Songs Before Sunrise

      We mix from many lands,
         We march for very far;
      In hearts and lips and hands
         Our staffs and weapons are;
The light we walk in darkens sun and moon and star.

      It doth not flame and wane
         With years and spheres that roll,
      Storm cannot shake nor stain
         The strength that makes it whole,
The fire that moulds and moves it of the sovereign soul.

      We are they that have to cope
         With time till time retire;
      We live on hopeless hope,
         We feed on tears and fire;
Time, foot by foot, gives back before our sheer desire.

      From the edge of harsh derision,
         From discord and defeat,
      From doubt and lame division,
         We pluck the fruit and eat;
And the mouth finds it bitter, and the spirit sweet.

      We are girt with our belief,
         Clothed with our will and crowned;
      Hope, fear, delight, and grief,
         Before our will give ground;
Their calls are in our ears as shadows of dead sound.

      All but the heart forsakes us,
         All fails us but the will;
      Keen treason tracks and takes us
         In pits for blood to fill;
Friend falls from friend, and faith for faith lays wait to kill.

      Out under moon and stars
         And shafts of the urgent sun
      Whose face on prison-bars
         And mountain-heads is one,
Our march is everlasting till time’s march be done.

      Whither we know, and whence,
         And dare not care wherethrough.
      Desires that urge the sense,
         Fears changing old with new,
Perils and pains beset the ways we press into;

      Through the great desert beasts
         Howl at our backs by night,
      And thunder-forging priests
         Blow their dead bale-fires bright,
And on their broken anvils beat out bolts for fight.

      Inside their sacred smithies
         Though hot the hammer rings,
      Their steel links snap like withies,
         Their chains like twisted strings,
Their surest fetters are as plighted words of kings.

      O nations undivided,
         O single people and free,
      We dreamers, we derided,
         We mad blind men that see,
We bear you witness ere ye come that ye shall be.

      Ye sitting among tombs,
         Ye standing round the gate,
      Whom fire-mouthed war consumes,
         Or cold-lipped peace bids wait,
All tombs and bars shall open, every grave and grate.

      The locks shall burst in sunder,
         The hinges shrieking spin,
      When time, whose hand is thunder,
         Lays hand upon the pin,
And shoots the bolts reluctant, bidding all men in.

      France! from its grey dejection
         Make manifest the red
      Tempestuous resurrection
         Of thy most sacred head!
Break thou the covering cerecloths; rise up from the dead.

      And thou, whom sea-walls sever
         From lands unwalled with seas,
      Wilt thou endure for ever,
         O Milton’s England, these?
Thou that wast his Republic, wilt thou clasp their knees?

      These royalties rust-eaten,
         These worm-corroded lies,
      That keep thine head storm-beaten
         And sunlike strength of eyes
From the open heaven and air of intercepted skies;

      These princelings with gauze winglets
         That buzz in the air unfurled,
      These summer-swarming kinglets,
         These thin worms crowned and curled,
That bask and blink and warm themselves about the world;

      These honours without honour,
         These ghost-like gods of gold,
      This earth that wears upon her
         To keep her heart from cold
No memory more of men that brought it fire of old;

      These limbs, supine, unbuckled,
         In rottenness of rest,
      These sleepy lips blood-suckled
         And satiate of thy breast,
These dull wide mouths that drain thee dry and call thee blest;

      These masters of thee mindless
         That wear thee out of mind,
      These children of thee kindless
         That use thee out of kind,
Whose hands strew gold before thee and contempt behind;

      Who have turned thy name to laughter,
         Thy sea-like sounded name
      That now none hearkens after
         For faith in its free fame,
Who have robbed thee of thy trust and given thee of their shame;

      With empire and with treason
         The first right hand made fast,
      But in man’s nobler season
         To put forth help the last,
Love turns from thee, and memory disavows thy past.

      Lest thine own sea disclaim thee,
         Lest thine own sons despise,
      Lest lips shoot out that name thee
         And seeing thee men shut eyes,
Take thought with all thy people, turn thine head and rise.

      Turn thee, lift up thy face;
         What ails thee to be dead?
      Ask of thyself for grace,
         Seek of thyself for bread,
And who shall starve or shame thee, blind or bruise thine head?

      The same sun in thy sight,
         The same sea in thine ears,
      That saw thine hour at height,
         That sang thy song of years,
Behold and hearken for thee, knowing thy hopes and fears.

      Ye that from south to north,
         Ye that from east to west,
      Stretch hands of longing forth
         And keep your eyes from rest,
Lo, when ye will, we bring you gifts of what is best.

      From the awful northland pines
         That skirt their wan dim seas
      To the ardent Apennines
         And sun-struck Pyrenees,
One frost on all their frondage bites the blossoming trees.

      The leaves look up for light,
         For heat of helpful air;
      The trees of oldest height
         And thin storm-shaken hair
Seek with gaunt hands up heavenward if the sun be there.

      The woods where souls walk lonely,
         The forests girt with night,
      Desire the day-star only
         And firstlings of the light
Not seen of slaves nor shining in their masters’ sight.

      O sorrowing hearts of slaves,
         We heard you beat from far!
      We bring the light that saves,
         We bring the morning star;
Freedom’s good things we bring you, whence all good things are.

      With us the winds and fountains
         And lightnings live in tune;
      The morning-coloured mountains
         That burn into the noon,
The mist’s mild veil on valleys muffled from the moon:

      The thunder-darkened highlands
         And lowlands hot with fruit,
      Sea-bays and shoals and islands,
         And cliffs that foil man’s foot,
And all the flower of large-limbed life and all the root:

      The clangour of sea-eagles
         That teach the morning mirth
      With baying of heaven’s beagles
         That seek their prey on earth,
By sounding strait and channel, gulf and reach and firth.

      With us all natural sights,
         All notes of natural scale;
      With us the starry lights;
         With us the nightingale;
With us the heart and secret of the worldly tale.

      The strife of things and beauty,
         The fire and light adored,
      Truth, and life-lightening duty,
         Love without crown or sword,
That by his might and godhead makes man god and lord.

      These have we, these are ours,
         That no priests give nor kings;
      The honey of all these flowers,
         The heart of all these springs;
Ours, for where freedom lives not, there live no good things.

      Rise, ere the dawn be risen;
         Come, and be all souls fed;
      From field and street and prison
         Come, for the feast is spread;
Live, for the truth is living; wake, for night is dead.

Inside this northern summer’s fold
The fields are full of naked gold,
Broadcast from heaven on lands it loves;
The green veiled air is full of doves;
Soft leaves that sift the sunbeams let
Light on the small warm grasses wet
Fall in short broken kisses sweet,
And break again like waves that beat
Round the sun’s feet.

But I, for all this English mirth
Of golden-shod and dancing days,
And the old green-girt sweet-hearted earth,
Desire what here no spells can raise.
Far hence, with holier heavens above,
The lovely city of my love
Bathes deep in the sun-satiate air
That flows round no fair thing more fair
Her beauty bare.

O gracious city well-beloved,
   Italian, and a maiden crowned,
Siena, my feet are no more moved
   Toward thy strange-shapen mountain-bound:
But my heart in me turns and moves,
O lady loveliest of my loves,
Toward thee, to lie before thy feet
And gaze from thy fair fountain-seat
Up the sheer street;

And the house midway hanging see
That saw Saint Catherine bodily,
Felt on its floors her sweet feet move,
And the live light of fiery love
Burn from her beautiful strange face,
As in the sanguine sacred place
Where in pure hands she took the head
Severed, and with pure lips still red
Kissed the lips dead.

For years through, sweetest of the saints,
   In quiet without cease she wrought,
Till cries of men and fierce complaints
   From outward moved her maiden thought;
And prayers she heard and sighs toward France,
“God, send us back deliverance,
Send back thy servant, lest we die!”
With an exceeding bitter cry
They smote the sky.

Across the might of men that strove
   It shone, and over heads of kings;
And molten in red flames of love
   Were swords and many monstrous things;
And shields were lowered, and snapt were spears,
And sweeter-tuned the clamorous years;
And faith came back, and peace, that were
Fled; for she bade, saying, “Thou, God’s heir,
Hast thou no care?

“Lo, men lay waste thine heritage
Still, and much heathen people rage
Against thee, and devise vain things.
What comfort in the face of kings,
What counsel is there?  Turn thine eyes
And thine heart from them in like wise;
Turn thee unto thine holy place
To help us that of God for grace
Require thy face.

“And strange men feed on faultless lives,
And there is blood, and men put knives,
Shepherd, unto the young lamb’s throat;
And one hath eaten, and one smote,
And one had hunger and is fed
Full of the flesh of these, and red
With blood of these as who drinks wine
And God knoweth, who hath sent thee a sign,
If these were thine.”

But the Pope’s heart within him burned,
   So that he rose up, seeing the sign,
And came among them; but she turned
   Back to her daily way divine,
And fed her faith with silent things,
And lived her life with curbed white wings,
And mixed herself with heaven and died:
And now on the sheer city-side
Smiles like a bride.

You see her in the fresh clear gloom,
Where walls shut out the flame and bloom
Of full-breathed summer, and the roof
Keeps the keen ardent air aloof
And sweet weight of the violent sky:
There bodily beheld on high,
She seems as one hearing in tune
Heaven within heaven, at heaven’s full noon,
In sacred swoon:

There on the dim side-chapel wall
Thy mighty touch memorial,
Razzi, raised up, for ages dead,
And fixed for us her heavenly head:
And, rent with plaited thorn and rod,
Bared the live likeness of her God
To men’s eyes turning from strange lands,
Where, pale from thine immortal hands,
Christ wounded stands;

And the blood blots his holy hair
   And white brows over hungering eyes
That plead against us, and the fair
   Mute lips forlorn of words or sighs
In the great torment that bends down
His bruised head with the bloomless crown,
White as the unfruitful thorn-flower,
A God beheld in dreams that were
Beheld of her.

Surely your race it was that he,
   O men signed backward with his name,
Beholding in Gethsemane
   Bled the red bitter sweat of shame,
Knowing how the word of Christian should
Mean to men evil and not good,
Seem to men shameful for your sake,
Whose lips, for all the prayers they make,
Man’s blood must slake.

But blood nor tears ye love not, you
That my love leads my longing to,
Fair as the world’s old faith of flowers,
O golden goddesses of ours!
From what Idalian rose-pleasance
Hath Aphrodite bidden glance
The lovelier lightnings of your feet?
From what sweet Paphian sward or seat
Led you more sweet?

O white three sisters, three as one,
   With flowerlike arms for flowery bands
Your linked limbs glitter like the sun,
   And time lies beaten at your hands.
Time and wild years and wars and men
Pass, and ye care not whence or when;
With calm lips over sweet for scorn,
Ye watch night pass, O children born
Of the old-world morn.

For the outer land is sad, and wears
   A raiment of a flaming fire;
And the fierce fruitless mountain stairs
   Climb, yet seem wroth and loth to aspire,
Climb, and break, and are broken down,
And through their clefts and crests the town
Looks west and sees the dead sun lie,
In sanguine death that stains the sky
With angry dye.

And from the war-worn wastes without
In twilight, in the time of doubt,
One sound comes of one whisper, where
Moved with low motions of slow air
The great trees nigh the castle swing
In the sad coloured evening;
“Ricorditi di me, che son
La Pia”—that small sweet word alone
Is not yet gone.

With other face, with speech the same,
A mightier maiden’s likeness came
Late among mourning men that slept,
A sacred ghost that went and wept,
White as the passion-wounded Lamb,
Saying, “Ah, remember me, that am
Italia.”  (From deep sea to sea
Earth heard, earth knew her, that this was she.)
“Ricorditi.

“Love made me of all things fairest thing,
   And Hate unmade me; this knows he
Who with God’s sacerdotal ring
   Enringed mine hand, espousing me.”
Yea, in thy myriad-mooded woe,
Yea, Mother, hast thou not said so?
Have not our hearts within us stirred,
O thou most holiest, at thy word?
Have we not heard?

As this dead tragic land that she
Found deadly, such was time to thee;
Years passed thee withering in the red
Maremma, years that deemed thee dead,
Ages that sorrowed or that scorned;
And all this while though all they mourned
Thou sawest the end of things unclean,
And the unborn that should see thee a queen.
Have we not seen?

Look thou from Siena southward home,
Where the priest’s pall hangs rent on Rome,
And through the red rent swaddling-bands
Towards thine she strains her labouring hands.
Look thou and listen, and let be
All the dead quick, all the bond free;
In the blind eyes let there be sight;
In the eighteen centuries of the night
Let there be light.

Bow down the beauty of thine head,
   Sweet, and with lips of living breath
Kiss thy sons sleeping and thy dead,
   That there be no more sleep or death.
Give us thy light, thy might, thy love,
Whom thy face seen afar above
Drew to thy feet; and when, being free,
Thou hast blest thy children born to thee,
Bless also me.

Me consecrated, if I might,
   To praise thee, or to love at least,
O mother of all men’s dear delight,
   Thou madest a choral-souled boy-priest,
Before my lips had leave to sing,
Or my hands hardly strength to cling
About the intolerable tree
Whereto they had nailed my heart and thee
And said, “Let be.”

For to thee too the high Fates gave
Grace to be sacrificed and save,
That being arisen, in the equal sun,
God and the People should be one;
By those red roads thy footprints trod,
Man more divine, more human God,
Saviour; that where no light was known
But darkness, and a daytime flown,
Light should be shown.

Let there be light, O Italy!
   For our feet falter in the night.
O lamp of living years to be,
   O light of God, let there be light!
Fill with a love keener than flame
Men sealed in spirit with thy name,
The cities and the Roman skies,
Where men with other than man’s eyes
Saw thy sun rise.

For thine are all of us, and ours
   Thou; till the seasons bring to birth
A perfect people, and all the powers
   Be with them that bear fruit on earth;
Till the inner heart of man be one
With freedom, and the sovereign sun;
And Time, in likeness of a guide,
Lead the Republic as a bride
Up to God’s side.

O heart of hearts, the chalice of love’s fire,
   Hid round with flowers and all the bounty of bloom;
   O wonderful and perfect heart, for whom
The lyrist liberty made life a lyre;
O heavenly heart, at whose most dear desire
   Dead love, living and singing, cleft his tomb,
   And with him risen and regent in death’s room
All day thy choral pulses rang full choir;
O heart whose beating blood was running song,
   O sole thing sweeter than thine own songs were,
      Help us for thy free love’s sake to be free,
True for thy truth’s sake, for thy strength’s sake strong,
   Till very liberty make clean and fair
      The nursing earth as the sepulchral sea.

Is thine hour come to wake, O slumbering Night?
   Hath not the Dawn a message in thine ear?
   Though thou be stone and sleep, yet shalt thou hear
When the word falls from heaven—Let there be light.
Thou knowest we would not do thee the despite
   To wake thee while the old sorrow and shame were near;
   We spake not loud for thy sake, and for fear
Lest thou shouldst lose the rest that was thy right,
The blessing given thee that was thine alone,
The happiness to sleep and to be stone:
   Nay, we kept silence of thee for thy sake
Albeit we knew thee alive, and left with thee
The great good gift to feel not nor to see;
   But will not yet thine Angel bid thee wake?

PART I

It is an hour before the hour of dawn.
   Set in mine hand my staff and leave me here
   Outside the hollow house that blind men fear,
More blind than I who live on life withdrawn
   And feel on eyes that see not but foresee
   The shadow of death which clothes Antigone.

Here lay her living body that here lies
   Dead, if man living know what thing is death,
   If life be all made up of blood and breath,
And no sense be save as of ears and eyes.
   But heart there is not, tongue there is not found,
   To think or sing what verge hath life or bound.

In the beginning when the powers that made
   The young child man a little loved him, seeing
   His joy of life and fair face of his being,
And bland and laughing with the man-child played,
   As friends they saw on our divine one day
   King Cadmus take to queen Harmonia.

It was long since: yea, even the sun that saw
   Remembers hardly what was, nor how long.
   And now the wise heart of the worldly song
Is perished, and the holy hand of law
   Can set no tune on time, nor help again
   The power of thought to build up life for men.

Yea, surely are they now transformed or dead,
   And sleep below this world, where no sun warms,
   Or move about it now in formless forms
Incognizable, and all their lordship fled;
   And where they stood up singing crawl and hiss,
   With fangs that kill behind their lips that kiss.

Yet though her marriage-garment, seeming fair,
   Was dyed in sin and woven of jealousy
   To turn their seed to poison, time shall see
The gods reissue from them, and repair
   Their broken stamp of godhead, and again
   Thought and wise love sing words of law to men.

I am as Time’s self in mine own wearied mind,
   Whom the strong heavy-footed years have led
   From night to night and dead men unto dead,
And from the blind hope to the memory blind;
   For each man’s life is woven, as Time’s life is,
   Of blind young hopes and old blind memories.

I am a soul outside of death and birth.
   I see before me and afterward I see,
   O child, O corpse, the live dead face of thee,
Whose life and death are one thing upon earth
   Where day kills night and night again kills day
   And dies; but where is that Harmonia?

O all-beholden light not seen of me,
   Air, and warm winds that under the sun’s eye
   Stretch your strong wings at morning; and thou, sky,
Whose hollow circle engirdling earth and sea
   All night the set stars limit, and all day
   The moving sun remeasures; ye, I say,

Ye heights of hills, and thou Dircean spring
   Inviolable, and ye towers that saw cast down
   Seven kings keen-sighted toward your seven-faced town
And quenched the red seed of one sightless king;
   And thou, for death less dreadful than for birth,
   Whose wild leaves hide the horror of the earth,

Yea, and a grief more grievous, without name,
   A curse too grievous for the name of grief,
   Thou sawest, and heardst the rumour scare belief
Even unto death and madness, when the flame
   Was lit whose ashes dropped about the pyre
   That of two brethren made one sundering fire;

O bitter nurse, that on thine hard bare knees
   Rear’dst for his fate the bloody-footed child
   Whose hands should be more bloodily defiled
And the old blind feet walk wearier ways than these,
   Whose seed, brought forth in darkness unto doom,
   Should break as fire out of his mother’s womb;

I bear you witness as ye bear to me,
   Time, day, night, sun, stars, life, death, air, sea, earth,
   And ye that round the human house of birth
Watch with veiled heads and weaponed hands, and see
   Good things and evil, strengthless yet and dumb,
   Sit in the clouds with cloudlike hours to come;

What should I do to blame you, what to praise,
   For floral hours and hours funereal?
   What should I do to curse or bless at all
For winter-woven or summer-coloured days?
   Curse he that will and bless you whoso can,
   I have no common part in you with man.

I hear a springing water, whose quick sound
   Makes softer the soft sunless patient air,
   And the wind’s hand is laid on my thin hair
Light as a lover’s, and the grasses round
   Have odours in them of green bloom and rain
   Sweet as the kiss wherewith sleep kisses pain.

I hear the low sound of the spring of time
   Still beating as the low live throb of blood,
   And where its waters gather head and flood
I hear change moving on them, and the chime
   Across them of reverberate wings of hours
   Sounding, and feel the future air of flowers.

The wind of change is soft as snow, and sweet
   The sense thereof as roses in the sun,
   The faint wind springing with the springs that run,
The dim sweet smell of flowering hopes, and heat
   Of unbeholden sunrise; yet how long
   I know not, till the morning put forth song.

I stand a shadow across the door of doom,
   Athwart the lintel of death’s house, and wait;
   Nor quick nor dead, nor flexible by fate,
Nor quite of earth nor wholly of the tomb;
   A voice, a vision, light as fire or air,
   Driven between days that shall be and that were.

I prophesy, with feet upon a grave,
   Of death cast out and life devouring death
   As flame doth wood and stubble with a breath;
Of freedom, though all manhood were one slave;
   Of truth, though all the world were liar; of love,
   That time nor hate can raze the witness of.

Life that was given for love’s sake and his law’s
   Their powers have no more power on; they divide
   Spoils wrung from lust or wrath of man or pride,
And keen oblivion without pity or pause
   Sets them on fire and scatters them on air
   Like ashes shaken from a suppliant’s hair.

But life they lay no hand on; life once given
   No force of theirs hath competence to take;
   Life that was given for some divine thing’s sake,
To mix the bitterness of earth with heaven,
   Light with man’s night, and music with his breath,
   Dies not, but makes its living food of death.

I have seen this, who saw long since, being man,
   As now I know not if indeed I be,
   The fair bare body of Wisdom, good to see
And evil, whence my light and night began;
   Light on the goal and darkness on the way,
   Light all through night and darkness all through day.

Mother, that by that Pegasean spring
   Didst fold round in thine arms thy blinded son,
   Weeping “O holiest, what thing hast thou done,
What, to my child? woe’s me that see the thing!
   Is this thy love to me-ward, and hereof
   Must I take sample how the gods can love?

“O child, thou hast seen indeed, poor child of mine,
   The breasts and flanks of Pallas bare in sight,
   But never shalt see more the dear sun’s light;
O Helicon, how great a pay is thine
   For some poor antelopes and wild-deer dead,
   My child’s eyes hast thou taken in their stead—”

Mother, thou knewest not what she had to give,
   Thy goddess, though then angered, for mine eyes;
   Fame and foreknowledge, and to be most wise,
And centuries of high-thoughted life to live,
   And in mine hand this guiding staff to be
   As eyesight to the feet of men that see.

And sometimes when the secret eye of thought
   Is changed with obscuration, and the sense
   Aches with long pain of hollow prescience,
And fiery foresight with foresuffering bought
   Seems even to infect my spirit and consume,
   Hunger and thirst come on me for the tomb.

I could be fain to drink my death and sleep,
   And no more wrapped about with bitter dreams
   Talk with the stars and with the winds and streams
And with the inevitable years, and weep;
   For how should he who communes with the years
   Be sometime not a living spring of tears?

O child, that guided of thine only will
   Didst set thy maiden foot against the gate
   To strike it open ere thine hour of fate,
Antigone, men say not thou didst ill,
   For love’s sake and the reverence of his awe
   Divinely dying, slain by mortal law;

For love is awful as immortal death.
   And through thee surely hath thy brother won
   Rest, out of sight of our world-weary sun,
And in the dead land where ye ghosts draw breath
   A royal place and honour; so wast thou
   Happy, though earth have hold of thee too now.

Thou art not dead as these are dead who live
   Full of blind years, a sorrow-shaken kind,
   Nor as these are am I the prophet blind;
They have not life that have not heart to give
   Life, nor have eyesight who lack heart to see
   When to be not is better than to be.

O ye whom time but bears with for a span,
   How long will ye be blind and dead, how long
   Make your own souls part of your own soul’s wrong?
Son of the word of the most high gods, man,
   Why wilt thou make thine hour of light and breath
   Emptier of all but shame than very death?

Fool, wilt thou live for ever? though thou care
   With all thine heart for life to keep it fast,
   Shall not thine hand forego it at the last?
Lo, thy sure hour shall take thee by the hair
   Sleeping, or when thou knowest not, or wouldst fly;
   And as men died much mightier shalt thou die.

Yea, they are dead, men much more worth than thou;
   The savour of heroic lives that were,
   Is it not mixed into thy common air?
The sense of them is shed about thee now:
   Feel not thy brows a wind blowing from far?
   Aches not thy forehead with a future star?

But these men that the lessening years behold,
   Who sit the most part without flame or crown,
   And brawl and sleep and wear their life-days down
With joys and griefs ignobler than of old,
   And care not if the better day shall be—
   Are these or art thou dead, Antigone?

PART II

As when one wakes out of a waning dream
   And sees with instant eyes the naked thought
   Whereof the vision as a web was wrought,
I saw beneath a heaven of cloud and gleam,
   Ere yet the heart of the young sun waxed brave,
   One like a prophet standing by a grave.

In the hoar heaven was hardly beam or breath,
   And all the coloured hills and fields were grey,
   And the wind wandered seeking for the day,
And wailed as though he had found her done to death
   And this grey hour had built to bury her
   The hollow twilight for a sepulchre.

Such eyes should God’s have been when very love
   Looked forth of them and set the sun aflame,
   And such his lips that called the light by name
And bade the morning forth at sound thereof;
   His face was sad and masterful as fate,
   And like a star’s his look compassionate.

Like a star’s gazed on of sad eyes so long
   It seems to yearn with pity, and all its fire
   As a man’s heart to tremble with desire
And heave as though the light would bring forth song;
   Yet from his face flashed lightning on the land,
   And like the thunder-bearer’s was his hand.

The steepness of strange stairs had tired his feet,
   And his lips yet seemed sick of that salt bread
   Wherewith the lips of banishment are fed;
But nothing was there in the world so sweet
   As the most bitter love, like God’s own grace,
   Wherewith he gazed on that fair buried face.

Grief and glad pride and passion and sharp shame,
   Wrath and remembrance, faith and hope and hate
   And pitiless pity of days degenerate,
Were in his eyes as an incorporate flame
   That burned about her, and the heart thereof
   And central flower was very fire of love.

And fiery shadows passing with strange cries,
   And Sphinx-like shapes about the ruined lands,
   And the red reek of parricidal hands
And intermixture of incestuous eyes,
   And light as of that self-divided flame
   Which made an end of the Cadmean name.

And I beheld again, and lo the grave,
   And the bright body laid therein as dead,
   And the same shadow across another head
That bowed down silent on that sleeping slave
   Who was the lady of empire from her birth
   And light of all the kingdoms of the earth.

Within the compass of the watcher’s hand
   All strengths of other men and divers powers
   Were held at ease and gathered up as flowers;
His heart was as the heart of his whole land,
   And at his feet as natural servants lay
   Twilight and dawn and night and labouring day.

He was most awful of the sons of God.
   Even now men seeing seemed at his lips to see
   The trumpet of the judgment that should be,
And in his right hand terror for a rod,
   And in the breath that made the mountains bow
   The horned fire of Moses on his brow.

Pale, with the whole world’s judgment in his eyes,
   He stood and saw the grief and shame endure
   That he, though highest of angels might not cure,
And the same sins done under the same skies,
   And the same slaves to the same tyrants thrown,
   And fain he would have slept, and fain been stone.

But with unslumbering eyes he watched the sleep
   That sealed her sense whose eyes were suns of old;
   And the night shut and opened, and behold,
The same grave where those prophets came to weep,
   But she that lay therein had moved and stirred,
   And where those twain had watched her stood a third.

The tripled rhyme that closed in Paradise
   With Love’s name sealing up its starry speech—
   The tripled might of hand that found in reach
All crowns beheld far off of all men’s eyes,
   Song, colour, carven wonders of live stone—
   These were not, but the very soul alone.

The living spirit, the good gift of grace,
   The faith which takes of its own blood to give
   That the dead veins of buried hope may live,
Came on her sleeping, face to naked face,
   And from a soul more sweet than all the south
   Breathed love upon her sealed and breathless mouth.

And the third prophet standing by her grave
   Stretched forth his hand and touched her, and her eyes
   Opened as sudden suns in heaven might rise,
And her soul caught from his the faith to save;
   Faith above creeds, faith beyond records, born
   Of the pure, naked, fruitful, awful morn.

For in the daybreak now that night was dead
   The light, the shadow, the delight, the pain,
   The purpose and the passion of those twain,
Seemed gathered on that third prophetic head,
   And all their crowns were as one crown, and one
   His face with her face in the living sun.

For even with that communion of their eyes
   His whole soul passed into her and made her strong;
   And all the sounds and shows of shame and wrong,
The hand that slays, the lip that mocks and lies,
   Temples and thrones that yet men seem to see—
   Are these dead or art thou dead, Italy?

Maiden most beautiful, mother most bountiful, lady of lands,
Queen and republican, crowned of the centuries whose years are thy sands,
See for thy sake what we bring to thee, Italy, here in our hands.

This is the banner thy gonfalon, fair in the front of thy fight,
Red from the hearts that were pierced for thee, white as thy mountains are white,
Green as the spring of thy soul everlasting, whose life-blood is light.

Take to thy bosom thy banner, a fair bird fit for the nest,
Feathered for flight into sunrise or sunset, for eastward or west,
Fledged for the flight everlasting, but held yet warm to thy breast.

Gather it close to thee, song-bird or storm-bearer, eagle or dove,
Lift it to sunward, a beacon beneath to the beacon above,
Green as our hope in it, white as our faith in it, red as our love.

Out of thine hands hast thou fed us with pasture of colour and song;
Glory and beauty by birthright to thee as thy garments belong;
Out of thine hands thou shalt give us as surely deliverance from wrong.

Out of thine eyes thou hast shed on us love as a lamp in our night,
Wisdom a lodestar to ships, and remembrance a flame-coloured light;
Out of thine eyes thou shalt shew us as surely the sun-dawn of right.

Turn to us, speak to us, Italy, mother, but once and a word,
None shall not follow thee, none shall not serve thee, not one that has heard;
Twice hast thou spoken a message, and time is athirst for the third.

Kingdom and empire of peoples thou hadst, and thy lordship made one
North sea and south sea and east men and west men that look on the sun;
Spirit was in thee and counsel, when soul in the nations was none.

Ah, by the faith and the hope and the love that have need of thee now,
Shines not thy face with the forethought of freedom, and burns not thy brow?
Who is against her but all men? and who is beside her but thou?

Art thou not better than all men? and where shall she turn but to thee?
Lo, not a breath, not a beam, not a beacon from midland to sea;
Freedom cries out for a sign among nations, and none will be free.

England in doubt of her, France in despair of her, all without heart—
Stand on her side in the vanward of ages, and strike on her part!
Strike but one stroke for the love of her love of thee, sweet that thou art!

Take in thy right hand thy banner, a strong staff fit for thine hand;
Forth at the light of it lifted shall foul things flock from the land;
Faster than stars from the sun shall they fly, being lighter than sand.

This thing is fairest in all time of all things, in all time is best—
Freedom, that made thee, our mother, and suckled her sons at thy breast;
Take to thy bosom the nations, and there shall the world come to rest.

A faint sea without wind or sun;
A sky like flameless vapour dun;
   A valley like an unsealed grave
That no man cares to weep upon,
   Bare, without boon to crave,
      Or flower to save.

And on the lip’s edge of the down,
Here where the bent-grass burns to brown
   In the dry sea-wind, and the heath
Crawls to the cliff-side and looks down,
   I watch, and hear beneath
      The low tide breathe.

Along the long lines of the cliff,
Down the flat sea-line without skiff
   Or sail or back-blown fume for mark,
Through wind-worn heads of heath and stiff
   Stems blossomless and stark
      With dry sprays dark,

I send mine eyes out as for news
Of comfort that all these refuse,
   Tidings of light or living air
From windward where the low clouds muse
   And the sea blind and bare
      Seems full of care.

As a queen taken and stripped and bound
Sat earth, discoloured and discrowned;
   As a king’s palace empty and dead
The sky was, without light or sound;
   And on the summer’s head
      Were ashes shed.

Scarce wind enough was on the sea,
Scarce hope enough there moved in me,
   To sow with live blown flowers of white
The green plain’s sad serenity,
   Or with stray thoughts of light
      Touch my soul’s sight.

By footless ways and sterile went
My thought unsatisfied, and bent
   With blank unspeculative eyes
On the untracked sands of discontent
   Where, watched of helpless skies,
      Life hopeless lies.

East and west went my soul to find
Light, and the world was bare and blind
   And the soil herbless where she trod
And saw men laughing scourge mankind,
   Unsmitten by the rod
      Of any God.

Hope flowering had but strength to bear
The fruitless fruitage of despair;
   Grief trod the grapes of joy for wine,
Whereof love drinking unaware
   Died as one undivine
      And made no sign.

And soul and body dwelt apart;
And weary wisdom without heart
   Stared on the dead round heaven and sighed,
“Is death too hollow as thou art,
   Or as man’s living pride?”
      And saying so died.

And my soul heard the songs and groans
That are about and under thrones,
   And felt through all time’s murmur thrill
Fate’s old imperious semitones
   That made of good and ill
      One same tune still.

Then “Where is God? and where is aid?
Or what good end of these?” she said;
   “Is there no God or end at all,
Nor reason with unreason weighed,
   Nor force to disenthral
      Weak feet that fall?

O fool, that for brute cries of wrong
Heard not the grey glad mother’s song
   Ring response from the hills and waves,
But heard harsh noises all day long
   Of spirits that were slaves
      And dwelt in graves.

The wise word of the secret earth
Who knows what life and death are worth,
   And how no help and no control
Can speed or stay things come to birth,
   Nor all worlds’ wheels that roll
      Crush one born soul.

With all her tongues of life and death,
With all her bloom and blood and breath,
   From all years dead and all things done,
In the ear of man the mother saith,
   “There is no God, O son,
      If thou be none.”

So my soul sick with watching heard
That day the wonder of that word,
   And as one springs out of a dream
Sprang, and the stagnant wells were stirred
   Whence flows through gloom and gleam
      Thought’s soundless stream.

A multitudinous monotone
Of dust and flower and seed and stone,
   In the deep sea-rock’s mid-sea sloth,
In the live water’s trembling zone,
   In all men love and loathe,
      One God at growth.

One forceful nature uncreate
That feeds itself with death and fate,
   Evil and good, and change and time,
That within all men lies at wait
   Till the hour shall bid them climb
      And live sublime.

For all things come by fate to flower
At their unconquerable hour,
   And time brings truth, and truth makes free,
And freedom fills time’s veins with power,
   As, brooding on that sea,
      My thought filled me.

And the sun smote the clouds and slew,
And from the sun the sea’s breath blew,
   And white waves laughed and turned and fled
The long green heaving sea-field through,
   And on them overhead
      The sky burnt red

And with divine triumphant awe
My spirit moved within me saw,
   With burning passion of stretched eyes,
Clear as the light’s own firstborn law,
   In windless wastes of skies
      Time’s deep dawn rise.