The dawn of night more fair than morning rose,Stars hurrying forth on stars, as snows on snowsHaste when the wind and winter bid them speed.Vague miles of moorland road behind us layScarce traversed ere the daySank, and the sun forsook us at our need,Belated. Where we thought to have rested, restWas none; for soft Maree's dim quivering breast,Bound round with gracious inland girth of greenAnd fearless of the wild wave-wandering West,Shone shelterless for strangers; and unseenThe goal before us layOf all our blithe and strange and strenuous day.For when the northering road faced westward—whenThe dark sharp sudden gorge dropped seaward—then,Beneath the stars, between the steeps, the trackWe followed, lighted not of moon or sun,And plunging whither noneMight guess, while heaven and earth were hoar and black,Seemed even the dim still pass whence none turns back:And through the twilight leftward of the way,And down the dark, with many a laugh and leap,The light blithe hill-streams shone from scaur to steepIn glittering pride of play;And ever while the night grew great and deepWe felt but saw not what the hills would keepSacred awhile from sense of moon or star;And full and farBeneath us, sweet and strange as heaven may be,The sea.The very sea: no mountain-moulded lakeWhose fluctuant shapeliness is fain to takeShape from the steadfast shore that rules it round,And only from the storms a casual sound:The sea, that harbours in her heart sublimeThe supreme heart of music deep as time,And in her spirit strongThe spirit of all imaginable song.Not a whisper or lisp from the waters: the skies were not silenter. PeaceWas between them; a passionless rapture of respite as soft as release.Not a sound, but a sense that possessed and pervaded with patient delightThe soul and the body, clothed round with the comfort of limitless night.Night infinite, living, adorable, loved of the land and the sea:Night, mother of mercies, who saith to the spirits in prison, Be free.And softer than dewfall, and kindlier than starlight, and keener than wine,Came round us the fragrance of waters, the life of the breath of the brine.We saw not, we heard not, the face or the voice of the waters: we knewBy the darkling delight of the wind as the sense of the sea in it grew,By the pulse of the darkness about us enkindled and quickened, that here,Unseen and unheard of us, surely the goal we had faith in was near.A silence diviner than music, a darkness diviner than light,Fulfilled as from heaven with a measureless comfort the measure of night.But never a roof for shelterAnd never a sign for guideRose doubtful or visible: onlyAnd hardly and gladly we heardThe soft waves whisper and welter,Subdued, and allured to subside,By the mild night's magic: the lonelySweet silence was soothed, not stirred,By the noiseless noise of the gleamingGlad ripples, that played and sighed,Kissed, laughed, recoiled, and relented,Whispered, flickered, and fled.No season was this for dreamingHow oft, with a stormier tide,Had the wrath of the winds been ventedOn sons of the tribes long dead:The tribes whom time, and the changesOf things, and the stress of doom,Have erased and effaced; forgottenAs wrecks or weeds of the shoreIn sight of the stern hill-rangesThat hardly may change their gloomWhen the fruits of the years wax rottenAnd the seed of them springs no more.For the dim strait footway dividingThe waters that breathed belowLed safe to the kindliest of sheltersThat ever awoke into light:And still in remembrance abidingBroods over the stars that glowAnd the water that eddies and weltersThe passionate peace of the night.All night long, in the world of sleep,Skies and waters were soft and deep:Shadow clothed them, and silence madeSoundless music of dream and shade:All above us, the livelong night,Shadow, kindled with sense of light;All around us, the brief night long,Silence, laden with sense of song.Stars and mountains without, we knew,Watched and waited, the soft night through:All unseen, but divined and dear,Thrilled the touch of the sea's breath near:All unheard, but alive like sound,Throbbed the sense of the sea's life round:Round us, near us, in depth and height,Soft as darkness and keen as light.And the dawn leapt in at my casement: and there, as I rose, at my feetNo waves of the landlocked waters, no lake submissive and sweet,Soft slave of the lordly seasons, whose breath may loose it or freeze;But to left and to right and ahead was the ripple whose pulse is the sea's.From the gorge we had travelled by starlight the sunrise, winged and aflame,Shone large on the live wide wavelets that shuddered with joy as it came;As it came and caressed and possessed them, till panting and laughing with lightFrom mountain to mountain the water was kindled and stung to delight.And the grey gaunt heights that embraced and constrained and compelled it were glad,And the rampart of rock, stark naked, that thwarted and barred it, was cladWith a stern grey splendour of sunrise: and scarce had I sprung to the seaWhen the dawn and the water were wedded, the hills and the sky set free.The chain of the night was broken: the waves that embraced me and smiledAnd flickered and fawned in the sunlight, alive, unafraid, undefiled,Were sweeter to swim in than air, though fulfilled with the mounting morn,Could be for the birds whose triumph rejoiced that a day was born.And a day was arisen indeed for us. Years and the changes of yearsClothed round with their joys and their sorrows, and dead as their hopes and their fears,Lie noteless and nameless, unlit by remembrance or record of daysWorth wonder or memory, or cursing or blessing, or passion or praise,Between us who live and forget not, but yearn with delight in it yet,And the day we forget not, and never may live and may think to forget.And the years that were kindlier and fairer, and kindled with pleasures as keen,Have eclipsed not with lights or with shadows the light on the face of it seen.For softly and surely, as nearer the boat that we gazed from drew,The face of the precipice opened and bade us as birds pass through,And the bark shot sheer to the sea through the strait of the sharp steep cleft,The portal that opens with imminent rampires to right and to left,Sublime as the sky they darken and strange as a spell-struck dream,On the world unconfined of the mountains, the reign of the sea supreme,The kingdom of westward waters, wherein when we swam we knewThe waves that we clove were boundless, the wind on our brows that blewHad swept no land and no lake, and had warred not on tower or on tree,But came on us hard out of heaven, and alive with the soul of the sea.
The dawn of night more fair than morning rose,Stars hurrying forth on stars, as snows on snowsHaste when the wind and winter bid them speed.Vague miles of moorland road behind us layScarce traversed ere the daySank, and the sun forsook us at our need,Belated. Where we thought to have rested, restWas none; for soft Maree's dim quivering breast,Bound round with gracious inland girth of greenAnd fearless of the wild wave-wandering West,Shone shelterless for strangers; and unseenThe goal before us layOf all our blithe and strange and strenuous day.
For when the northering road faced westward—whenThe dark sharp sudden gorge dropped seaward—then,Beneath the stars, between the steeps, the trackWe followed, lighted not of moon or sun,And plunging whither noneMight guess, while heaven and earth were hoar and black,Seemed even the dim still pass whence none turns back:And through the twilight leftward of the way,And down the dark, with many a laugh and leap,The light blithe hill-streams shone from scaur to steepIn glittering pride of play;And ever while the night grew great and deepWe felt but saw not what the hills would keepSacred awhile from sense of moon or star;And full and farBeneath us, sweet and strange as heaven may be,The sea.
The very sea: no mountain-moulded lakeWhose fluctuant shapeliness is fain to takeShape from the steadfast shore that rules it round,And only from the storms a casual sound:The sea, that harbours in her heart sublimeThe supreme heart of music deep as time,And in her spirit strongThe spirit of all imaginable song.
Not a whisper or lisp from the waters: the skies were not silenter. PeaceWas between them; a passionless rapture of respite as soft as release.Not a sound, but a sense that possessed and pervaded with patient delightThe soul and the body, clothed round with the comfort of limitless night.Night infinite, living, adorable, loved of the land and the sea:Night, mother of mercies, who saith to the spirits in prison, Be free.And softer than dewfall, and kindlier than starlight, and keener than wine,Came round us the fragrance of waters, the life of the breath of the brine.We saw not, we heard not, the face or the voice of the waters: we knewBy the darkling delight of the wind as the sense of the sea in it grew,By the pulse of the darkness about us enkindled and quickened, that here,Unseen and unheard of us, surely the goal we had faith in was near.A silence diviner than music, a darkness diviner than light,Fulfilled as from heaven with a measureless comfort the measure of night.
But never a roof for shelterAnd never a sign for guideRose doubtful or visible: onlyAnd hardly and gladly we heardThe soft waves whisper and welter,Subdued, and allured to subside,By the mild night's magic: the lonelySweet silence was soothed, not stirred,By the noiseless noise of the gleamingGlad ripples, that played and sighed,Kissed, laughed, recoiled, and relented,Whispered, flickered, and fled.No season was this for dreamingHow oft, with a stormier tide,Had the wrath of the winds been ventedOn sons of the tribes long dead:The tribes whom time, and the changesOf things, and the stress of doom,Have erased and effaced; forgottenAs wrecks or weeds of the shoreIn sight of the stern hill-rangesThat hardly may change their gloomWhen the fruits of the years wax rottenAnd the seed of them springs no more.For the dim strait footway dividingThe waters that breathed belowLed safe to the kindliest of sheltersThat ever awoke into light:And still in remembrance abidingBroods over the stars that glowAnd the water that eddies and weltersThe passionate peace of the night.
All night long, in the world of sleep,Skies and waters were soft and deep:Shadow clothed them, and silence madeSoundless music of dream and shade:All above us, the livelong night,Shadow, kindled with sense of light;All around us, the brief night long,Silence, laden with sense of song.Stars and mountains without, we knew,Watched and waited, the soft night through:All unseen, but divined and dear,Thrilled the touch of the sea's breath near:All unheard, but alive like sound,Throbbed the sense of the sea's life round:Round us, near us, in depth and height,Soft as darkness and keen as light.
And the dawn leapt in at my casement: and there, as I rose, at my feetNo waves of the landlocked waters, no lake submissive and sweet,Soft slave of the lordly seasons, whose breath may loose it or freeze;But to left and to right and ahead was the ripple whose pulse is the sea's.From the gorge we had travelled by starlight the sunrise, winged and aflame,Shone large on the live wide wavelets that shuddered with joy as it came;As it came and caressed and possessed them, till panting and laughing with lightFrom mountain to mountain the water was kindled and stung to delight.And the grey gaunt heights that embraced and constrained and compelled it were glad,And the rampart of rock, stark naked, that thwarted and barred it, was cladWith a stern grey splendour of sunrise: and scarce had I sprung to the seaWhen the dawn and the water were wedded, the hills and the sky set free.The chain of the night was broken: the waves that embraced me and smiledAnd flickered and fawned in the sunlight, alive, unafraid, undefiled,Were sweeter to swim in than air, though fulfilled with the mounting morn,Could be for the birds whose triumph rejoiced that a day was born.
And a day was arisen indeed for us. Years and the changes of yearsClothed round with their joys and their sorrows, and dead as their hopes and their fears,Lie noteless and nameless, unlit by remembrance or record of daysWorth wonder or memory, or cursing or blessing, or passion or praise,Between us who live and forget not, but yearn with delight in it yet,And the day we forget not, and never may live and may think to forget.And the years that were kindlier and fairer, and kindled with pleasures as keen,Have eclipsed not with lights or with shadows the light on the face of it seen.For softly and surely, as nearer the boat that we gazed from drew,The face of the precipice opened and bade us as birds pass through,And the bark shot sheer to the sea through the strait of the sharp steep cleft,The portal that opens with imminent rampires to right and to left,Sublime as the sky they darken and strange as a spell-struck dream,On the world unconfined of the mountains, the reign of the sea supreme,The kingdom of westward waters, wherein when we swam we knewThe waves that we clove were boundless, the wind on our brows that blewHad swept no land and no lake, and had warred not on tower or on tree,But came on us hard out of heaven, and alive with the soul of the sea.
September, all glorious with gold, as a kingIn the radiance of triumph attired,Outlightening the summer, outsweetening the spring,Broods wide on the woodlands with limitless wing,A presence of all men desired.Far eastward and westward the sun-coloured landsSmile warm as the light on them smiles;And statelier than temples upbuilded with hands,Tall column by column, the sanctuary standsOf the pine-forest's infinite aisles.Mute worship, too fervent for praise or for prayer,Possesses the spirit with peace,Fulfilled with the breath of the luminous air,The fragrance, the silence, the shadows as fairAs the rays that recede or increase.Ridged pillars that redden aloft and aloof,With never a branch for a nest,Sustain the sublime indivisible roof,To the storm and the sun in his majesty proof,And awful as waters at rest.Man's hand hath not measured the height of them; thoughtMay measure not, awe may not know;In its shadow the woofs of the woodland are wrought;As a bird is the sun in the toils of them caught,And the flakes of it scattered as snow.As the shreds of a plumage of gold on the groundThe sun-flakes by multitudes lie,Shed loose as the petals of roses discrownedOn the floors of the forest engilt and embrownedAnd reddened afar and anigh.Dim centuries with darkling inscrutable handsHave reared and secluded the shrineFor gods that we know not, and kindled as brandsOn the altar the years that are dust, and their sandsTime's glass has forgotten for sign.A temple whose transepts are measured by miles,Whose chancel has morning for priest,Whose floor-work the foot of no spoiler defiles,Whose musical silence no music beguiles,No festivals limit its feast.The noon's ministration, the night's and the dawn's,Conceals not, reveals not for man,On the slopes of the herbless and blossomless lawns,Some track of a nymph's or some trail of a faun'sTo the place of the slumber of Pan.Thought, kindled and quickened by worship and wonderTo rapture too sacred for fearOn the ways that unite or divide them in sunder,Alone may discern if about them or underBe token or trace of him here.With passionate awe that is deeper than panicThe spirit subdued and unshakenTakes heed of the godhead terrene and TitanicWhose footfall is felt on the breach of volcanicSharp steeps that their fire has forsaken.By a spell more serene than the dim necromanticDead charms of the past and the night,Or the terror that lurked in the noon to make franticWhere Etna takes shape from the limbs of giganticDead gods disanointed of might,The spirit made one with the spirit whose breathMakes noon in the woodland sublimeAbides as entranced in a presence that saithThings loftier than life and serener than death,Triumphant and silent as time.Pine Ridge:September 1893
September, all glorious with gold, as a kingIn the radiance of triumph attired,Outlightening the summer, outsweetening the spring,Broods wide on the woodlands with limitless wing,A presence of all men desired.
Far eastward and westward the sun-coloured landsSmile warm as the light on them smiles;And statelier than temples upbuilded with hands,Tall column by column, the sanctuary standsOf the pine-forest's infinite aisles.
Mute worship, too fervent for praise or for prayer,Possesses the spirit with peace,Fulfilled with the breath of the luminous air,The fragrance, the silence, the shadows as fairAs the rays that recede or increase.
Ridged pillars that redden aloft and aloof,With never a branch for a nest,Sustain the sublime indivisible roof,To the storm and the sun in his majesty proof,And awful as waters at rest.
Man's hand hath not measured the height of them; thoughtMay measure not, awe may not know;In its shadow the woofs of the woodland are wrought;As a bird is the sun in the toils of them caught,And the flakes of it scattered as snow.
As the shreds of a plumage of gold on the groundThe sun-flakes by multitudes lie,Shed loose as the petals of roses discrownedOn the floors of the forest engilt and embrownedAnd reddened afar and anigh.
Dim centuries with darkling inscrutable handsHave reared and secluded the shrineFor gods that we know not, and kindled as brandsOn the altar the years that are dust, and their sandsTime's glass has forgotten for sign.
A temple whose transepts are measured by miles,Whose chancel has morning for priest,Whose floor-work the foot of no spoiler defiles,Whose musical silence no music beguiles,No festivals limit its feast.
The noon's ministration, the night's and the dawn's,Conceals not, reveals not for man,On the slopes of the herbless and blossomless lawns,Some track of a nymph's or some trail of a faun'sTo the place of the slumber of Pan.
Thought, kindled and quickened by worship and wonderTo rapture too sacred for fearOn the ways that unite or divide them in sunder,Alone may discern if about them or underBe token or trace of him here.
With passionate awe that is deeper than panicThe spirit subdued and unshakenTakes heed of the godhead terrene and TitanicWhose footfall is felt on the breach of volcanicSharp steeps that their fire has forsaken.
By a spell more serene than the dim necromanticDead charms of the past and the night,Or the terror that lurked in the noon to make franticWhere Etna takes shape from the limbs of giganticDead gods disanointed of might,
The spirit made one with the spirit whose breathMakes noon in the woodland sublimeAbides as entranced in a presence that saithThings loftier than life and serener than death,Triumphant and silent as time.
Pine Ridge:September 1893
JANUARYHail, January, that bearest hereOn snowbright breasts the babe-faced yearThat weeps and trembles to be born.Hail, maid and mother, strong and bright,Hooded and cloaked and shod with white,Whose eyes are stars that match the morn.Thy forehead braves the storm's bent bow,Thy feet enkindle stars of snow.FEBRUARYWan February with weeping cheer,Whose cold hand guides the youngling yearDown misty roads of mire and rime,Before thy pale and fitful faceThe shrill wind shifts the clouds apaceThrough skies the morning scarce may climb.Thine eyes are thick with heavy tears,But lit with hopes that light the year's.MARCHHail, happy March, whose foot on earthRings as the blast of martial mirthWhen trumpets fire men's hearts for fray.No race of wild things winged or finnedMay match the might that wings thy windThrough air and sea, through scud and spray.Strong joy and thou were powers twin-bornOf tempest and the towering morn.APRILCrowned April, king whose kiss bade earthBring forth to time her lordliest birthWhen Shakespeare from thy lips drew breathAnd laughed to hold in one soft handA spell that bade the world's wheel stand,And power on life, and power on death,With quiring suns and sunbright showersPraise him, the flower of all thy flowers.MAYHail, May, whose bark puts forth full-sailedFor summer; May, whom Chaucer hailedWith all his happy might of heart,And gave thy rosebright daisy-tipsStrange fragrance from his amorous lipsThat still thine own breath seems to partAnd sweeten till each word they sayIs even a flower of flowering May.JUNEStrong June, superb, serene, elateWith conscience of thy sovereign stateUntouched of thunder, though the stormScathe here and there thy shuddering skiesAnd bid its lightning cross thine eyesWith fire, thy golden hours informEarth and the souls of men with lifeThat brings forth peace from shining strife.JULYHail, proud July, whose fervent mouthBids even be morn and north be southBy grace and gospel of thy word,Whence all the splendour of the seaLies breathless with delight in theeAnd marvel at the music heardFrom the ardent silent lips of noonAnd midnight's rapturous plenilune.AUGUSTGreat August, lord of golden lands,Whose lordly joy through seas and strandsAnd all the red-ripe heart of earthStrikes passion deep as life, and stillsThe folded vales and folding hillsWith gladness too divine for mirth,The gracious glories of thine eyesMake night a noon where darkness dies.SEPTEMBERHail, kind September, friend whose graceRenews the bland year's bounteous faceWith largess given of corn and wineThrough many a land that laughs with loveOf thee and all the heaven above,More fruitful found than all save thineWhose skies fulfil with strenuous cheerThe fervent fields that knew thee near.OCTOBEROctober of the tawny crown,Whose heavy-laden hands drop downBlessing, the bounties of thy breathAnd mildness of thy mellowing mightFill earth and heaven with love and lightToo sweet for fear to dream of deathOr memory, while thy joy lives yet,To know what joy would fain forget.NOVEMBERHail, soft November, though thy paleSad smile rebuke the words that hailThy sorrow with no sorrowing wordsOr gratulate thy grief with songLess bitter than the winds that wrongThy withering woodlands, where the birdsKeep hardly heart to sing or seeHow fair thy faint wan face may be.DECEMBERDecember, thou whose hallowing handsOn shuddering seas and hardening landsSet as a sacramental signThe seal of Christmas felt on earthAs witness toward a new year's birthWhose promise makes thy death divine,The crowning joy that comes of theeMakes glad all grief on land or sea.
JANUARY
Hail, January, that bearest hereOn snowbright breasts the babe-faced yearThat weeps and trembles to be born.Hail, maid and mother, strong and bright,Hooded and cloaked and shod with white,Whose eyes are stars that match the morn.Thy forehead braves the storm's bent bow,Thy feet enkindle stars of snow.
FEBRUARY
Wan February with weeping cheer,Whose cold hand guides the youngling yearDown misty roads of mire and rime,Before thy pale and fitful faceThe shrill wind shifts the clouds apaceThrough skies the morning scarce may climb.Thine eyes are thick with heavy tears,But lit with hopes that light the year's.
MARCH
Hail, happy March, whose foot on earthRings as the blast of martial mirthWhen trumpets fire men's hearts for fray.No race of wild things winged or finnedMay match the might that wings thy windThrough air and sea, through scud and spray.Strong joy and thou were powers twin-bornOf tempest and the towering morn.
APRIL
Crowned April, king whose kiss bade earthBring forth to time her lordliest birthWhen Shakespeare from thy lips drew breathAnd laughed to hold in one soft handA spell that bade the world's wheel stand,And power on life, and power on death,With quiring suns and sunbright showersPraise him, the flower of all thy flowers.
MAY
Hail, May, whose bark puts forth full-sailedFor summer; May, whom Chaucer hailedWith all his happy might of heart,And gave thy rosebright daisy-tipsStrange fragrance from his amorous lipsThat still thine own breath seems to partAnd sweeten till each word they sayIs even a flower of flowering May.
JUNE
Strong June, superb, serene, elateWith conscience of thy sovereign stateUntouched of thunder, though the stormScathe here and there thy shuddering skiesAnd bid its lightning cross thine eyesWith fire, thy golden hours informEarth and the souls of men with lifeThat brings forth peace from shining strife.
JULY
Hail, proud July, whose fervent mouthBids even be morn and north be southBy grace and gospel of thy word,Whence all the splendour of the seaLies breathless with delight in theeAnd marvel at the music heardFrom the ardent silent lips of noonAnd midnight's rapturous plenilune.
AUGUST
Great August, lord of golden lands,Whose lordly joy through seas and strandsAnd all the red-ripe heart of earthStrikes passion deep as life, and stillsThe folded vales and folding hillsWith gladness too divine for mirth,The gracious glories of thine eyesMake night a noon where darkness dies.
SEPTEMBER
Hail, kind September, friend whose graceRenews the bland year's bounteous faceWith largess given of corn and wineThrough many a land that laughs with loveOf thee and all the heaven above,More fruitful found than all save thineWhose skies fulfil with strenuous cheerThe fervent fields that knew thee near.
OCTOBER
October of the tawny crown,Whose heavy-laden hands drop downBlessing, the bounties of thy breathAnd mildness of thy mellowing mightFill earth and heaven with love and lightToo sweet for fear to dream of deathOr memory, while thy joy lives yet,To know what joy would fain forget.
NOVEMBER
Hail, soft November, though thy paleSad smile rebuke the words that hailThy sorrow with no sorrowing wordsOr gratulate thy grief with songLess bitter than the winds that wrongThy withering woodlands, where the birdsKeep hardly heart to sing or seeHow fair thy faint wan face may be.
DECEMBER
December, thou whose hallowing handsOn shuddering seas and hardening landsSet as a sacramental signThe seal of Christmas felt on earthAs witness toward a new year's birthWhose promise makes thy death divine,The crowning joy that comes of theeMakes glad all grief on land or sea.
ISea and strand, and a lordlier land than sea-tides rolling and rising sunClasp and lighten in climes that brighten with day when day that was here is done,Call aloud on their children, proud with trust that future and past are one.Far and near from the swan's nest here the storm-birds bred of her fair white breast,Sons whose home was the sea-wave's foam, have borne the fame of her east and west;North and south has the storm-wind's mouth rung praise of England and England's quest.Fame, wherever her flag flew, never forbore to fly with an equal wing:France and Spain with their warrior train bowed down before her as thrall to king;India knelt at her feet, and felt her sway more fruitful of life than spring.Darkness round them as iron bound fell off from races of elder name,Slain at sight of her eyes, whose light bids freedom lighten and burn as flame;Night endures not the touch that cures of kingship tyrants, and slaves of shame.All the terror of time, where error and fear were lords of a world of slaves,Age on age in resurgent rage and anguish darkening as waves on waves,Fell or fled from a face that shed such grace as quickens the dust of graves.Things of night at her glance took flight: the strengths of darkness recoiled and sank:Sank the fires of the murderous pyres whereon wild agony writhed and shrank:Rose the light of the reign of right from gulfs of years that the darkness drank.Yet the might of her wings in flight, whence glory lightens and music rings,Loud and bright as the dawn's, shall smite and still the discord of evil things,Yet not slain by her radiant reign, but darkened now by her sail-stretched wings.IIMusic made of change and conquest, glory born of evil slain,Stilled the discord, slew the darkness, bade the lights of tempest wane,Where the deathless dawn of England rose in sign that right should reign.Mercy, where the tiger wallowed mad and blind with blood and lust,Justice, where the jackal yelped and fed, and slaves allowed it just,Rose as England's light on Asia rose, and smote them down to dust.Justice bright as mercy, mercy girt by justice with her sword,Smote and saved and raised and ruined, till the tyrant-ridden hordeSaw the lightning fade from heaven and knew the sun for God and lord.Where the footfall sounds of England, where the smile of England shines,Rings the tread and laughs the face of freedom, fair as hope divinesDays to be, more brave than ours and lit by lordlier stars for signs.All our past acclaims our future: Shakespeare's voice and Nelson's hand,Milton's faith and Wordsworth's trust in this our chosen and chainless land,Bear us witness: come the world against her, England yet shall stand.Earth and sea bear England witness if he lied who said it; heWhom the winds that ward her, waves that clasp, and herb and flower and treeFed with English dews and sunbeams, hail as more than man may be.No man ever spake as he that bade our England be but true,Keep but faith with England fast and firm, and none should bid her rue;None may speak as he: but all may know the sign that Shakespeare knew.IIIFrom the springs of the dawn, from the depths of the noon, from the heights of the night that shine,Hope, faith, and remembrance of glory that found but in England her throne and her shrine,Speak louder than song may proclaim them, that here is the seal of them set for a sign.And loud as the sea's voice thunders applause of the land that is one with the seaSpeaks Time in the ear of the people that never at heart was not inly freeThe word of command that assures us of life, if we will but that life shall be;If the race that is first of the races of men who behold unashamed the sunStand fast and forget not the sign that is given of the years and the wars that are done,The token that all who are born of its blood should in heart as in blood be one.The word of remembrance that lightens as fire from the steeps of the storm-lit pastBids only the faith of our fathers endure in us, firm as they held it fast:That the glory which was from the first upon England alone may endure to the last.That the love and the hate may change not, the faith may not fade, nor the wrath nor scorn,That shines for her sons and that burns for her foemen as fire of the night or the morn:That the births of her womb may forget not the sign of the glory wherein they were born.A light that is more than the sunlight, an air that is brighter than morning's breath,Clothes England about as the strong sea clasps her, and answers the word that it saith;The word that assures her of life if she change not, and choose not the ways of death.Change darkens and lightens around her, alternate in hope and in fear to be:Hope knows not if fear speak truth, nor fear whether hope be not blind as she:But the sun is in heaven that beholds her immortal, and girdled with life by the sea.
I
Sea and strand, and a lordlier land than sea-tides rolling and rising sunClasp and lighten in climes that brighten with day when day that was here is done,Call aloud on their children, proud with trust that future and past are one.
Far and near from the swan's nest here the storm-birds bred of her fair white breast,Sons whose home was the sea-wave's foam, have borne the fame of her east and west;North and south has the storm-wind's mouth rung praise of England and England's quest.
Fame, wherever her flag flew, never forbore to fly with an equal wing:France and Spain with their warrior train bowed down before her as thrall to king;India knelt at her feet, and felt her sway more fruitful of life than spring.
Darkness round them as iron bound fell off from races of elder name,Slain at sight of her eyes, whose light bids freedom lighten and burn as flame;Night endures not the touch that cures of kingship tyrants, and slaves of shame.
All the terror of time, where error and fear were lords of a world of slaves,Age on age in resurgent rage and anguish darkening as waves on waves,Fell or fled from a face that shed such grace as quickens the dust of graves.
Things of night at her glance took flight: the strengths of darkness recoiled and sank:Sank the fires of the murderous pyres whereon wild agony writhed and shrank:Rose the light of the reign of right from gulfs of years that the darkness drank.
Yet the might of her wings in flight, whence glory lightens and music rings,Loud and bright as the dawn's, shall smite and still the discord of evil things,Yet not slain by her radiant reign, but darkened now by her sail-stretched wings.
II
Music made of change and conquest, glory born of evil slain,Stilled the discord, slew the darkness, bade the lights of tempest wane,Where the deathless dawn of England rose in sign that right should reign.
Mercy, where the tiger wallowed mad and blind with blood and lust,Justice, where the jackal yelped and fed, and slaves allowed it just,Rose as England's light on Asia rose, and smote them down to dust.
Justice bright as mercy, mercy girt by justice with her sword,Smote and saved and raised and ruined, till the tyrant-ridden hordeSaw the lightning fade from heaven and knew the sun for God and lord.
Where the footfall sounds of England, where the smile of England shines,Rings the tread and laughs the face of freedom, fair as hope divinesDays to be, more brave than ours and lit by lordlier stars for signs.
All our past acclaims our future: Shakespeare's voice and Nelson's hand,Milton's faith and Wordsworth's trust in this our chosen and chainless land,Bear us witness: come the world against her, England yet shall stand.
Earth and sea bear England witness if he lied who said it; heWhom the winds that ward her, waves that clasp, and herb and flower and treeFed with English dews and sunbeams, hail as more than man may be.
No man ever spake as he that bade our England be but true,Keep but faith with England fast and firm, and none should bid her rue;None may speak as he: but all may know the sign that Shakespeare knew.
III
From the springs of the dawn, from the depths of the noon, from the heights of the night that shine,Hope, faith, and remembrance of glory that found but in England her throne and her shrine,Speak louder than song may proclaim them, that here is the seal of them set for a sign.
And loud as the sea's voice thunders applause of the land that is one with the seaSpeaks Time in the ear of the people that never at heart was not inly freeThe word of command that assures us of life, if we will but that life shall be;
If the race that is first of the races of men who behold unashamed the sunStand fast and forget not the sign that is given of the years and the wars that are done,The token that all who are born of its blood should in heart as in blood be one.
The word of remembrance that lightens as fire from the steeps of the storm-lit pastBids only the faith of our fathers endure in us, firm as they held it fast:That the glory which was from the first upon England alone may endure to the last.
That the love and the hate may change not, the faith may not fade, nor the wrath nor scorn,That shines for her sons and that burns for her foemen as fire of the night or the morn:That the births of her womb may forget not the sign of the glory wherein they were born.
A light that is more than the sunlight, an air that is brighter than morning's breath,Clothes England about as the strong sea clasps her, and answers the word that it saith;The word that assures her of life if she change not, and choose not the ways of death.
Change darkens and lightens around her, alternate in hope and in fear to be:Hope knows not if fear speak truth, nor fear whether hope be not blind as she:But the sun is in heaven that beholds her immortal, and girdled with life by the sea.
IFour hundred summers and fifty have shone on the meadows of Thames and diedSince Eton arose in an age that was darkness, and shone by his radiant sideAs a star that the spell of a wise man's word bade live and ascend and abide.And ever as time's flow brightened, a river more dark than the storm-clothed sea,And age upon age rose fairer and larger in promise of hope set free,With England Eton her child kept pace as a fostress of men to be.And ever as earth waxed wiser, and softer the beating of time's wide wings,Since fate fell dark on her father, most hapless and gentlest of star-crossed kings,Her praise has increased as the chant of the dawn that the choir of the noon outsings.IIStorm and cloud in the skies were loud, and lightning mocked at the blind sun's light;War and woe on the land below shed heavier shadow than falls from night;Dark was earth at her dawn of birth as here her record of praise is bright.Clear and fair through her morning air the light first laugh of the sunlit stageRose and rang as a fount that sprang from depths yet dark with a spent storm's rage,Loud and glad as a boy's, and bade the sunrise open on Shakespeare's age.Lords of state and of war, whom fate found strong in battle, in counsel strong,Here, ere fate had approved them great, abode their season, and thought not long:Here too first was the lark's note nursed that filled and flooded the skies with song.IIIShelley, lyric lord of England's lordliest singers, here first heardRing from lips of poets crowned and dead the Promethean wordWhence his soul took fire, and power to outsoar the sunward-soaring bird.Still the reaches of the river, still the light on field and hill,Still the memories held aloft as lamps for hope's young fire to fill,Shine, and while the light of England lives shall shine for England still.When four hundred more and fifty years have risen and shone and set,Bright with names that men remember, loud with names that men forget,Haply here shall Eton's record be what England finds it yet.
I
Four hundred summers and fifty have shone on the meadows of Thames and diedSince Eton arose in an age that was darkness, and shone by his radiant sideAs a star that the spell of a wise man's word bade live and ascend and abide.
And ever as time's flow brightened, a river more dark than the storm-clothed sea,And age upon age rose fairer and larger in promise of hope set free,With England Eton her child kept pace as a fostress of men to be.
And ever as earth waxed wiser, and softer the beating of time's wide wings,Since fate fell dark on her father, most hapless and gentlest of star-crossed kings,Her praise has increased as the chant of the dawn that the choir of the noon outsings.
II
Storm and cloud in the skies were loud, and lightning mocked at the blind sun's light;War and woe on the land below shed heavier shadow than falls from night;Dark was earth at her dawn of birth as here her record of praise is bright.
Clear and fair through her morning air the light first laugh of the sunlit stageRose and rang as a fount that sprang from depths yet dark with a spent storm's rage,Loud and glad as a boy's, and bade the sunrise open on Shakespeare's age.
Lords of state and of war, whom fate found strong in battle, in counsel strong,Here, ere fate had approved them great, abode their season, and thought not long:Here too first was the lark's note nursed that filled and flooded the skies with song.
III
Shelley, lyric lord of England's lordliest singers, here first heardRing from lips of poets crowned and dead the Promethean wordWhence his soul took fire, and power to outsoar the sunward-soaring bird.
Still the reaches of the river, still the light on field and hill,Still the memories held aloft as lamps for hope's young fire to fill,Shine, and while the light of England lives shall shine for England still.
When four hundred more and fifty years have risen and shone and set,Bright with names that men remember, loud with names that men forget,Haply here shall Eton's record be what England finds it yet.
IThree in one, but one in three,God, who girt her with the sea,Bade our Commonweal to be:Nought, if now not one.Though fraud and fear would severThe bond assured for ever,Their shameful strength shall neverUndo what heaven has done.IISouth and North and West and EastWatch the ravens flock to feast,Dense as round some death-struck beast,Black as night is black.Stand fast as faith togetherIn stress of treacherous weatherWhen hounds and wolves break tetherAnd Treason guides the pack.IIILovelier than thy seas are strong,Glorious Ireland, sword and songGird and crown thee: none may wrong,Save thy sons alone.The sea that laughs around usHath sundered not but bound us:The sun's first rising found usThroned on its equal throne.IVNorth and South and East and West,All true hearts that wish thee bestBeat one tune and own one quest,Staunch and sure as steel.God guard from dark disunionOur threefold State's communion,God save the loyal Union,The royal Commonweal!
I
Three in one, but one in three,God, who girt her with the sea,Bade our Commonweal to be:Nought, if now not one.Though fraud and fear would severThe bond assured for ever,Their shameful strength shall neverUndo what heaven has done.
II
South and North and West and EastWatch the ravens flock to feast,Dense as round some death-struck beast,Black as night is black.Stand fast as faith togetherIn stress of treacherous weatherWhen hounds and wolves break tetherAnd Treason guides the pack.
III
Lovelier than thy seas are strong,Glorious Ireland, sword and songGird and crown thee: none may wrong,Save thy sons alone.The sea that laughs around usHath sundered not but bound us:The sun's first rising found usThroned on its equal throne.
IV
North and South and East and West,All true hearts that wish thee bestBeat one tune and own one quest,Staunch and sure as steel.God guard from dark disunionOur threefold State's communion,God save the loyal Union,The royal Commonweal!
Sunset smiles on sunrise: east and west are one,Face to face in heaven before the sovereign sun.From the springs of the dawn everlasting a glory renews and transfigures the west,From the depths of the sunset a light as of morning enkindles the broad sea's breast,And the lands and the skies and the waters are glad of the day's and the night's work done.Child of dawn, and regent on the world-wide sea,England smiles on Europe, fair as dawn and free.Not the waters that gird her are purer, nor mightier the winds that her waters know.But America, daughter and sister of England, is praised of them, far as they flow:Atlantic responds to Pacific the praise of her days that have been and shall be.So from England westward let the watchword fly,So for England eastward let the seas reply;Praise, honour, and love everlasting be sent on the wind's wings, westward and east,That the pride of the past and the pride of the future may mingle as friends at feast,And the sons of the lords of the world-wide seas be one till the world's life die.
Sunset smiles on sunrise: east and west are one,Face to face in heaven before the sovereign sun.From the springs of the dawn everlasting a glory renews and transfigures the west,From the depths of the sunset a light as of morning enkindles the broad sea's breast,And the lands and the skies and the waters are glad of the day's and the night's work done.
Child of dawn, and regent on the world-wide sea,England smiles on Europe, fair as dawn and free.Not the waters that gird her are purer, nor mightier the winds that her waters know.But America, daughter and sister of England, is praised of them, far as they flow:Atlantic responds to Pacific the praise of her days that have been and shall be.
So from England westward let the watchword fly,So for England eastward let the seas reply;Praise, honour, and love everlasting be sent on the wind's wings, westward and east,That the pride of the past and the pride of the future may mingle as friends at feast,And the sons of the lords of the world-wide seas be one till the world's life die.
IMarlowe, the father of the sons of songWhose praise is England's crowning praise, aboveAll glories else that crown her, sweet and strongAs England, clothed with light and fire of love,And girt with might of passion, thought, and trust,Stands here in spirit, sleeps not here in dust.IIMarlowe, a star too sovereign, too superb,To fade when heaven took fire from Shakespeare's light,A soul that knew but song's triumphal curbAnd love's triumphant bondage, holds of rightHis pride of place, who first in place and timeMade England's voice as England's heart sublime.IIIMarlowe bade England live in living song:The light he lifted up lit Shakespeare's way:He spake, and life sprang forth in music, strongAs fire or lightning, sweet as dawn of day.Song was a dream where day took night to wife:"Let there be life," he said: and there was life.IVMarlowe of all our fathers first beheldBeyond the tidal ebb and flow of thingsThe tideless depth and height of souls, impelledBy thought or passion, borne on waves or wings,Beyond all flight or sight but song's: and heFirst gave our song a sound that matched our sea.
I
Marlowe, the father of the sons of songWhose praise is England's crowning praise, aboveAll glories else that crown her, sweet and strongAs England, clothed with light and fire of love,And girt with might of passion, thought, and trust,Stands here in spirit, sleeps not here in dust.
II
Marlowe, a star too sovereign, too superb,To fade when heaven took fire from Shakespeare's light,A soul that knew but song's triumphal curbAnd love's triumphant bondage, holds of rightHis pride of place, who first in place and timeMade England's voice as England's heart sublime.
III
Marlowe bade England live in living song:The light he lifted up lit Shakespeare's way:He spake, and life sprang forth in music, strongAs fire or lightning, sweet as dawn of day.Song was a dream where day took night to wife:"Let there be life," he said: and there was life.
IV
Marlowe of all our fathers first beheldBeyond the tidal ebb and flow of thingsThe tideless depth and height of souls, impelledBy thought or passion, borne on waves or wings,Beyond all flight or sight but song's: and heFirst gave our song a sound that matched our sea.
Night or light is it now, whereinSleeps, shut out from the wild world's din,Wakes, alive with a life more clear,One who found not on earth his kin?Sleep were sweet for awhile, were dearSurely to souls that were heartless here,Souls that faltered and flagged and fell,Soft of spirit and faint of cheer.A living soul that had strength to quellHope the spectre and fear the spell,Clear-eyed, content with a scorn sublimeAnd a faith superb, can it fare not well?Life, the shadow of wide-winged time,Cast from the wings that change as they climb,Life may vanish in death, and seemLess than the promise of last year's prime.But not for us is the past a dreamWherefrom, as light from a clouded stream,Faith fades and shivers and ebbs away,Faint as the moon if the sundawn gleam.Faith, whose eyes in the low last rayWatch the fire that renews the day,Faith which lives in the living past,Rock-rooted, swerves not as weeds that sway.As trees that stand in the storm-wind fastShe stands, unsmitten of death's keen blast,With strong remembrance of sunbright springAlive at heart to the lifeless last.Night, she knows, may in no wise clingTo a soul that sinks not and droops not wing,A sun that sets not in death's false nightWhose kingdom finds him not thrall but king.Souls there are that for soul's affrightBow down and cower in the sun's glad sight,Clothed round with faith that is one with fear,And dark with doubt of the live world's light.But him we hailed from afar or nearAs boldest born of the bravest hereAnd loved as brightest of souls that eyedLife, time, and death with unchangeful cheer,A wider soul than the world was wide,Whose praise made love of him one with pride,What part has death or has time in him,Who rode life's lists as a god might ride?While England sees not her old praise dim,While still her stars through the world's night swim,A fame outshining her Raleigh's fame,A light that lightens her loud sea's rim,Shall shine and sound as her sons proclaimThe pride that kindles at Burton's name.And joy shall exalt their pride to beThe same in birth if in soul the same.But we that yearn for a friend's face—weWho lack the light that on earth was he—Mourn, though the light be a quenchless flameThat shines as dawn on a tideless sea.
Night or light is it now, whereinSleeps, shut out from the wild world's din,Wakes, alive with a life more clear,One who found not on earth his kin?
Sleep were sweet for awhile, were dearSurely to souls that were heartless here,Souls that faltered and flagged and fell,Soft of spirit and faint of cheer.
A living soul that had strength to quellHope the spectre and fear the spell,Clear-eyed, content with a scorn sublimeAnd a faith superb, can it fare not well?
Life, the shadow of wide-winged time,Cast from the wings that change as they climb,Life may vanish in death, and seemLess than the promise of last year's prime.
But not for us is the past a dreamWherefrom, as light from a clouded stream,Faith fades and shivers and ebbs away,Faint as the moon if the sundawn gleam.
Faith, whose eyes in the low last rayWatch the fire that renews the day,Faith which lives in the living past,Rock-rooted, swerves not as weeds that sway.
As trees that stand in the storm-wind fastShe stands, unsmitten of death's keen blast,With strong remembrance of sunbright springAlive at heart to the lifeless last.
Night, she knows, may in no wise clingTo a soul that sinks not and droops not wing,A sun that sets not in death's false nightWhose kingdom finds him not thrall but king.
Souls there are that for soul's affrightBow down and cower in the sun's glad sight,Clothed round with faith that is one with fear,And dark with doubt of the live world's light.
But him we hailed from afar or nearAs boldest born of the bravest hereAnd loved as brightest of souls that eyedLife, time, and death with unchangeful cheer,
A wider soul than the world was wide,Whose praise made love of him one with pride,What part has death or has time in him,Who rode life's lists as a god might ride?
While England sees not her old praise dim,While still her stars through the world's night swim,A fame outshining her Raleigh's fame,A light that lightens her loud sea's rim,
Shall shine and sound as her sons proclaimThe pride that kindles at Burton's name.And joy shall exalt their pride to beThe same in birth if in soul the same.
But we that yearn for a friend's face—weWho lack the light that on earth was he—Mourn, though the light be a quenchless flameThat shines as dawn on a tideless sea.
Auvergne, Auvergne, O wild and woful land,O glorious land and gracious, white as gleamThe stairs of heaven, black as a flameless brand,Strange even as life, and stranger than a dream,Could earth remember man, whose eyes made brightThe splendour of her beauty, lit by dayOr soothed and softened and redeemed by night,Wouldst thou not know what light has passed away?Wouldst thou not know whom England, whom the world,Mourns? For the world whose wildest ways he trod,And smiled their dangers down that coiled and curledAgainst him, knows him now less man than god.Our demigod of daring, keenest-eyedTo read and deepest read in earth's dim things,A spirit now whose body of death has diedAnd left it mightier yet in eyes and wings,The sovereign seeker of the world, who nowHath sought what world the light of death may show,Hailed once with me the crowns that load thy brow,Crags dark as midnight, columns bright as snow.Thy steep small Siena, splendid and contentAs shines the mightier city's Tuscan prideWhich here its face reflects in radiance, pentBy narrower bounds from towering side to side,Set fast between the ridged and foamless wavesOf earth more fierce and fluctuant than the sea,The fearless town of towers that hails and bravesThe heights that gird, the sun that brands Le Puy;The huddled churches clinging on the cliffsAs birds alighting might for storm's sake cling,Moored to the rocks as tempest-harried skiffsTo perilous refuge from the loud wind's wing;The stairs on stairs that wind and change and climbEven up to the utmost crag's edge curved and curled,More bright than vision, more than faith sublime,Strange as the light and darkness of the world;Strange as are night and morning, stars and sun,And washed from west and east by day's deep tide.Shine yet less fair, when all their heights are won,Than sundawn shows thy pillared mountain-side.Even so the dawn of death, whose light makes dimThe starry fires that life sees rise and set,Shows higher than here he shone before us himWhom faith forgets not, nor shall fame forget.Even so those else unfooted heights we clombThrough scudding mist and eddying whirls of cloud,Blind as a pilot beaten blind with foam,And shrouded as a corpse with storm's grey shroud,Foot following foot along the sheer strait ledgeWhere space was none to bear the wild goat's feetTill blind we sat on the outer footless edgeWhere darkling death seemed fain to share the seat,The abyss before us, viewless even as time's,The abyss to left of us, the abyss to right,Bid thought now dream how high the freed soul climbsThat death sets free from change of day and night.The might of raging mist and wind whose wrathShut from our eyes the narrowing rock we trod,The wondrous world it darkened, made our pathLike theirs who take the shadow of death for God.Yet eastward, veiled in vapour white as snow,The grim black herbless heights that scorn the sunAnd mock the face of morning rose to showThe work of earth-born fire and earthquake done.And half the world was haggard night, whereinWe strove our blind way through: but far aboveWas light that watched the wild mists whirl and spin,And far beneath a land worth light and love.Deep down the Valley of the Curse, undauntedBy shadow and whisper of winds with sins for wingsAnd ghosts of crime wherethrough the heights live hauntedBy present sense of past and monstrous things,The glimmering water holds its gracious wayFull forth, and keeps one happier hand's-breadth greenOf all that storm-scathed world whereon the swaySits dark as death of deadlier things unseen.But on the soundless and the viewless riverThat bears through night perchance again to dayThe dead whom death and twin-born fame deliverFrom life that dies, and time's inveterate sway,No shadow save of falsehood and of fearThat brands the future with the past, and bidsThe spirit wither and the soul grow sere,Hovers or hangs to cloud life's opening lids,If life have eyes to lift again and see,Beyond the bounds of sensual sight or breath,What life incognisable of ours may beThat turns our light to darkness deep as death.Priests and the soulless serfs of priests may swarmWith vulturous acclamation, loud in lies,About his dust while yet his dust is warmWho mocked as sunlight mocks their base blind eyes,Their godless ghost of godhead, false and foulAs fear his dam or hell his throne: but we,Scarce hearing, heed no carrion church-wolf's howl:The corpse be theirs to mock; the soul is free.Free as ere yet its earthly day was doneIt lived above the coil about us curled:A soul whose eyes were keener than the sun,A soul whose wings were wider than the world.We, sons of east and west, ringed round with dreams,Bound fast with visions, girt about with fears,Live, trust, and think by chance, while shadow seemsLight, and the wind that wrecks a hand that steers.He, whose full soul held east and west in poise,Weighed man with man, and creed of man's with creed,And age with age, their triumphs and their toys,And found what faith may read not and may read.Scorn deep and strong as death and life, that litWith fire the smile at lies and dreams outwornWherewith he smote them, showed sublime in itThe splendour and the steadfastness of scorn.What loftier heaven, what lordlier air, what spaceIllimitable, insuperable, infinite,Now to that strong-winged soul yields ampler placeThan passing darkness yields to passing light,No dream, no faith can tell us: hope and fear,Whose tongues were loud of old as children's, nowFrom babbling fall to silence: change is here,And death; dark furrows drawn by time's dark plough.Still sunward here on earth its flight was bent,Even since the man within the child beganTo yearn and kindle with superb intentAnd trust in time to magnify the man.Still toward the old garden of the Sun, whose fruitThe honey-heavy lips of SophoclesDesired and sang, wherein the unwithering rootSprang of all growths that thought brings forth and seesIncarnate, bright with bloom or dense with leafFar-shadowing, deep as depth of dawn or night:And all were parcel of the garnered sheafHis strenuous spirit bound and stored aright.And eastward now, and ever toward the dawn,If death's deep veil by life's bright hand be rent,We see, as through the shadow of death withdrawn,The imperious soul's indomitable ascent.But not the soul whose labour knew not end—But not the swordsman's hand, the crested head—The royal heart we mourn, the faultless friend,Burton—a name that lives till fame be dead.
Auvergne, Auvergne, O wild and woful land,O glorious land and gracious, white as gleamThe stairs of heaven, black as a flameless brand,Strange even as life, and stranger than a dream,
Could earth remember man, whose eyes made brightThe splendour of her beauty, lit by dayOr soothed and softened and redeemed by night,Wouldst thou not know what light has passed away?
Wouldst thou not know whom England, whom the world,Mourns? For the world whose wildest ways he trod,And smiled their dangers down that coiled and curledAgainst him, knows him now less man than god.
Our demigod of daring, keenest-eyedTo read and deepest read in earth's dim things,A spirit now whose body of death has diedAnd left it mightier yet in eyes and wings,The sovereign seeker of the world, who nowHath sought what world the light of death may show,Hailed once with me the crowns that load thy brow,Crags dark as midnight, columns bright as snow.
Thy steep small Siena, splendid and contentAs shines the mightier city's Tuscan prideWhich here its face reflects in radiance, pentBy narrower bounds from towering side to side,
Set fast between the ridged and foamless wavesOf earth more fierce and fluctuant than the sea,The fearless town of towers that hails and bravesThe heights that gird, the sun that brands Le Puy;
The huddled churches clinging on the cliffsAs birds alighting might for storm's sake cling,Moored to the rocks as tempest-harried skiffsTo perilous refuge from the loud wind's wing;
The stairs on stairs that wind and change and climbEven up to the utmost crag's edge curved and curled,More bright than vision, more than faith sublime,Strange as the light and darkness of the world;
Strange as are night and morning, stars and sun,And washed from west and east by day's deep tide.Shine yet less fair, when all their heights are won,Than sundawn shows thy pillared mountain-side.
Even so the dawn of death, whose light makes dimThe starry fires that life sees rise and set,Shows higher than here he shone before us himWhom faith forgets not, nor shall fame forget.
Even so those else unfooted heights we clombThrough scudding mist and eddying whirls of cloud,Blind as a pilot beaten blind with foam,And shrouded as a corpse with storm's grey shroud,
Foot following foot along the sheer strait ledgeWhere space was none to bear the wild goat's feetTill blind we sat on the outer footless edgeWhere darkling death seemed fain to share the seat,
The abyss before us, viewless even as time's,The abyss to left of us, the abyss to right,Bid thought now dream how high the freed soul climbsThat death sets free from change of day and night.
The might of raging mist and wind whose wrathShut from our eyes the narrowing rock we trod,The wondrous world it darkened, made our pathLike theirs who take the shadow of death for God.
Yet eastward, veiled in vapour white as snow,The grim black herbless heights that scorn the sunAnd mock the face of morning rose to showThe work of earth-born fire and earthquake done.
And half the world was haggard night, whereinWe strove our blind way through: but far aboveWas light that watched the wild mists whirl and spin,And far beneath a land worth light and love.
Deep down the Valley of the Curse, undauntedBy shadow and whisper of winds with sins for wingsAnd ghosts of crime wherethrough the heights live hauntedBy present sense of past and monstrous things,
The glimmering water holds its gracious wayFull forth, and keeps one happier hand's-breadth greenOf all that storm-scathed world whereon the swaySits dark as death of deadlier things unseen.
But on the soundless and the viewless riverThat bears through night perchance again to dayThe dead whom death and twin-born fame deliverFrom life that dies, and time's inveterate sway,
No shadow save of falsehood and of fearThat brands the future with the past, and bidsThe spirit wither and the soul grow sere,Hovers or hangs to cloud life's opening lids,
If life have eyes to lift again and see,Beyond the bounds of sensual sight or breath,What life incognisable of ours may beThat turns our light to darkness deep as death.
Priests and the soulless serfs of priests may swarmWith vulturous acclamation, loud in lies,About his dust while yet his dust is warmWho mocked as sunlight mocks their base blind eyes,
Their godless ghost of godhead, false and foulAs fear his dam or hell his throne: but we,Scarce hearing, heed no carrion church-wolf's howl:The corpse be theirs to mock; the soul is free.
Free as ere yet its earthly day was doneIt lived above the coil about us curled:A soul whose eyes were keener than the sun,A soul whose wings were wider than the world.
We, sons of east and west, ringed round with dreams,Bound fast with visions, girt about with fears,Live, trust, and think by chance, while shadow seemsLight, and the wind that wrecks a hand that steers.
He, whose full soul held east and west in poise,Weighed man with man, and creed of man's with creed,And age with age, their triumphs and their toys,And found what faith may read not and may read.
Scorn deep and strong as death and life, that litWith fire the smile at lies and dreams outwornWherewith he smote them, showed sublime in itThe splendour and the steadfastness of scorn.
What loftier heaven, what lordlier air, what spaceIllimitable, insuperable, infinite,Now to that strong-winged soul yields ampler placeThan passing darkness yields to passing light,
No dream, no faith can tell us: hope and fear,Whose tongues were loud of old as children's, nowFrom babbling fall to silence: change is here,And death; dark furrows drawn by time's dark plough.
Still sunward here on earth its flight was bent,Even since the man within the child beganTo yearn and kindle with superb intentAnd trust in time to magnify the man.
Still toward the old garden of the Sun, whose fruitThe honey-heavy lips of SophoclesDesired and sang, wherein the unwithering rootSprang of all growths that thought brings forth and sees
Incarnate, bright with bloom or dense with leafFar-shadowing, deep as depth of dawn or night:And all were parcel of the garnered sheafHis strenuous spirit bound and stored aright.
And eastward now, and ever toward the dawn,If death's deep veil by life's bright hand be rent,We see, as through the shadow of death withdrawn,The imperious soul's indomitable ascent.
But not the soul whose labour knew not end—But not the swordsman's hand, the crested head—The royal heart we mourn, the faultless friend,Burton—a name that lives till fame be dead.