitterness, an unebbing flood,


s: And the north was Gethsemane, without leaf or bloom,


s: And the south was Aceldama, for a sanguine fume


s: By the stone of the sepulchre we returned to weep,


s: And the guards by it keeping it we beheld asleep,


s: And an angel's similitude by the unsealed grave,


s: And the voice was angelical, to whose words God gave


s: "Lo, the graveclothes of Italy that are folded up


s: And the guards as men wrought upon with a charmed cup,


s: "And her body most beautiful, and her shining head,


s: For your mother, for Italy, is not surely dead:


s: "As of old time she spake to you, and you hardly heard,


s: So now also she saith to you, yet another word,


s: "By my saying she saith to you, in your ears she saith,


s: Put no trust in men's royalties, nor in great men's breath,


s: "For the life of them vanishes and is no more seen,


s: Nor shall any remember him if a crown hath been,


s: "Unto each man his handiwork, unto each his crown,


s: Whoso takes the world's life on him and his own lays down,


s: "Whoso bears the whole heaviness of the wronged world's weight


s: It is well with him suffering, though he face man's fate;


s: "Seeing death has no part in him any more, no power


s: He has bought his eternity with a little hour,


s: "For an hour, if ye look for him, he is no more found,


s: Then ye lift up your eyes to him and behold him crowned,


s: "On the mountains of memory, by the world's wellsprings,


s: Where the light of the life of him is on all past things,


s: "Not the light that was quenched for us, nor the deeds that were,


s: Nor the sorrows not sorrowful, nor the face most fair


s: So the angel of Italy's resurrection said,


s: So the son of her suffering, that from breasts nigh dead


s: That the pavement of Golgotha should be white as snow,


s: That the waters of Babylon should no longer flow,


s: Yea, the darkness, because of our light,


s: Is no darkness, but blooms as a bower-side


s: We are here in the world's bower-garden,


s: Who are we that our tongues should palter,


s: Who are clothed as with flame from the altar,


s: And the wrong of the old world straightway


s: From the light of the face of her glory,


s: Who is this that has trapped her and leads,


s: Over nations that groan with their kings,


s: And his lips, that have man for their meat,


s: Kings pray to him, prone where he stands,


s: And his blessings, as other men's curses,


s: In that heart-stricken grief-ridden time,


s: Shall adore whom their forefathers slew;


s: For thy sake and for all men's and mine,


s: In this day is the sign of her shown to you;


s: For the might of her strength is made known to you


s: The sheep of the priests, and the cattle


s: That their dust may rebuild her a nation,


s: That their souls may relight her a star.


s: Though she slay them, yet shall they trust in her,


s: For unsure there is nought nor unjust in her,


s: Though it threaten, the night shall not swallow her,


s: Grace shall be given you to die for her,


s: For the wrong which is wrought as of yore;


s: Having these things to give and no more;


s: Of the wrongdoer grown grey with the wrong.


s: And the high-priest, accursed and anointed,


s: "O my earth, are the springs in thee dry?


s: As their graves whom their brethren forget.


s: "Of mine earth were your dear limbs made,


s: Of mine air was your sweet life's breath;


s: And the sound throughout earth of our story


s: For all men's sake the likeness of all love;


s: The sweet-souled Saviour of a man-tormented earth.


s: Four times a godlike soldier-saviour hung;


s: To the same cross as the same bosom clung;


s: Poured the same blood, to leave the same


s: Light on the many-folded mountain-skirts of fame.


s: Forth of thine hands, a godlike gift, to death,


s: Thine and their mother, that gave all you breath?


s: O mother, and each her children's consecrated head?


s: Life and life's love, pleasure and praise and rest,


s: Poorer than all these, more than these be blest;


s: But thine, mother, what has thy soul kept back?


s: Feed with love all thy days, lest one day lack;


s: All thy whole life's love, thine heart's whole,


s: Thou hast given as who gives gladly, O thou the supreme soul.


s: The live lips, the live eyes, that lived on thee;


s: That felt on earth their first way to thy knee;


s: Now open again to feed on dust among the dead;


s: And glory of earth seen under and stars above,


s: Now, to stroke smooth, the dove-white breast of love;


s: Suns unbeholden, songs unsung, and undone deeds.


s: And the world's worship of thee for a child;


s: All thine own people a new birth undefiled;


s: And all its glory, and all its works, thy seed sublime.


s: In that most sovereign word thine equal name;


s: Seeing in two suns one co-eternal flame;


s: One heat, one heaven, one heart, one fire,


s: One light, one love, one benediction, one desire.


s: Thy place is higher than where such voices rise


s: This God's or that God's, in one weary wise;


s: The locked lips of the spirit praise thee that thou art.


s: We praise thee, O holy, and bless thee, O mother of lights;


s: Song-birds to sing thy days through and thy nights;


s: And wrap thee around and arch thee above


s: With the air of benediction and the heaven of love.


s: As the Indian flock, children of Paradise,


s: That live in the air and light of the utter skies;


s: With wings for feet love seeks thee, to partake thy sight.


s: As a new heaven bends over a new-born earth,


s: And fair new planets fiery-fresh from birth;


s: And moon-white here, there hot like Mars,


s: Souls that are worlds shine on thee, spirits that are stars.


s: With passion-coloured glories of lit souls;


s: Lightens, and all the old starriest aureoles


s: And the old names of love's chosen, found in thy sight vain.


s: And love's self for thy love's sake waxes pale


s: Thee Rome's most highest, her sovereign daughters, hail;


s: Thee Arria, thee Cornelia, Roman more than they.


s: Bow their heads haloed, quench their fiery fame;


s: Sink, then spring up rekindled from thy flame;


s: From thy fresh spring their wintering age with new-blown bloom.


s: Bow themselves each one from her heavenward height;


s: To melt in thine their consummated light;


s: One glory of many glories lighten upon Rome.


s: What help hast thou, what part have ye herein?


s: Praise without song the living, without dirge the dead.


s: And as a pilgrim go forth girt and shod,


s: To the pure spirit of man that men call God,


s: Made of men's heavenlier hopes and mightier memories;


s: This raiment of dead things, of shadow and trance,


s: And set our life's work higher than time or chance


s: The breath of life to days that die, to deeds that live;


s: The speechless spirit in these thy weak words hidden;


s: At the high feast of sorrow a guest unbidden,


s: Thou fill men's eyes who listen with a heart that hears.


s: If with voice of words or prayers thy sons may reach thee,


s: We thy latter sons, the men thine after-birth,


s: We the children of thy grey-grown age, O Earth,


s: O our mother everlasting, we beseech thee,


s: By the sealed and secret ages of thy life;


s: By the darkness wherein grew thy sacred forces;


s: By the songs of stars thy sisters in their courses;


s: By thine own song hoarse and hollow and shrill with strife;


s: By thy voice distuned and marred of modulation;


s: By the discord of thy measure's march with theirs;


s: By the beauties of thy bosom, and the cares;


s: By thy glory of growth, and splendour of thy station;


s: By the shame of men thy children, and the pride;


s: By the pale-cheeked hope that sleeps and weeps and passes,


s: As the grey dew from the morning mountain-grasses;


s: By the white-lipped sightless memories that abide;


s: By the silence and the sound of many sorrows;


s: By the joys that leapt up living and fell dead;


s: By the veil that hides thy hands and breasts and head,


s: Wrought of divers-coloured days and nights and morrows;


s: Isis, thou that knowest of God what worlds are worth,


s: Thou the ghost of God, the mother uncreated,


s: Soul for whom the floating forceless ages waited


s: As our forceless fancies wait on thee, O Earth;


s: Thou the body and soul, the father-God and mother,


s: If at all it move thee, knowing of all things done


s: Here where evil things and good things are not one,


s: But their faces are as fire against each other;


s: By thy morning and thine evening, night and day;


s: By the first white light that stirs and strives and hovers


s: As a bird above the brood her bosom covers,


s: By the sweet last star that takes the westward way;


s: By the night whose feet are shod with snow or thunder,


s: Fledged with plumes of storm, or soundless as the dew;


s: By the vesture bound of many-folded blue


s: Round her breathless breasts, and all the woven wonder;


s: By the golden-growing eastern stream of sea;


s: By the sounds of sunrise moving in the mountains;


s: By the forces of the floods and unsealed fountains;


s: Thou that badest man be born, bid man be free.


s: I am she that made thee lovely with my beauty


s: Mine, the fairest lips, took first the fire of duty


s: Mine, the fairest eyes, sought first thy laws and knew them


s: Mine, the fairest hands, took freedom first into them,


s: By my light, now he lies sleeping, seen above him


s: By my dead that loved and living men that love him;


s: I am she that was the light of thee enkindled


s: She whose life grew up with man's free life, and dwindled


s: She that once by sword and once by word imperial


s: And a third time, casting off these years funereal,


s: By that bond 'twixt thee and me whereat affrighted


s: By that hope and this remembrance reunited;


s: I am she that set my seal upon the nameless


s: And my sons as brides took unto them the tameless


s: Till my sins and sons through sinless lands dispersed,


s: Made accurst the name of man, and thrice accursed


s: Lest for those past fires the fires of my repentance


s: Now my blood would buy remission of my sentence;


s: I am she that was thy sign and standard-bearer,


s: She that washed thee with her blood and left thee fairer,


s: Were not these the hands that raised thee fallen and fed thee,


s: Was not I thy tongue that spake, thine eye that led thee,


s: By the darkness on our dreams, and the dead errors


s: By the hopes that hang around thee, and the terrors;


s: I am she whose hands are strong and her eyes blinded


s: Till upon the night of nations many-minded


s: Till the myriad stars be molten into one light,


s: Till the soul of man be parcel of the sunlight,


s: By the snows that blanch not him nor cleanse from slaughter


s: By the stains and by the chains on me thy daughter;


s: I am she that shews on mighty limbs and maiden


s: For what blood can touch these hands with gold unladen,


s: By the surf of spears one shieldless bosom breasted


s: Till the plume-plucked Austrian vulture-heads twin-crested


s: By the snows and souls untrampled and untroubled


s: Light of those to these responsive and redoubled;


s: I am she beside whose forest-hidden fountains


s: By the magic born to music in my mountains


s: By those days the very dream whereof delivers


s: By the sounds that make of all my ringing rivers


s: By the many tribes and names of my division


s: By the single eye of sun-compelling vision;


s: I am she that was and was not of thy chosen,


s: She that fed thy springs, till now her springs are frozen;


s: By the sea that clothed and sun that saw me splendid


s: By the song-fires and the sword-fires mixed and blended


s: By the star that Milton's soul for Shelley's lighted,


s: By the beacon-bright Republic far-off sighted;


s: Turn away from us the cross-blown blasts of error,


s: Turn away the fearful cry, the loud-tongued terror,


s: Turn away their eyes who track, their hearts who follow,


s: Shew the soul of man, as summer shews the swallow,


s: By the sloth of men that all too long endure men


s: By the cry of men, the bitter cry of poor men


s: By the blood-sweat of the people in the garden


s: By his passion interceding for their pardon


s: By the sightless souls and fleshless limbs that labour


s: By the foodless mouth with foodless heart for neighbour,


s: By the child that famine eats as worms the blossom


s: By the milkless lips that strain the bloodless bosom


s: By the pastures that give grass to feed the lamb in,


s: By the cities clad with gold and shame and famine;


s: By the people, by the poor man, by the master


s: By the cross-winds of defeat and of disaster,


s: By the helm that keeps us still to sunwards driving,


s: Till, as night-watch ends, day burn on eyes reviving,


s: We thy children, that arraign not nor impeach thee


s: By the waves that wash the morning we beseech thee,


s: God changes, and man, and the form of them bodily; I am the soul.


s: I am that which unloves me and loves; I am stricken, and I am the


s: The search, and the sought, and the seeker, the soul and the body


s: Nor spirit nor flesh can make answer, but only thy mother alone.


s: Green leaves of thy labour, white flowers of thy thought, and red


s: And are worshipped as suns till the sunrise shall tread out their


s: And my foliage rings round him and rustles, and branches are bent


s: Ere the breath of them roughen my tresses, ere one of my blossoms


s: Whose tongue is the wind's tongue and language of storm-clouds on


s: Yet I fail not of growing for lightnings above me or deathworms


s: Stop, shift their loads, and pray, and fare


s: Striped grey this piteous God of theirs;


s: To which they bring their pains and prayers;


s: Lean limbs that shew the labouring bones,


s: And ghastly mouth that gapes and groans.


s: It was for this, that prayers like these


s: Kneeling, these slaves of men should beat


s: Now deathward since thy death and birth.


s: Hast thou fed full men's starved-out souls?


s: They scourge us with thy words for whips,


s: They brand us with thy words for brands;


s: The thirst that made thy dry throat shrink


s: To their moist mouths commends the drink.


s: On their crowned heads confirm the crown;


s: They bind the people's nail-pierced hands,


s: They hide the people's nail-pierced feet;


s: Earth is not theirs, that they should sleep.


s: So still, for all man's tears and creeds,


s: And the feet soiled and scarred and pale


s: People, the grey-grown speechless Christ!


s: And all the nights that eat thine heart.


s: And, marked with sanguine sweat and tears,


s: Thou, in the day that breaks thy prison,


s: Of Christian creeds that spit on Christ.


s: Though hearts reach back and memories ache,


s: Whose kissing lips through his lips grown


s: What heart thou hadst toward men indeed,


s: While their own hell's worm curls and licks


s: No soul that lived, loved, wrought, and died,


s: Come down, be done with, cease, give o'er;


s: - Howbeit they have watched for it long,


s: "They are fearful and feeble with years,


s: We have sought after none of these things;


s: Ye shall see, O our sons, and shall hold


s: In that day though our memories be cold:


s: From the springs of the east, from the gate


s: "From a land whereon time hath not trod,


s: And the world's rein breaks, and the rod,


s: And the least among these, and the chief,


s: And the birth of new things, which is death


s: "Undisbranched of the storms that disroot us,


s: Faithful, though faith should forsake her;


s: The word of the earth to the spheres her sisters, the note of her


s: The sound of her speech in the ears of the starry and sisterly


s: When her eyes new-born of the night saw yet no star out of reach;


s: The ways of her days, did they seem then good to the new-souled


s: Was it Love brake forth flower-fashion, a bird with gold on his


s: Lovely, her firstborn passion, and impulse of firstborn things?


s: Was Love that nestling indeed that under the plumes of the night


s: Was hatched and hidden as seed in the furrow, and brought forth


s: For the waste of the dead void air took form of a world at birth,


s: Was it love, life, godhead, or fate? we say the spirit is one


s: Before the growth was the grower, and the seed ere the plant was


s: Foot after foot ye go back and travail and make yourselves mad;


s: But God, if a God there be, is the substance of men which is man.


s: Recreate him of whom we are creatures, and all we only are he.


s: Not men's but man's is the glory of godhead, the kingdom of time,


s: A manifold God fast-bound as with iron of adverse things.


s: A soul that labours and lives, an emotion, a strenuous breath,


s: In the sea whereof centuries are waves the live God plunges and


s: His bed is in all men's graves, but the worm hath not hold on his


s: Night puts out not his eyes, nor time sheds change on his head;


s: Men are the thoughts passing through it, the veins that fulfil it


s: With spirit of sense to renew it as springs fulfilling a flood.


s: Men are the heartbeats of man, the plumes that feather his wings,


s: As weeds or as reeds in the torrent of things are the wind-shaken


s: Spirit by spirit goes under, a foam-bell's bubble of breath,


s: That blows and opens in sunder and blurs not the mirror of death.


s: O God sore stricken of things! they have wrought him a raiment of


s: Can a God shut eyelids and wings at a touch on the nerves of the


s: O shamed and sorrowful God, whose force goes out at a blow!


s: What world shall shake at his nod? at his coming what wilderness


s: From the bed of his birth to his grave he is driven as a wind at


s: Lest Change bow down as his slave, and the storm and the sword be


s: But they know not the spirit for master, they feel not force from


s: While man makes love to disaster, and woos desolation with love.


s: For his own soul only constrains him, his own mouth only denies.


s: To a master whose face is a ghost's; O thou that wast God, is it


s: Thou madest man in the garden; thou temptedst man, and he fell;


s: Thou gavest him poison and pardon for blood and burnt-offering to


s: Make now for thyself expiation, and be thine atonement for thee.


s: Ah, thou that darkenest heaven--ah, thou that bringest a sword -


s: By the crimes of thine hands unforgiven they beseech thee to hear


s: By the savours of gibbets and stakes thou hast planted to bear to


s: By torture and terror and treason, that make to thee weapons and


s: Thou art judged, O judge, and the sentence is gone forth against


s: Thy slave that slept is awake; thy slave but slept for a span;


s: Past the wall unsurmounted that bars out our vision with iron and


s: Is the body not more than the vesture, the life not more than the


s: And if higher than is heaven be the reach of the soul, shall not


s: Time, father of life, and more great than the life it begat and


s: Time's motion that throbs in his blood is the thought that gives


s: He saith to the ages, Give; and his soul foregoes not her share;


s: Who are ye that forbid him to live, and would feed him with


s: His soul is at one with the reason of things that is sap to the


s: Though ye call down God to bear token, for fear of you none is


s: Shall God's breath dry up the sources that feed time full as it


s: Is he drunk or asleep, that the rod of his wrath is unfelt and


s: Hath he gazed on himself unto blindness, who made men blind to


s: Cry out, for his kingdom is shaken; cry out, for the people


s: Cry aloud till his godhead awaken; what doth he to sleep and to


s: Is his life but as other gods' lives? is not this the Lord God of


s: Is not this the great God of your sires, that with souls and with


s: He will hear not again the strong crying of earth in his ears as


s: By the spirit he ruled as his slave is he slain who was mighty to


s: His red king's raiment is ripped from him naked, his staff broken


s: And the signs of his empire are stripped from him shuddering; and


s: Surely, ye say, he is strong, though the times be against him and


s: Yet a little, ye say, and how long, till he come to show judgment


s: Glory to Man in the highest! for Man is the master of things.


s: Who is your lady of love, O ye that pass


s: Singing? and is it for sorrow of that which was


s: That ye sing sadly, or dream of what shall be?


s: For gladly at once and sadly it seems ye sing.


s: - Our lady of love by you is unbeholden;


s: For hands she hath none, nor eyes, nor lips, nor golden


s: Treasure of hair, nor face nor form; but we


s: That love, we know her more fair than anything.


s: - Is she a queen, having great gifts to give?


s: - Yea, these; that whoso hath seen her shall not live


s: Except he serve her sorrowing, with strange pain,


s: Travail and bloodshedding and bitterer tears;


s: And when she bids die he shall surely die.


s: And he shall leave all things under the sky


s: And work and wait and watch out all his years.


s: - Hath she on earth no place of habitation?


s: - Age to age calling, nation answering nation,


s: Cries out, Where is she? and there is none to say;


s: For if in the inward soul she hath no place,


s: In vain they cry unto her, seeking her face,


s: In vain their mouths make much of her; for they


s: Cry with vain tongues, till the heart lives again.


s: - O ye that follow, and have ye no repentance?


s: For on your brows is written a mortal sentence,


s: That in your lives ye shall not pause or rest,


s: Nor have the sure sweet common love, nor keep


s: Friends and safe days, nor joy of life nor sleep.


s: --These have we not, who have one thing, the divine


s: Face and clear eyes of faith and fruitful breast.


s: - And ye shall die before your thrones be won.


s: - Yea, and the changed world and the liberal sun


s: Shall move and shine without us, and we lie


s: Dead; but if she too move on earth and live,


s: But if the old world with all the old irons rent


s: Laugh and give thanks, shall we be not content?


s: Nay, we shall rather live, we shall not die,


s: Life being so little and death so good to give.


s: - And these men shall forget you.--Yea, but we


s: Shall be a part of the earth and the ancient sea,


s: And heaven-high air august, and awful fire,


s: And all things good; and no man's heart shall beat


s: But somewhat in it of our blood once shed


s: Shall quiver and quicken, as now in us the dead


s: Blood of men slain and the old same life's desire


s: Plants in their fiery footprints our fresh feet.


s: - But ye that might be clothed with all things pleasant,


s: Ye are foolish that put off the fair soft present,


s: That clothe yourselves with the cold future air;


s: When mother and father and tender sister and brother


s: And the old live love that was shall be as ye,


s: Dust, and no fruit of loving life shall be.


s: --She shall be yet who is more than all these were,


s: Than sister or wife or father unto us or mother.


s: - Is this worth life, is this, to win for wages?


s: Lo, the dead mouths of the awful grey-grown ages,


s: The venerable, in the past that is their prison,


s: In the outer darkness, in the unopening grave,


s: Laugh, knowing how many as ye now say have said,


s: How many, and all are fallen, are fallen and dead:


s: Shall ye dead rise, and these dead have not risen?


s: --Not we but she, who is tender and swift to save


s: - Are ye not weary and faint not by the way,


s: Seeing night by night devoured of day by day,


s: Seeing hour by hour consumed in sleepless fire?


s: Sleepless:  and ye too, when shall ye too sleep?


s: - We are weary in heart and head, in hands and feet,


s: And surely more than all things sleep were sweet,


s: Than all things save the inexorable desire


s: Which whoso knoweth shall neither faint nor weep.


s: - Is this so sweet that one were fain to follow?


s: Is this so sure where all men's hopes are hollow,


s: Even this your dream, that by much tribulation


s: Ye shall make whole flawed hearts, and bowed necks straight?


s: - Nay, though our life were blind, our death were fruitless,


s: Not therefore were the whole world's high hope rootless;


s: But man to man, nation would turn to nation,


s: And the old life live, and the old great word be great.


s: - Pass on then and pass by us and let us be,


s: For what light think ye after life to see?


s: And if the world fare better will ye know?


s: And if man triumph who shall seek you and say?


s: - Enough of light is this for one life's span,


s: That all men born are mortal, but not man:


s: And we men bring death lives by night to sow,


s: That man may reap and eat and live by day.


s: Fire out of heaven, a flower of perfect fire,


s: That where the roots of life are had its root


s: And where the fruits of time are brought forth fruit;


s: That heard the yet unbreathing years respire


s: And speech break forth of centuries that sit mute


s: Beyond all feebler footprint of pursuit;


s: That touched the highest of hope, and went up higher;


s: A heart love-wounded whereto love was law,


s: A soul reproachless without fear or flaw,


s: A shining spirit without shadow of shame,


s: A memory made of all men's love and awe;


s: What need, O soul, to sign thee with thy name?


s: And all their wrongs were heavy on thy head;


s: With all their wounds thy heart was pierced and bled,


s: And in thy spirit as in a mourning scroll


s: The world's huge sorrows were inscribed by roll,


s: All theirs on earth who serve and faint for bread,


s: All banished men's, all theirs in prison dead,


s: Thy love had heart and sword-hand for the whole.


s: "This was my day of glory," didst thou say,


s: When, by the scaffold thou hadst hope to climb


s: For thy faith's sake, they brought thee respite; "Nay,


s: I shall not die then, I have missed my day."


s: Thy day shall be commensurate with time.


s: Am I not he that hath made thee and begotten thee,


s: Wherefore now these eighteen years hast thou forgotten me,


s: Thy life-blood and thy life-breath and thy beauty,


s: Thy soul made strong for divinity of duty


s: Through the red sea brimmed with blood didst thou not follow me,


s: Was the storm strong to break or the sea to swallow thee,


s: I am Freedom, God and man, O France, that plead with thee;


s: Was I not with thee in travail, and in need with thee,


s: Thou wast fairest and first of my virgin-vested daughters,


s: O foolish virgin and fair among the fallen,


s: A garden wasted for beasts to crawl and brawl in,


s: Where is she who bared her bosom but to thunder,


s: And before her face was the red sea cloven in sunder


s: And the surf wherein the broad-based rocks were shaking


s: At the blast of the breath of the battle blown and breaking,


s: And the ravin and the ruin of throned nations


s: And the kingdoms and kings from the state of their high stations


s: Yea, great was the fall of them, all that rose against her,


s: For my hands were fire, and my wings as walls that fenced her,


s: Not as guerdons given of kings the gifts I brought her,


s: But my heart, my breath of life, O France, O daughter,


s: Yea, the heart's blood of a very God I gave thee,


s: Was my word as a man's, having no more strength to save thee


s: Didst thou dream of it only, the day that I stood nigh thee,


s: When that iron surf roared backwards and went by thee


s: When thy sons rose up and thy young men stood together,


s: And my flag swam high as the swimming sea-foam's feather,


s: Ah the lordly laughter and light of it, that lightened


s: Ah the hearts of heroes pierced, the bright lips whitened


s: Ah the banner-poles, the stretch of straightening streamers


s: Ah the men's hands making true the dreams of dreamers,


s: Ah the noise of horse, the charge and thunder of drumming,


s: Ah the light that led them through of the world's life coming,


s: By the lightning of the lips of guns whose flashes


s: By the flame that left her dead old sins in ashes,


s: By thy children whose bare feet were shod with thunder,


s: By the faith that went with them, waking fear and wonder,


s: By the tumult of the waves of nations waking


s: By the wind that went on the world's waste waters, making


s: As the flash of the flakes of the foam flared lamplike, leaping


s: Making wide the fast-shut eyes of thraldom sleeping


s: By the fire of equality, terrible, devouring,


s: By the lands it purged and wasted and left flowering


s: By the lips of fraternity that for love's sake uttered


s: But the eyes were deep as love's, and the fierce lips fluttered


s: By thy weaponed hands, brows helmed, and bare feet spurning


s: By the storm of sunrise round thee risen and burning,


s: Thou hast mixed thy limbs with the son of a harlot, a stranger,


s: Thou, bride of a God, because of the bridesman Danger,


s: For thou thoughtest inly, the terrible bridegroom wakes me,


s: The fire of his mouth consumes, and the red kiss shakes me,


s: Rise up, my beloved, go forth to meet the stranger,


s: Fear thou not at all though the bridesman should be Danger,


s: I the bridegroom, am I not with thee, O bridal nation,


s: To destroy the sins of the earth with divine devastation,


s: Lo her growths of sons, foliage of men and frondage,


s: With iron of shame and with pruning-hooks of bondage


s: Lo, I set wings to thy feet that have been wingless,


s: Till the priestless temples cry to the thrones made kingless,


s: Till the immeasurable Republic arise and lighten


s: And her awful robes be changed, and her red robes whiten,


s: But thou wouldst not, saying, I am weary and faint to follow,


s: And hast sought out shame to sleep with, mire to wallow,


s: And thine own hast made prostitute, sold and shamed and bared it,


s: And the bread of the word I gave thee hast soiled, and shared it


s: As a harlot thou wast handled and polluted,


s: That thou sentest men thy sons, thy sons imbruted,


s: Therefore O harlot, I gave thee to the accurst one,


s: To thy second shame, and a fouler than the first one,


s: Yet I know thee turning back now to behold me,


s: Not for sin's sake but penitence, by my feet to hold me,


s: And sweet ointment of thy grief thou hast brought thy master,


s: From a box of flawed and broken alabaster,


s: And love-offerings, tears and perfumes, hast thou given me,


s: Therefore thy sins, which are many, are forgiven thee,


s: In the outer world that was before this earth,


s: That was before all shape or space was born,


s: Before the blind first hour of time had birth,


s: Before night knew the moonlight or the morn;


s: Or anything called God or man drew breath,


s: Slowly the strong sides of the heaving night


s: Moved, and brought forth the strength of life and death.


s: That was all things and one thing, without fruit,


s: Limit, or law; where love was none, nor hate,


s: Where no leaf came to blossom from no root;


s: The very darkness that time knew not of,


s: Nor God laid hand on, nor was man found there,


s: Ceased, and was cloven in several shapes; above


s: Light, and night under, and fire, earth, water, and air.


s: Sunbeams and starbeams, and all coloured things,


s: And death, the shadow cast by life's wide wings,


s: And God, the shade cast by the soul of man.


s: Then between shadow and substance, night and light,


s: Then between birth and death, and deeds and days,


s: The illimitable embrace and the amorous fight


s: That of itself begets, bears, rears, and slays,


s: The immortal war of mortal things that is


s: Labour and life and growth and good and ill,


s: The mild antiphonies that melt and kiss,


s: The violent symphonies that meet and kill,


s: But chiefliest in the spirit (beast or man,


s: Planet of heaven or blossom of earth or sea)


s: For the great labour of growth, being many, is one;


s: One thing the white death and the ruddy birth;


s: The invisible air and the all-beholden sun,


s: And barren water and many-childed earth.


s: And these things are made manifest in men


s: Time writes and life records them, and again


s: Death seals them lest the record pass away.


s: For if death were not, then should growth not be,


s: Change, nor the life of good nor evil things;


s: Nor were there night at all nor light to see,


s: Nor water of sweet nor water of bitter springs.


s: For in each man and each year that is born


s: Are sown the twin seeds of the strong twin powers;


s: The white seed of the fruitful helpful morn,


s: The black seed of the barren hurtful hours.


s: And he that of the black seed eateth fruit,


s: To him the savour as honey shall be sweet;


s: And he in whom the white seed hath struck root,


s: He shall have sorrow and trouble and tears for meat.


s: And him whose lips the sweet fruit hath made red


s: In the end men loathe and make his name a rod;


s: And him whose mouth on the unsweet fruit hath fed


s: In the end men follow and know for very God.


s: And of these twain, the black seed and the white,


s: All things come forth, endured of men and done;


s: And still the day is great with child of night,


s: And still the black night labours with the sun.


s: And each man and each year that lives on earth


s: Turns hither or thither, and hence or thence is fed;


s: With no light but the twilight of terror;


s: Sweet-smelling of pine-leaves and grasses,


s: With the winds of the keen mountain-passes,


s: To consume as with lightning the carrion


s: From the evening whence morning shall be,


s: With the world-wide wind, with the breath


s: With the sea-steeds footless and frantic,


s: With a long note shriller than slaughter's


s: When the weight of a whole year's thunder


s: It sees not what season shall bring to it


s: Who shall sing of him, dead in the birth?


s: Doth it live not at heart of all things,


s: And in slaves is the germ, and in kings.


s: Till it rise and remain and take station


s: With the stars of the worlds that rejoice;


s: Till the voice of its heart's exultation


s: By no pause, by no breach in it changed,


s: With the kingless and king-stricken nations,


s: With the cross, and the chain, and the rod;


s: The most high, the most secret, most lonely,


s: Send the stars light, but send not love to me.


s: Move through their twilight, and shed round


s: For that sweet food which makes all new.


s: That faith in love which love's self gives,


s: Seas, lands, and hours, can these divide


s: Love from love's service, side from side,


s: Though no sound pass nor breath be heard


s: To keep true heart from faithful thought,


s: And through the depth of years that yearn


s: Citoyen, lui dit Enjoiras, ma mere, c'est la Republique.


s: Who is this that sits by the way, by the wild wayside,


s: In a rent stained raiment, the robe of a cast-off bride,


s: In the dust, in the rainfall sitting, with soiled feet bare,


s: With the night for a garment upon her, with torn wet hair?


s: She is fairer of face than the daughters of men, and her eyes,


s: Worn through with her tears, are deep as the depth of skies.


s: This is she for whose sake being fallen, for whose abject sake,


s: Poured life out as water, and shed their souls upon air.


s: This is she for whose glory their years were counted as foam;


s: Whose face was a light upon Greece, was a fire upon Rome.


s: Is it now not surely a vain thing, a foolish and vain,


s: To sit down by her, mourn to her, serve her, partake in the pain?


s: Where her faint feet stumble and falter through year-long days.


s: Shall she help us at all, O fools, give fruit or give fame,


s: Who herself is a name despised, a rejected name?


s: We have not served her for guerdon.  If any do so,


s: That his mouth may be sweet with such honey, we care not to know.


s: A draught very bitter.  The kings of the earth stood up,


s: And the rulers took counsel together, to smite her and slay;


s: And the blood of her wounds is given us to drink today.


s: Can these bones live? or the leaves that are dead leaves bud?


s: Or the dead blood drawn from her veins be in your veins blood?


s: Will ye gather up water again that was drawn and shed?


s: In the blood is the life of the veins, and her veins are dead.


s: For the lives that are over are over, and past things past;


s: She had her day, and it is not; was first, and is last.


s: Is it nothing unto you then, all ye that pass by,


s: If her breath be left in her lips, if she live now or die?


s: Behold now, O people, and say if she be not fair,


s: Whom your fathers followed to find her, with praise and prayer,


s: It was well with our fathers; their sound was in all men's lands;


s: Naked and strong they went forth in her strength like flame,


s: For her love's and her name's sake of old, her republican name.


s: But their children, by kings made quiet, by priests made wise,


s: Love better the heat of their hearths than the light of her eyes.


s: Are they children of these thy children indeed, who have sold,


s: O golden goddess, the light of thy face for gold?


s: Are they sons indeed of the sons of thy dayspring of hope,


s: Whose lives are in fief of an emperor, whose souls of a Pope?


s: Hide then thine head, O beloved; thy time is done;


s: Thy kingdom is broken in heaven, and blind thy sun.


s: What sleep is upon you, to dream she indeed shall rise,


s: When the hopes are dead in her heart as the tears in her eyes?


s: If ye sing of her dead, will she stir? if ye weep for her, weep?


s: Come away now, leave her; what hath she to do but sleep?


s: But ye that mourn are alive, and have years to be;


s: And life is good, and the world is wiser than we.


s: Yea, wise is the world and mighty, with years to give,


s: And years to promise; but how long now shall it live?


s: And foolish and poor is faith, and her ways are bare,


s: Till she find the way of the sun, and the morning air.


s: In that hour shall this dead face shine as the face of the sun,


s: And the soul of man and her soul and the world's be one.


s: Mother of man's time-travelling generations,


s: Breath of his nostrils, heartblood of his heart,


s: God above all Gods worshipped of all nations,


s: Light above light, law beyond law, thou art.


s: Thy face is as a sword smiting in sunder


s: Shadows and chains and dreams and iron things;


s: Silent, the skies are narrower than thy wings.


s: Angels and Gods, spirit and sense, thou takest


s: In thy right hand as drops of dust or dew;


s: The temples and the towers of time thou breakest,


s: His thoughts and words and works, to make them new.


s: All we have wandered from thy ways, have hidden


s: Eyes from thy glory and ears from calls they heard;


s: Called of thy trumpets vainly, called and chidden,


s: Scourged of thy speech and wounded of thy word.


s: We have known thee and have not known thee; stood beside thee,


s: Felt thy lips breathe, set foot where thy feet trod,


s: Loved and renounced and worshipped and denied thee,


s: "One hour for sleep," we said, "and yet one other;


s: All day we served her, and who shall serve by night?"


s: Not knowing of thee, thy face not knowing, O mother,


s: O light wherethrough the darkness is as light.


s: Men that forsook thee hast thou not forsaken,


s: Races of men that knew not hast thou known;


s: Nations that slept thou hast doubted not to waken,


s: Worshippers of strange Gods to make thine own.


s: All old grey histories hiding thy clear features,


s: O secret spirit and sovereign, all men's tales,


s: Creeds woven of men thy children and thy creatures,


s: They have woven for vestures of thee and for veils.


s: Thine hands, without election or exemption,


s: Feed all men fainting from false peace or strife,


s: O thou, the resurrection and redemption,


s: The godhead and the manhood and the life.


s: Thy wings shadow the waters; thine eyes lighten


s: The depths of the earth and the dark places brighten


s: Under thy feet, whiter than fire is white.


s: Death is subdued to thee, and hell's bands broken;


s: Where thou art only is heaven; who hears not thee,


s: Time shall not hear him; when men's names are spoken,


s: A nameless sign of death shall his name be.


s: Deathless shall be the death, the name be nameless;


s: Sterile of stars his twilight time of breath;


s: With fire of hell shall shame consume him shameless,


s: And dying, all the night darken his death.


s: The years are as thy garments, the world's ages


s: As sandals bound and loosed from thy swift feet;


s: Time serves before thee, as one that hath for wages


s: Praise or shame only, bitter words or sweet.


s: Thou sayest "Well done," and all a century kindles;


s: Again thou sayest "Depart from sight of me,"


s: And all the light of face of all men dwindles,


s: And the age is as the broken glass of thee.


s: The night is as a seal set on men's faces,


s: On faces fallen of men that take no light,


s: Nor give light in the deeps of the dark places,


s: Blind things, incorporate with the body of night.


s: Their souls are serpents winterbound and frozen,


s: Their shame is as a tame beast, at their feet


s: Couched; their cold lips deride thee and thy chosen,


s: Their lying lips made grey with dust for meat.


s: Then when their time is full and days run over,


s: The splendour of thy sudden brow made bare


s: Darkens the morning; thy bared hands uncover


s: The veils of light and night and the awful air.


s: And the world naked as a new-born maiden


s: Stands virginal and splendid as at birth,


s: With all thine heaven of all its light unladen,


s: Of all its love unburdened all thine earth.


s: For the utter earth and the utter air of heaven


s: And the extreme depth is thine and the extreme height;


s: Shadows of things and veils of ages riven


s: Are as men's kings unkingdomed in thy sight.


s: Through the iron years, the centuries brazen-gated,


s: From the evening to the morning have we waited,


s: Should thy foot haply sound on the awful floors.


s: The floors untrodden of the sun's feet glimmer,


s: The star-unstricken pavements of the night;


s: Do the lights burn inside? the lights wax dimmer


s: The crowned heads lose the light on them; it may be


s: To blind the torch-lit centuries till the day be,


s: The feasting kingdoms till thy kingdom come.


s: Shall it not come? deny they or dissemble,


s: Is it not even as lightning from on high


s: Now? and though many a soul close eyes and tremble,


s: How should they tremble at all who love thee as I?


s: I am thine harp between thine hands, O mother!


s: All my strong chords are strained with love of thee.


s: We grapple in love and wrestle, as each with other


s: Wrestle the wind and the unreluctant sea.


s: Me not thy winds and storms nor thrones disrooted


s: Nor molten crowns nor thine own sins dismay.


s: Sinned hast thou sometime, therefore art thou sinless;


s: Stained hast thou been, who art therefore without stain;


s: Even as man's soul is kin to thee, but kinless


s: Thou, in whose womb Time sows the all-various grain.


s: I do not bid thee spare me, O dreadful mother!


s: I pray thee that thou spare not, of thy grace.


s: How were it with me then, if ever another


s: Should come to stand before thee in this my place?


s: I am the trumpet at thy lips, thy clarion


s: Full of thy cry, sonorous with thy breath;


s: The graves of souls born worms and creeds grown carrion


s: Thy blast of judgment fills with fires of death.


s: Thou art the player whose organ-keys are thunders,


s: Thou art the ray whereat the rent night sunders,


s: And I the cloudlet borne upon thy breast.


s: I shall burn up before thee, pass and perish,


s: But thou from dawn to sunsetting shalt cherish


s: The thoughts that led and souls that lighted mine.


s: Reared between night and noon and truth and error,


s: Each twilight-travelling bird that trills and screams


s: Sickens at midday, nor can face for terror


s: The imperious heaven's inevitable extremes.


s: I have no spirit of skill with equal fingers


s: At sign to sharpen or to slacken strings;


s: I keep no time of song with gold-perched singers


s: And chirp of linnets on the wrists of kings.


s: I am thy storm-thrush of the days that darken,


s: Thy petrel in the foam that bears thy bark


s: To port through night and tempest; if thou hearken,


s: My voice is in thy heaven before the lark.


s: My song is in the mist that hides thy morning,


s: I have heard thee and beheld thee and give warning,


s: Before thy wheels divide the sky and sea.


s: Birds shall wake with thee voiced and feathered fairer,


s: I have eyes and heart to endure thee, O thunder-bearer,


s: And they shall be who shall have tongues to sing.


s: I have love at least, and have not fear, and part not


s: From thine unnavigable and wingless way;


s: Thou tarriest, and I have not said thou art not,


s: Nor all thy night long have denied thy day.


s: Darkness to daylight shall lift up thy paean,


s: Hill to hill thunder, vale cry back to vale,


s: With wind-notes as of eagles AEschylean,


s: Sung to by mighty sons of dawn and daughters,


s: Of this night's songs thine ear shall keep but one;


s: That supreme song which shook the channelled waters,


s: And called thee skyward as God calls the sun.


s: Come, though all heaven again be fire above thee;


s: Though death before thee come to clear thy sky;


s: Let us but see in his thy face who love thee;


s: Yea, though thou slay us, arise and let us die.


s: The light we walk in darkens sun and moon and star.


s: The fire that moulds and moves it of the sovereign soul.


s: Time, foot by foot, gives back before our sheer desire.


s: And the mouth finds it bitter, and the spirit sweet.


s: Down the loud length of storm its windward wings divide.


s: Their calls are in our ears as shadows of dead sound.


s: Friend falls from friend, and faith for faith lays wait to kill.


s: Our march is everlasting till time's march be done.


s: Perils and pains beset the ways we press into;


s: Whence we would be man shall not keep us, nor man's God.


s: And on their broken anvils beat out bolts for fight.


s: Their surest fetters are as plighted words of kings.


s: We bear you witness ere ye come that ye shall be.


s: All tombs and bars shall open, every grave and grate.


s: And shoots the bolts reluctant, bidding all men in.


s: Is day not hard upon us, yea, not our day near?


s: Break thou the covering cerecloths; rise up from the dead.


s: Thou that wast his Republic, wilt thou clasp their knees?


s: From the open heaven and air of intercepted skies;


s: That bask and blink and warm themselves about the world;


s: Blind flesh-flies hatched by dark and hampered in their husk;


s: No memory more of men that brought it fire of old;


s: These dull wide mouths that drain thee dry and call thee blest;


s: Whose hands strew gold before thee and contempt behind;


s: Who have robbed thee of thy trust and given thee of their shame;


s: Is this that end whose promise made thine heart so high?


s: Love turns from thee, and memory disavows thy past.


s: Take thought with all thy people, turn thine head and rise.


s: And who shall starve or shame thee, blind or bruise thine head?


s: Behold and hearken for thee, knowing thy hopes and fears.


s: How long till all thy soul be one with all thy sea?


s: Lo, when ye will, we bring you gifts of what is best.


s: One frost on all their frondage bites the blossoming trees.


s: Seek with gaunt hands up heavenward if the sun be there.


s: Not seen of slaves nor shining in their masters' sight.


s: For us, and with us, all the multitudes of things.


s: Freedom's good things we bring you, whence all good things are.


s: The mist's mild veil on valleys muffled from the moon:


s: And all the flower of large-limbed life and all the root:


s: By sounding strait and channel, gulf and reach and firth.


s: The sense that kindles nature, and the soul that fills.


s: With us the heart and secret of the worldly tale.


s: That by his might and godhead makes man god and lord.


s: Ours, for where freedom lives not, there live no good things.


s: Live, for the truth is living; wake, for night is dead.


s: Broadcast from heaven on lands it loves;


s: And the old green-girt sweet-hearted earth,


s: That flows round no fair thing more fair


s: More pure the intense white height of air,


s: More clear men's eyes that mine would meet,


s: And the sweet springs of things more sweet.


s: Storms the night's ear, the day's assails,


s: Toward thy strange-shapen mountain-bound:


s: For years through, sweetest of the saints,


s: And prayers she heard and sighs toward France,


s: Clothed with calm love and clear desire,


s: And shields were lowered, and snapt were spears,


s: And faith came back, and peace, that were


s: Fled; for she bade, saying, "Thou, God's heir,


s: In a strange land? what doest thou there?


s: Thy sheep are spoiled, and the ploughers plough


s: "And strange men feed on faultless lives,


s: And God knoweth, who hath sent thee a sign,


s: And lived her life with curbed white wings,


s: Where walls shut out the flame and bloom


s: Heaven within heaven, at heaven's full noon,


s: Whose choral flames in God's sight move,


s: Compels all things through life and death


s: To men's eyes turning from strange lands,


s: His bruised head with the bloomless crown,


s: Falls the sad blood, fall the slow tears;


s: Knowing how the word of Christian should


s: Whose lips, for all the prayers they make,


s: Fair as the world's old faith of flowers,


s: Ah, in this strange and shrineless place,


s: Where no Greek worships her shrined limbs


s: And the fierce fruitless mountain stairs


s: Climb, yet seem wroth and loth to aspire,


s: And through their clefts and crests the town


s: Earth heard, earth knew her, that this was she.)


s: "Love made me of all things fairest thing,


s: And all this while though all they mourned


s: And the unborn that should see thee a queen.


s: The old mother-might, the breast, the face,


s: Where the priest's pall hangs rent on Rome,


s: And through the red rent swaddling-bands


s: Towards thine she strains her labouring hands.


s: Thou hast blest thy children born to thee,


s: Whereto they had nailed my heart and thee


s: For theirs thou wast and thine were they


s: Whose blood beats living in man's heart,


s: O heart of hearts, the chalice of love's fire,


s: Hid round with flowers and all the bounty of bloom;


s: O heavenly heart, at whose most dear desire


s: Dead love, living and singing, cleft his tomb,


s: And with him risen and regent in death's room


s: All day thy choral pulses rang full choir;


s: O heart whose beating blood was running song,


s: O sole thing sweeter than thine own songs were,


s: Help us for thy free love's sake to be free,


s: True for thy truth's sake, for thy strength's sake strong,


s: The nursing earth as the sepulchral sea.


s: Is thine hour come to wake, O slumbering Night?


s: Hath not the Dawn a message in thine ear?


s: Though thou be stone and sleep, yet shalt thou hear


s: When the word falls from heaven--Let there be light.


s: Thou knowest we would not do thee the despite


s: To wake thee while the old sorrow and shame were near;


s: We spake not loud for thy sake, and for fear


s: Lest thou shouldst lose the rest that was thy right,


s: The blessing given thee that was thine alone,


s: Nay, we kept silence of thee for thy sake


s: Albeit we knew thee alive, and left with thee


s: The great good gift to feel not nor to see;


s: But will not yet thine Angel bid thee wake?


s: Set in mine hand my staff and leave me here


s: Outside the hollow house that blind men fear,


s: More blind than I who live on life withdrawn


s: And feel on eyes that see not but foresee


s: The shadow of death which clothes Antigone.


s: Dead, if man living know what thing is death,


s: If life be all made up of blood and breath,


s: And no sense be save as of ears and eyes.


s: But heart there is not, tongue there is not found,


s: To think or sing what verge hath life or bound.


s: In the beginning when the powers that made


s: The young child man a little loved him, seeing


s: His joy of life and fair face of his being,


s: And bland and laughing with the man-child played,


s: As friends they saw on our divine one day


s: The strength of soul that builds up as with hands


s: Walls spiritual and towers and towns of thought


s: Which only fate, not force, can bring to nought,


s: Took then to wife the light of all men's lands,


s: War's child and love's, most sweet and wise and strong,


s: Order of things and rule and guiding song.


s: It was long since:  yea, even the sun that saw


s: Remembers hardly what was, nor how long.


s: And now the wise heart of the worldly song


s: The power of thought to build up life for men.


s: Yea, surely are they now transformed or dead,


s: And sleep below this world, where no sun warms,


s: Incognizable, and all their lordship fled;


s: And where they stood up singing crawl and hiss,


s: With fangs that kill behind their lips that kiss.


s: Yet though her marriage-garment, seeming fair,


s: To turn their seed to poison, time shall see


s: Their broken stamp of godhead, and again


s: Thought and wise love sing words of law to men.


s: I, Tiresias the prophet, seeing in Thebes


s: Much evil, and the misery of men's hands


s: Who sow with fruitless wheat the stones and sands,


s: With fruitful thorns the fallows and warm glebes,


s: Bade their hands hold lest worse hap came to pass;


s: I am as Time's self in mine own wearied mind,


s: Whom the strong heavy-footed years have led


s: From night to night and dead men unto dead,


s: And from the blind hope to the memory blind;


s: For each man's life is woven, as Time's life is,


s: Of blind young hopes and old blind memories.


s: O child, O corpse, the live dead face of thee,


s: Whose life and death are one thing upon earth


s: Where day kills night and night again kills day


s: Air, and warm winds that under the sun's eye


s: Stretch your strong wings at morning; and thou, sky,


s: Whose hollow circle engirdling earth and sea


s: All night the set stars limit, and all day


s: Ye heights of hills, and thou Dircean spring


s: Inviolable, and ye towers that saw cast down


s: Seven kings keen-sighted toward your seven-faced town


s: And quenched the red seed of one sightless king;


s: And thou, for death less dreadful than for birth,


s: Whose wild leaves hide the horror of the earth,


s: O mountain whereon gods made chase of kings,


s: Cithaeron, thou that sawest on Pentheus dead


s: And satiate with a son thy swollen springs,


s: And heardst her cry fright all thine eyries' nests


s: Who gave death suck at sanguine-suckling breasts;


s: Yea, and a grief more grievous, without name,


s: A curse too grievous for the name of grief,


s: Thou sawest, and heardst the rumour scare belief


s: Even unto death and madness, when the flame


s: Was lit whose ashes dropped about the pyre


s: That of two brethren made one sundering fire;


s: O bitter nurse, that on thine hard bare knees


s: Rear'dst for his fate the bloody-footed child


s: Whose hands should be more bloodily defiled


s: And the old blind feet walk wearier ways than these,


s: Whose seed, brought forth in darkness unto doom,


s: Should break as fire out of his mother's womb;


s: Time, day, night, sun, stars, life, death, air, sea, earth,


s: And ye that round the human house of birth


s: Watch with veiled heads and weaponed hands, and see


s: Sit in the clouds with cloudlike hours to come;


s: Ye forces without form and viewless powers


s: That have the keys of all our years in hold,


s: That prophesy too late with tongues of gold,


s: In a strange speech whose words are perished hours,


s: I witness to you what good things ye give


s: What should I do to blame you, what to praise,


s: What should I do to curse or bless at all


s: For winter-woven or summer-coloured days?


s: Curse he that will and bless you whoso can,


s: I hear a springing water, whose quick sound


s: Makes softer the soft sunless patient air,


s: And the wind's hand is laid on my thin hair


s: Light as a lover's, and the grasses round


s: Have odours in them of green bloom and rain


s: Sweet as the kiss wherewith sleep kisses pain.


s: I hear the low sound of the spring of time


s: Still beating as the low live throb of blood,


s: And where its waters gather head and flood


s: I hear change moving on them, and the chime


s: Across them of reverberate wings of hours


s: Sounding, and feel the future air of flowers.


s: The wind of change is soft as snow, and sweet


s: The faint wind springing with the springs that run,


s: The dim sweet smell of flowering hopes, and heat


s: I know not, till the morning put forth song.


s: I prophesy of life, who live with death;


s: Of joy, being sad; of sunlight, who am blind;


s: Of man, whose ways are alien from mankind


s: And his lips are not parted with man's breath;


s: I am a word out of the speechless years,


s: The tongue of time, that no man sleeps who hears.


s: I stand a shadow across the door of doom,


s: Athwart the lintel of death's house, and wait;


s: Nor quick nor dead, nor flexible by fate,


s: Nor quite of earth nor wholly of the tomb;


s: A voice, a vision, light as fire or air,


s: Driven between days that shall be and that were.


s: Of death cast out and life devouring death


s: As flame doth wood and stubble with a breath;


s: Of freedom, though all manhood were one slave;


s: Of truth, though all the world were liar; of love,


s: That time nor hate can raze the witness of.


s: Life that was given for love's sake and his law's


s: Their powers have no more power on; they divide


s: Spoils wrung from lust or wrath of man or pride,


s: Sets them on fire and scatters them on air


s: Like ashes shaken from a suppliant's hair.


s: But life they lay no hand on; life once given


s: No force of theirs hath competence to take;


s: Life that was given for some divine thing's sake,


s: To mix the bitterness of earth with heaven,


s: Light with man's night, and music with his breath,


s: Dies not, but makes its living food of death.


s: I have seen this, who live where men are not,


s: In the high starless air of fruitful night


s: Where dead and unborn things are one in thought


s: And whence the live unconquerable springs


s: Feed full of force the torrents of new things.


s: I have seen this, who saw long since, being man,


s: The fair bare body of Wisdom, good to see


s: And evil, whence my light and night began;


s: Light on the goal and darkness on the way,


s: Light all through night and darkness all through day.


s: Didst fold round in thine arms thy blinded son,


s: Weeping "O holiest, what thing hast thou done,


s: What, to my child? woe's me that see the thing!


s: Must I take sample how the gods can love?


s: "O child, thou hast seen indeed, poor child of mine,


s: The breasts and flanks of Pallas bare in sight,


s: But never shalt see more the dear sun's light;


s: For some poor antelopes and wild-deer dead,


s: My child's eyes hast thou taken in their stead--"


s: Mother, thou knewest not what she had to give,


s: Thy goddess, though then angered, for mine eyes;


s: Fame and foreknowledge, and to be most wise,


s: And centuries of high-thoughted life to live,


s: And in mine hand this guiding staff to be


s: As eyesight to the feet of men that see.


s: Perchance I shall not die at all, nor pass


s: The general door and lintel of men dead;


s: What grace should come with death to Tiresias,


s: What special honour that God's hand accord


s: Who gathers all men's nations as their lord.


s: And sometimes when the secret eye of thought


s: Is changed with obscuration, and the sense


s: Aches with long pain of hollow prescience,


s: And fiery foresight with foresuffering bought


s: Seems even to infect my spirit and consume,


s: Hunger and thirst come on me for the tomb.


s: I could be fain to drink my death and sleep,


s: And no more wrapped about with bitter dreams


s: Talk with the stars and with the winds and streams


s: And with the inevitable years, and weep;


s: For how should he who communes with the years


s: Be sometime not a living spring of tears?


s: Didst set thy maiden foot against the gate


s: To strike it open ere thine hour of fate,


s: For love's sake and the reverence of his awe


s: And through thee surely hath thy brother won


s: Rest, out of sight of our world-weary sun,


s: And in the dead land where ye ghosts draw breath


s: Happy, though earth have hold of thee too now.


s: Joy secret-souled beyond all hope or fear,


s: Thou art not dead as these are dead who live


s: Full of blind years, a sorrow-shaken kind,


s: Nor as these are am I the prophet blind;


s: They have not life that have not heart to give


s: Life, nor have eyesight who lack heart to see


s: O ye whom time but bears with for a span,


s: How long will ye be blind and dead, how long


s: Make your own souls part of your own soul's wrong?


s: Son of the word of the most high gods, man,


s: Why wilt thou make thine hour of light and breath


s: Emptier of all but shame than very death?


s: Fool, wilt thou live for ever? though thou care


s: With all thine heart for life to keep it fast,