The Wild Knight and Other Poems

     The Christ-child lay on Mary's lap,
       His hair was like a light.
     (O weary, weary were the world,
       But here is all aright.)

     The Christ-child lay on Mary's breast,
       His hair was like a star.
     (O stern and cunning are the kings,
       But here the true hearts are.)

     The Christ-child lay on Mary's heart,
       His hair was like a fire.
     (O weary, weary is the world,
       But here the world's desire.)

     The Christ-child stood at Mary's knee,
       His hair was like a crown,
     And all the flowers looked up at him.
       And all the stars looked down.

     Blessings there are of cradle and of clan,
       Blessings that fall of priests' and princes' hands;
       But never blessing full of lives and lands,
     Broad as the blessing of a lonely man.

     Though that old king fell from his primal throne,
       And ate among the cattle, yet this pride
       Had found him in the deepest grass, and cried
     An 'Ecce Homo' with the trumpets blown.

     And no mad tyrant, with almighty ban,
       Who in strong madness dreams himself divine,
       But hears through fumes of flattery and of wine
     The thunder of this blessing name him man.

     Let all earth rot past saints' and seraphs' plea,
       Yet shall a Voice cry through its last lost war,
       'This is the world, this red wreck of a star,
     That a man blessed beneath an alder-tree.'

     This circled cosmos whereof man is god
       Has suns and stars of green and gold and red,
     And cloudlands of great smoke, that range o'er range
       Far floating, hide its iron heavens o'erhead.

     God! shall we ever honour what we are,
        And see one moment ere the age expire,
     The vision of man shouting and erect,
        Whirled by the shrieking steeds of flood and fire?

     Or must Fate act the same grey farce again,
       And wait, till one, amid Time's wrecks and scars,
     Speaks to a ruin here, 'What poet-race
       Shot such cyclopean arches at the stars?'

     Many have Earth's lovers been,
     Tried in seas and wars, I ween;
     Yet the mightiest have I seen:
       Yea, the best saw I.
     One that in a field alone
     Stood up stiller than a stone
     Lest a moth should fly.

     Birds had nested in his hair,
     On his shoon were mosses rare.
     Insect empires flourished there,
       Worms in ancient wars;
     But his eyes burn like a glass,
     Hearing a great sea of grass
       Roar towards the stars.

     From, them to the human tree
     Rose a cry continually,
     'Thou art still, our Father, we
       Fain would have thee nod.
     Make the skies as blood below thee,
     Though thou slay us, we shall know thee.
       Answer us, O God!

     'Show thine ancient flame and thunder,
     Split the stillness once asunder,
     Lest we whisper, lest we wonder
       Art thou there at all?'
     But I saw him there alone,
     Standing stiller than a stone
       Lest a moth should fall.

     (W.E.G., May 1898)

     Lift up your heads: in life, in death,
       God knoweth his head was high.
     Quit we the coward's broken breath
       Who watched a strong man die.

     If we must say, 'No more his peer
       Cometh; the flag is furled.'
     Stand not too near him, lest he hear
       That slander on the world.

     The good green earth he loved and trod
       Is still, with many a scar,
     Writ in the chronicles of God,
       A giant-bearing star.

     He fell: but Britain's banner swings
       Above his sunken crown.
     Black death shall have his toll of kings
       Before that cross goes down.

     Once more shall move with mighty things
       His house of ancient tale,
     Where kings whose hands were kissed of kings
       Went in: and came out pale.

     O young ones of a darker day,
       In art's wan colours clad,
     Whose very love and hate are grey—
       Whose very sin is sad.

     Pass on: one agony long-drawn
       Was merrier than your mirth,
     When hand-in-hand came death and dawn,
       And spring was on the earth.

     Priest, is any song-bird stricken?
       Is one leaf less on the tree?
     Is this wine less red and royal
       That the hangman waits for me?

     He upon your cross that hangeth,
       It is writ of priestly pen,
     On the night they built his gibbet,
       Drank red wine among his men.

     Quaff, like a brave man, as he did,
       Wine and death as heaven pours—
     This is my fate: O ye rulers,
       O ye pontiffs, what is yours?

     To wait trembling, lest yon loathly
       Gallows-shape whereon I die,
     In strange temples yet unbuilded,
       Blaze upon an altar high.

     I saw an old man like a child,
     His blue eyes bright, his white hair wild,
     Who turned for ever, and might not stop,
     Round and round like an urchin's top.

     'Fool,' I cried, 'while you spin round,
     'Others grow wise, are praised, are crowned.'
     Ever the same round road he trod,
     'This is better: I seek for God.'

     'We see the whole world, left and right,
     Yet at the blind back hides from sight
     The unseen Master that drives us forth
     To East and West, to South and North.

     'Over my shoulder for eighty years
     I have looked for the gleam of the sphere of spheres.'
     'In all your turning, what have you found?'
     'At least, I know why the world goes round.'

     Though the whole heaven be one-eyed with the moon,
       Though the dead landscape seem a thing possessed,
       Yet I go singing through that land oppressed
     As one that singeth through the flowers of June.

     No more, with forest-fingers crawling free
       O'er dark flint wall that seems a wall of eyes,
       Shall evil break my soul with mysteries
     Of some world-poison maddening bush and tree.

     No more shall leering ghosts of pimp and king
       With bloody secrets veiled before me stand.
       Last night I held all evil in my hand
     Closed: and behold it was a little thing.

     I broke the infernal gates and looked on him
       Who fronts the strong creation with a curse;
       Even the god of a lost universe,
     Smiling above his hideous cherubim.

     And pierced far down in his soul's crypt unriven
       The last black crooked sympathy and shame,
       And hailed him with that ringing rainbow name
     Erased upon the oldest book in heaven.

     Like emptied idiot masks, sin's loves and wars
       Stare at me now: for in the night I broke
       The bubble of a great world's jest, and woke
     Laughing with laughter such as shakes the stars.

     'Elder father, though thine eyes
     Shine with hoary mysteries,
     Canst thou tell what in the heart
     Of a cowslip blossom lies?

     'Smaller than all lives that be,
     Secret as the deepest sea,
     Stands a little house of seeds,
     Like an elfin's granary,

     'Speller of the stones and weeds,
     Skilled in Nature's crafts and creeds,
     Tell me what is in the heart
     Of the smallest of the seeds.'

     'God Almighty, and with Him
     Cherubim and Seraphim,
     Filling all eternity—
     Adonai Elohim.'

     I dreamed a dream of heaven, white as frost,
     The splendid stillness of a living host;
     Vast choirs of upturned faces, line o'er line.
     Then my blood froze; for every face was mine.

     Spirits with sunset plumage throng and pass,
     Glassed darkly in the sea of gold and glass.
     But still on every side, in every spot,
     I saw a million selves, who saw me not.

     I fled to quiet wastes, where on a stone,
     Perchance, I found a saint, who sat alone;
     I came behind: he turned with slow, sweet grace,
     And faced me with my happy, hateful face.

     I cowered like one that in a tower doth bide,
     Shut in by mirrors upon every side;
     Then I saw, islanded in skies alone
     And silent, one that sat upon a throne.

     His robe was bordered with rich rose and gold,
     Green, purple, silver out of sunsets old;
     But o'er his face a great cloud edged with fire,
     Because it covereth the world's desire.

     But as I gazed, a silent worshipper,
     Methought the cloud began to faintly stir;
     Then I fell flat, and screamed with grovelling head,
     'If thou hast any lightning, strike me dead!

     'But spare a brow where the clean sunlight fell,
     The crown of a new sin that sickens hell.
     Let me not look aloft and see mine own
     Feature and form upon the Judgment-throne.'

     Then my dream snapped: and with a heart that leapt
     I saw across the tavern where I slept,
     The sight of all my life most full of grace,
     A gin-damned drunkard's wan half-witted face.

     Before the grass grew over me,
       I knew one good man through and through,
     And knew a soul and body joined
       Are stronger than the heavens are blue.

     A wisdom worthy of thy joy,
       O great heart, read I as I ran;
     Now, though men smite me on the face,
       I cannot curse the face of man.

     I loved the man I saw yestreen
       Hanged with his babe's blood on his palms.
     I loved the man I saw to-day
       Who knocked not when he came with alms.

     Hush!—for thy sake I even faced
       The knowledge that is worse than hell;
     And loved the man I saw but now
       Hanging head downwards in the well.

     Witness all: that unrepenting,
       Feathers flying, music high,
     I go down to death unshaken
       By your mean philosophy.

     For your wages, take my body,
       That at least to you I leave;
     Set the sulky plumes upon it,
       Bid the grinning mummers grieve.

     Stand in silence: steep your raiment
       In the night that hath no star;
     Don the mortal dress of devils,
       Blacker than their spirits are.

     Since ye may not, of your mercy,
       Ere I lie on such a hearse,
     Hurl me to the living jackals
       God hath built for sepulchres.

     This is the weird of a world-old folk,
       That not till the last link breaks,
     Not till the night is blackest,
       The blood of Hengist wakes.
     When the sun is black in heaven,
       The moon as blood above,
     And the earth is full of hatred,
       This people tells its love.

     In change, eclipse, and peril,
       Under the whole world's scorn,
     By blood and death and darkness
       The Saxon peace is sworn;
     That all our fruit be gathered,
        And all our race take hands,
     And the sea be a Saxon river
        That runs through Saxon lands.

     Lo! not in vain we bore him;
        Behold it! not in vain,
     Four centuries' dooms of torture
        Choked in the throat of Spain,
     Ere priest or tyrant triumph—
       We know how well—we know—
     Bone of that bone can whiten,
       Blood of that blood can flow.

     Deep grows the hate of kindred,
       Its roots take hold on hell;
     No peace or praise can heal it,
       But a stranger heals it well.
     Seas shall be red as sunsets,
       And kings' bones float as foam,
     And heaven be dark with vultures,
       The night our son comes home.

     A child sits in a sunny place,
       Too happy for a smile,
     And plays through one long holiday
       With balls to roll and pile;
     A painted wind-mill by his side
       Runs like a merry tune,
     But the sails are the four great winds of heaven,
       And the balls are the sun and moon.

     A staring doll's-house shows to him
       Green floors and starry rafter,
     And many-coloured graven dolls
       Live for his lonely laughter.
     The dolls have crowns and aureoles,
       Helmets and horns and wings.
     For they are the saints and seraphim,
       The prophets and the kings.

     A wan new garment of young green
       Touched, as you turned your soft brown hair
       And in me surged the strangest prayer
     Ever in lover's heart hath been.

     That I who saw your youth's bright page,
       A rainbow change from robe to robe,
       Might see you on this earthly globe,
     Crowned with the silver crown of age.

     Your dear hair powdered in strange guise,
       Your dear face touched with colours pale:
       And gazing through the mask and veil
     The mirth of your immortal eyes.

     Name not his deed: in shuddering and in haste
       We dragged him darkly o'er the windy fell:
     That night there was a gibbet in the waste,
         And a new sin in hell.

     Be his deed hid from commonwealths and kings,
       By all men born be one true tale forgot;
     But three things, braver than all earthly things,
         Faced him and feared him not.

     Above his head and sunken secret face
       Nested the sparrow's young and dropped not dead.
     From the red blood and slime of that lost place
         Grew daisies white, not red.

     And from high heaven looking upon him,
       Slowly upon the face of God did come
     A smile the cherubim and seraphim
         Hid all their faces from.

     A wan sky greener than the lawn,
       A wan lawn paler than the sky.
     She gave a flower into my hand,
       And all the hours of eve went by.

     Who knows what round the corner waits
       To smite? If shipwreck, snare, or slur
     Shall leave me with a head to lift,
       Worthy of him that spoke with her.

     A wan sky greener than the lawn,
       A wan lawn paler than the sky.
     She gave a flower into my hand,
       And all the days of life went by.

     Live ill or well, this thing is mine,
     From all I guard it, ill or well.
     One tawdry, tattered, faded flower
     To show the jealous kings in hell.

     Laugh your best, O blazoned forests,
       Me ye shall not shift or shame
     With your beauty: here among you
       Man hath set his spear of flame.

     Lamp to lamp we send the signal,
       For our lord goes forth to war;
     Since a voice, ere stars were builded,
       Bade him colonise a star.

     Laugh ye, cruel as the morning,
       Deck your heads with fruit and flower,
     Though our souls be sick with pity,
       Yet our hands are hard with power.

     We have read your evil stories,
       We have heard the tiny yell
     Through the voiceless conflagration
       Of your green and shining hell.

     And when men, with fires and shouting,
       Break your old tyrannic pales;
     And where ruled a single spider
       Laugh and weep a million tales.

     This shall be your best of boasting:
       That some poet, poor of spine.
     Full and sated with our wisdom,
       Full and fiery with our wine,

     Shall steal out and make a treaty
       With the grasses and the showers,
     Rail against the grey town-mother,
       Fawn upon the scornful flowers;

     Rest his head among the roses,
       Where a quiet song-bird sounds,
     And no sword made sharp for traitors,
       Hack him into meat for hounds.

     You that have snarled through the ages, take your answer and go—
     I know your hoary question, the riddle that all men know.
     You have weighed the stars in a balance, and grasped the skies in a span:
     Take, if you must have answer, the word of a common man.

     Deep in my life lies buried one love unhealed, unshriven,
     One hunger still shall haunt me—yea, in the streets of heaven;
     This is the burden, babbler, this is the curse shall cling,
     This is the thing I bring you; this is the pleasant thing.

     'Gainst you and all your sages, no joy of mine shall strive,
     This one dead self shall shatter the men you call alive.
     My grief I send to smite you, no pleasure, no belief,
     Lord of the battered grievance, what do you know of grief?

     I only know the praises to heaven that one man gave,
     That he came on earth for an instant, to stand beside a grave,
     The peace of a field of battle, where flowers are born of blood.
     I only know one evil that makes the whole world good.

     Beneath this single sorrow the globe of moon and sphere
     Turns to a single jewel, so bright and brittle and dear
     That I dread lest God should drop it, to be dashed into stars below.

     You that have snarled through the ages, take your answer and go.

     All things grew upwards, foul and fair:
     The great trees fought and beat the air
     With monstrous wings that would have flown;
     But the old earth clung to her own,
     Holding them back from heavenly wars,
     Though every flower sprang at the stars.

     But he broke free: while all things ceased,
     Some hour increasing, he increased.
     The town beneath him seemed a map,
     Above the church he cocked his cap,
     Above the cross his feather flew
     Above the birds and still he grew.

     The trees turned grass; the clouds were riven;
     His feet were mountains lost in heaven;
     Through strange new skies he rose alone,
     The earth fell from him like a stone,
     And his own limbs beneath him far
     Seemed tapering down to touch a star.

     He reared his head, shaggy and grim,
     Staring among the cherubim;
     The seven celestial floors he rent,
     One crystal dome still o'er him bent:
     Above his head, more clear than hope,
     All heaven was a microscope.

     Fair faces crowd on Christmas night
       Like seven suns a-row,
     But all beyond is the wolfish wind
       And the crafty feet of the snow.

     But through the rout one figure goes
       With quick and quiet tread;
     Her robe is plain, her form is frail—
       Wait if she turn her head.

     I say no word of line or hue,
       But if that face you see,
     Your soul shall know the smile of faith's
       Awful frivolity.

     Know that in this grotesque old masque
       Too loud we cannot sing,
     Or dance too wild, or speak too wide
       To praise a hidden thing.

     That though the jest be old as night,
       Still shaketh sun and sphere
     An everlasting laughter
       Too loud for us to hear.

     The sun was black with judgment, and the moon
             Blood: but between
     I saw a man stand, saying, 'To me at least
             The grass is green.

     'There was no star that I forgot to fear
             With love and wonder.
     The birds have loved me'; but no answer came—
             Only the thunder.

     Once more the man stood, saying, 'A cottage door,
             Wherethrough I gazed
     That instant as I turned—yea, I am vile;
             Yet my eyes blazed.

     'For I had weighed the mountains in a balance,
             And the skies in a scale,
     I come to sell the stars—old lamps for new—
             Old stars for sale.'

     Then a calm voice fell all the thunder through,
             A tone less rough:
     'Thou hast begun to love one of my works
             Almost enough.'

     We will not let thee be, for thou art ours.
       We thank thee still, though thou forget these things,
     For that hour's sake when thou didst wake all powers
       With a great cry that God was sick of kings.

     Leave thee there grovelling at their rusted greaves,
       These hulking cowards on a painted stage,
     Who, with imperial pomp and laurel leaves,
       Show their Marengo—one man in a cage.

     These, for whom stands no type or title given
       In all the squalid tales of gore and pelf;
     Though cowed by crashing thunders from all heaven.
       Cain never said, 'My brother slew himself.'

     Tear you the truth out of your drivelling spy,
       The maniac whom you set to swing death's scythe.
     Nay; torture not the torturer—let him lie:
       What need of racks to teach a worm to writhe?

     Bear with us, O our sister, not in pride,
       Nor any scorn we see thee spoiled of knaves,
     But only shame to hear, where Danton died,
       Thy foul dead kings all laughing in their graves.

     Thou hast a right to rule thyself; to be
       The thing thou wilt; to grin, to fawn, to creep:
     To crown these clumsy liars; ay, and we
       Who knew thee once, we have a right to weep.

     'What of vile dust?' the preacher said.
       Methought the whole world woke,
     The dead stone lived beneath my foot,
       And my whole body spoke.

     'You, that play tyrant to the dust,
       And stamp its wrinkled face,
     This patient star that flings you not
       Far into homeless space.

     'Come down out of your dusty shrine
       The living dust to see,
     The flowers that at your sermon's end
       Stand blazing silently.

     'Rich white and blood-red blossom; stones,
       Lichens like fire encrust;
     A gleam of blue, a glare of gold,
       The vision of the dust.

     'Pass them all by: till, as you come
       Where, at a city's edge,
     Under a tree—I know it well—
       Under a lattice ledge,

     'The sunshine falls on one brown head.
       You, too, O cold of clay,
     Eater of stones, may haply hear
       The trumpets of that day

     'When God to all his paladins
       By his own splendour swore
     To make a fairer face than heaven,
       Of dust and nothing more.'

     Five kings rule o'er the Amorite,
     Mighty as fear and old as night;
     Swathed with unguent and gold and jewel,
     Waxed they merry and fat and cruel.
     Zedek of Salem, a terror and glory,
     Whose face was hid while his robes were gory;
     And Hoham of Hebron, whose loathly face is
     Heavy and dark o'er the ruin of races;
     And Piram of Jarmuth, drunk with strange wine,
     Who dreamed he had fashioned all stars that shine;
     And Debir of Eglon wild, without pity,
     Who raged like a plague in the midst of his city;
     And Japhia of Lachish, a fire that flameth,
     Who did in the daylight what no man nameth.

     These five kings said one to another,
     'King unto king o'er the world is brother,
     Seeing that now, for a sign and a wonder,
     A red eclipse and a tongue of thunder,
     A shape and a finger of desolation,
     Is come against us a kingless nation.
     Gibeon hath failed us: it were not good
     That a man remember where Gibeon stood.'
     Then Gibeon sent to our captain, crying,
     'Son of Nun, let a shaft be flying,
     For unclean birds are gathering greedily;
     Slack not thy hand, but come thou speedily.
     Yea, we are lost save thou maintain'st us,
     For the kings of the mountains are gathered against us.'

     Then to our people spake the Deliverer,
     'Gibeon is high, yet a host may shiver her;
     Gibeon hath sent to me crying for pity,
     For the lords of the cities encompass the city
     With chariot and banner and bowman and lancer,
     And I swear by the living God I will answer.
     Gird you, O Israel, quiver and javelin,
     Shield and sword for the road we travel in;
     Verily, as I have promised, pay I
     Life unto Gibeon, death unto Ai.'

     Sudden and still as a bolt shot right
     Up on the city we went by night.
     Never a bird of the air could say,
     'This was the children of Israel's way.'

     Only the hosts sprang up from sleeping,
     Saw from the heights a dark stream sweeping;
     Sprang up straight as a great shout stung them,
     And heard the Deliverer's war-cry among them,
     Heard under cupola, turret, and steeple
     The awful cry of the kingless people.

     Started the weak of them, shouted the strong of them,
     Crashed we a thunderbolt into the throng of them,
     Blindly with heads bent, and shields forced before us,
     We heard the dense roar of the strife closing o'er us.
     And drunk with the crash of the song that it sung them,
     We drove the great spear-blade in God's name among them.

     Redder and redder the sword-flash fell.
     Our eyes and our nostrils were hotter than hell;
     Till full all the crest of the spear-surge shocking us,
     Hoham of Hebron cried out mocking us,
     'Nay, what need of the war-sword's plying,
     Out of the desert the dust comes flying.
     A little red dust, if the wind be blowing—
     Who shall reck of its coming or going?'
     Back the Deliverer spake as a clarion,
     'Mock at thy slaves, thou eater of carrion!
     Laughest thou at us, in thy kingly clowning,
     We, that laughed upon Ramases frowning.
     We that stood up proud, unpardoned,
     When his face was dark and his heart was hardened?
     Pharaoh we knew and his steeds, not faster
     Than the word of the Lord in thine ear, O master.

     Sheer through the turban his wantons wove him,
     Clean to the skull the Deliverer clove him;
     And the two hosts reeled at the sign appalling,
     As the great king fell like a great house falling.

     Loudly we shouted, and living and dying.
     Bore them all backward with strength and strong crying;
     And Caleb struck Zedek hard at the throat,
     And Japhia of Lachish Zebulon smote.
     The war-swords and axes were clashing and groaning,
     The fallen were fighting and foaming and moaning;
     The war-spears were breaking, the war-horns were braying,
     Ere the hands of the slayers were sated with slaying.
     And deep in the grasses grown gory and sodden,
     The treaders of all men were trampled and trodden;
     And over them, routed and reeled like cattle,
     High over the turn of the tide of the battle,
     High over noises that deafen and cover us,
     Rang the Deliverer's voice out over us.

     'Stand thou still, thou sun upon Gibeon,
     Stand thou, moon, in the valley of Ajalon!
     Shout thou, people, a cry like thunder,
     For the kings of the earth are broken asunder.
     Now we have said as the thunder says it,
     Something is stronger than strength and slays it.
     Now we have written for all time later,
     Five kings are great, yet a law is greater.
     Stare, O sun! in thine own great glory,
     This is the turn of the whole world's story.
     Stand thou still, thou sun upon Gibeon,
     Stand thou, moon, in the valley of Ajalon!

     'Smite! amid spear-blades blazing and breaking.
     More than we know of is rising and making.
     Stab with the javelin, crash with the car!
     Cry! for we know not the thing that we are.
     Stand, O sun! that in horrible patience
     Smiled on the smoke and the slaughter of nations.
     Thou shalt grow sad for a little crying,
     Thou shalt be darkened for one man's dying—
     Stand thou still, thou sun upon Gibeon,
     Stand thou, moon, in the valley of Ajalon!'

     After the battle was broken and spent
     Up to the hill the Deliverer went,
     Flung up his arms to the storm-clouds flying,
     And cried unto Israel, mightily crying,
     'Come up, O warriors! come up, O brothers!
     Tribesmen and herdsmen, maidens and mothers;
     The bondman's son and the bondman's daughter,
     The hewer of wood and the drawer of water,
     He that carries and he that brings,
     And set your foot on the neck of kings.'

     This is the story of Gibeon fight—
     Where we smote the lords of the Amorite;
     Where the banners of princes with slaughter were sodden.
     And the beards of seers in the rank grass trodden;
     Where the trees were wrecked by the wreck of cars,
     And the reek of the red field blotted the stars;
     Where the dead heads dropped from the swords that sever,
     Because His mercy endureth for ever.

     'VULGARISED'

     All round they murmur, 'O profane,
       Keep thy heart's secret hid as gold';
     But I, by God, would sooner be
       Some knight in shattering wars of old,

     In brown outlandish arms to ride,
       And shout my love to every star
     With lungs to make a poor maid's name
       Deafen the iron ears of war.

     Here, where these subtle cowards crowd,
       To stand and so to speak of love,
     That the four corners of the world
       Should hear it and take heed thereof.

     That to this shrine obscure there be
       One witness before all men given,
     As naked as the hanging Christ,
       As shameless as the sun in heaven.

     These whimperers—have they spared to us
       One dripping woe, one reeking sin?
     These thieves that shatter their own graves
       To prove the soul is dead within.

     They talk; by God, is it not time
       Some of Love's chosen broke the girth,
     And told the good all men have known
       Since the first morning of the earth?

     A bird flew out at the break of day
       From the nest where it had curled,
     And ere the eve the bird had set
       Fear on the kings of the world.

     The first tree it lit upon
       Was green with leaves unshed;
     The second tree it lit upon
       Was red with apples red;

     The third tree it lit upon
       Was barren and was brown,
     Save for a dead man nailed thereon
       On a hill above a town.

     That night the kings of the earth were gay
       And filled the cup and can;
     Last night the kings of the earth were chill
       For dread of a naked man.

     'If he speak two more words,' they said,
       'The slave is more than the free;
     If he speak three more words,' they said,
       'The stars are under the sea.'

     Said the King of the East to the King of the West,
       I wot his frown was set,
     'Lo; let us slay him and make him as dung,
       It is well that the world forget.'

     Said the King of the West to the King of the East,
       I wot his smile was dread,
     'Nay, let us slay him and make him a god,
       It is well that our god be dead.'

     They set the young man on a hill,
       They nailed him to a rod;
     And there in darkness and in blood
       They made themselves a god.

     And the mightiest word was left unsaid,
       And the world had never a mark,
     And the strongest man of the sons of men
       Went dumb into the dark.

     Then hymns and harps of praise they brought,
       Incense and gold and myrrh,
     And they thronged above the seraphim,
       The poor dead carpenter.

     'Thou art the prince of all,' they sang,
       'Ocean and earth and air.'
     Then the bird flew on to the cruel cross,
       And hid in the dead man's hair.

     'Thou art the sun of the world,' they cried,
       'Speak if our prayers be heard.'
     And the brown bird stirred in the dead man's hair,
       And it seemed that the dead man stirred.

     Then a shriek went up like the world's last cry
       From all nations under heaven,
     And a master fell before a slave
       And begged to be forgiven.

     They cowered, for dread in his wakened eyes
       The ancient wrath to see;
     And the bird flew out of the dead Christ's hair,
       And lit on a lemon-tree.

     How many million stars there be,
     That only God hath numberéd;
     But this one only chosen for me
     In time before her face was fled.
     Shall not one mortal man alive
         Hold up his head?