The Project Gutenberg eBook ofEidola

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofEidolaThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: EidolaAuthor: Frederic ManningRelease date: January 15, 2011 [eBook #34966]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by D Alexander and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file wasproduced from images generously made available by TheInternet Archive)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EIDOLA ***

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: EidolaAuthor: Frederic ManningRelease date: January 15, 2011 [eBook #34966]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by D Alexander and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file wasproduced from images generously made available by TheInternet Archive)

Title: Eidola

Author: Frederic Manning

Release date: January 15, 2011 [eBook #34966]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by D Alexander and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file wasproduced from images generously made available by TheInternet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EIDOLA ***

σκιἁς εἱδωλουAeschylus

BY FREDERIC MANNINGPOEMS.3s.6d.netSCENES AND PORTRAITS.6s.netTHE VIGIL OF BRUNHILD.2s.6d.netLONDON: JOHN MURRAY

POEMS.3s.6d.netSCENES AND PORTRAITS.6s.netTHE VIGIL OF BRUNHILD.2s.6d.net

LONDON: JOHN MURRAY

PAGETHE CHOOSERS1SACRIFICE3RELIEVED5REACTION6THE OLD CALVARY9THE GUNS10THE SIGN12A SHELL14THE FACE15WIND16BOIS DE MAMETZ18THE TRENCHES22LEAVES25TRANSPORT27αὑτἁρκεια29EPIGRAM, R. B.31NOW32GROTESQUE35DESIRE36BLUE AND GOLD38GANHARDINE’S SONG39THE SOUL’S ANSWER41WINTER42THE FAUN43THE CUP44PAROLES SANS MUSIQUE45DANAE47WORSHIP49TO A GIRL50EROS ATHANATOS52DEMETER MOURNING54THE LOST ANGEL57THE MOCKING SONG59THE MOTHER63MEDITATION65THE HONEY GATHERER67CROCUS SONG70THE IMAGE SELLER72SIMAETHA74TO THE UNKNOWN GODDESS76HURLEYWAYNE78TO SÀÏ80THE SHEPHERDS’ CAROL OF BETHLEHEM82PAST85THE BELOVED86

O ye! Fragile, tremulousHaunters of the deep glades,Whose fingers part the leavesOf beech and aspen ere ye slip thro’,Shall I see ye again?Men have said unto me:These are but flying lights and shadows,Light on the beech-boles, clouds shadowing the corn-fields,The wind in the flame of birches in autumn,Wind shadowing the clear pools.But ye cried, laughing, down the wind:Men are but shadows, but a vain breath!So here cometh unto meThat cry from the rejoicing air:Men are but shadows! And prone about meI see them, hushed and sleeping in the hut,Made solemn and holy by the night,In the dead light o’ the moon:Shadowy, swathed in their blankets,As sleep, in hewn sepulchral caves,Egypt’s and Asia’s kings.While between them are the footstepsOf glittering presences, who say: Lo, oneTo be a sword upon my thigh!And the sleepers stir restlessly and murmurAs between them passThe bright-mailed choosers of the dead.Shall I see ye again, O flying feetO’ the forest-haunters, while I couch silent,In a wet brake o’ blossom,Dark ivy wreathing your whiteness;Ere I am torn from the scabbard:(Lo, oneTo be a sword upon my thigh!)Knowing no longer that earthLieth in the dews, shining and sacred?

O ye! Fragile, tremulousHaunters of the deep glades,Whose fingers part the leavesOf beech and aspen ere ye slip thro’,Shall I see ye again?

Men have said unto me:These are but flying lights and shadows,Light on the beech-boles, clouds shadowing the corn-fields,The wind in the flame of birches in autumn,Wind shadowing the clear pools.But ye cried, laughing, down the wind:Men are but shadows, but a vain breath!

So here cometh unto meThat cry from the rejoicing air:Men are but shadows! And prone about meI see them, hushed and sleeping in the hut,Made solemn and holy by the night,In the dead light o’ the moon:Shadowy, swathed in their blankets,As sleep, in hewn sepulchral caves,Egypt’s and Asia’s kings.While between them are the footstepsOf glittering presences, who say: Lo, oneTo be a sword upon my thigh!And the sleepers stir restlessly and murmurAs between them passThe bright-mailed choosers of the dead.

Shall I see ye again, O flying feetO’ the forest-haunters, while I couch silent,In a wet brake o’ blossom,Dark ivy wreathing your whiteness;Ere I am torn from the scabbard:(Lo, oneTo be a sword upon my thigh!)Knowing no longer that earthLieth in the dews, shining and sacred?

Love suffereth all things.And we,Out of the travail and pain of our striving,Bring unto thee the perfect prayer:For the heart of no man uttereth love,Suffering even for love’s sake.For us no splendid apparel of pageantry,Burnished breast-plates, scarlet banners and trumpetsSounding exultantly.But the mean things of the earth hast thou chosen,Decked them with suffering,Made them beautiful with the passion for rightness,Strong with the pride of love.Yea, tho’ our praise of thee slayeth us,Yet love shall exalt us beside thee triumphant,Dying, that these live:And the earth again be beautiful with orchards,Yellow with wheatfields,And the lips of others praise thee, tho’ our lipsBe stopped with earth, and songless.But we shall have brought thee their praises,Brought unto thee the perfect prayer:For the lips of no man uttereth love,Suffering even for love’s sake.O God of sorrows,Whose feet come softly thro’ the dews,Stoop thou unto us,For we die so thou livest,Our hearts the cups of thy vintage:And the lips of no man uttereth love,Suffering even for love’s sake.

Love suffereth all things.And we,Out of the travail and pain of our striving,Bring unto thee the perfect prayer:For the heart of no man uttereth love,Suffering even for love’s sake.

For us no splendid apparel of pageantry,Burnished breast-plates, scarlet banners and trumpetsSounding exultantly.But the mean things of the earth hast thou chosen,Decked them with suffering,Made them beautiful with the passion for rightness,Strong with the pride of love.

Yea, tho’ our praise of thee slayeth us,Yet love shall exalt us beside thee triumphant,Dying, that these live:And the earth again be beautiful with orchards,Yellow with wheatfields,And the lips of others praise thee, tho’ our lipsBe stopped with earth, and songless.

But we shall have brought thee their praises,Brought unto thee the perfect prayer:For the lips of no man uttereth love,Suffering even for love’s sake.

O God of sorrows,Whose feet come softly thro’ the dews,Stoop thou unto us,For we die so thou livest,Our hearts the cups of thy vintage:And the lips of no man uttereth love,Suffering even for love’s sake.

We are weary and silent,There is only the rhythm of marching feet;Tho’ we move tranced, we keep itAs clock-work toys.But each man is alone in this multitude;We know not the world in which we move,Seeing not the dawn, earth pale and shadowy,Level lands of tenuous grays and greens;For our eye-balls have been seared with fire.Only we have our secret thoughts,Our sense floats out from us, delicately apprehensive,To the very fringes of our being,Where light drowns.

We are weary and silent,There is only the rhythm of marching feet;Tho’ we move tranced, we keep itAs clock-work toys.

But each man is alone in this multitude;We know not the world in which we move,Seeing not the dawn, earth pale and shadowy,Level lands of tenuous grays and greens;For our eye-balls have been seared with fire.

Only we have our secret thoughts,Our sense floats out from us, delicately apprehensive,To the very fringes of our being,Where light drowns.

What make you here, Aphrodite,Lady of the Golden Cymbals,Would you dance to awaken earth againAs of old on Ida?Here are no threshing-floors....Men call you delicate, a lover of softness:Making thine images of ivory, stained with sanguine;Strewing frail petals of roses before you;Bringing you soft stuffs of sea-dyes,Vermilion and saffron sandals,Floating wimples of filmy webs, that veil you,As clear water the glittering limbsOf a nymph beloved of Pan.But you come among us,With sleepy eyelids, and a sleep-soft smile,Ere we have scraped our boots of the mudThat is half human....You come, tho’ we are killing the lice in our shirts,To fill our eyes with the wine of your vision,Tho’ we are weary, and our heartsEmptied of the old jests.Satia te sanguineYou come among men; laughingAt the ramp of the strange beastsRoaring our songs in estaminets,With our hands hungry for life again.You are come curious of our crude intoxications,The savage pleasures and the gross lusts,Being weary of the veiled lights, the whispers,The languid colours, and rare spiced meatsThat of old delighted youIn Paphos.You would couch with us in the golden strawOf these great Gothic barns,With curious curved beams arching, as in shadowy aisles;While through the broken mud-wallLight rays,Like the golden dustOn Danae poured.And we turn from the harshness of swords,Hungering for you....And know not that your breasts,Carven delicately of ivory and gold,The lips, red and subtile,Are born of the bitter sea-foam and bright blood.

What make you here, Aphrodite,Lady of the Golden Cymbals,Would you dance to awaken earth againAs of old on Ida?Here are no threshing-floors....

Men call you delicate, a lover of softness:Making thine images of ivory, stained with sanguine;Strewing frail petals of roses before you;Bringing you soft stuffs of sea-dyes,Vermilion and saffron sandals,Floating wimples of filmy webs, that veil you,As clear water the glittering limbsOf a nymph beloved of Pan.

But you come among us,With sleepy eyelids, and a sleep-soft smile,Ere we have scraped our boots of the mudThat is half human....You come, tho’ we are killing the lice in our shirts,To fill our eyes with the wine of your vision,Tho’ we are weary, and our heartsEmptied of the old jests.

Satia te sanguineYou come among men; laughingAt the ramp of the strange beastsRoaring our songs in estaminets,With our hands hungry for life again.You are come curious of our crude intoxications,The savage pleasures and the gross lusts,Being weary of the veiled lights, the whispers,The languid colours, and rare spiced meatsThat of old delighted youIn Paphos.

You would couch with us in the golden strawOf these great Gothic barns,With curious curved beams arching, as in shadowy aisles;While through the broken mud-wallLight rays,Like the golden dustOn Danae poured.

And we turn from the harshness of swords,Hungering for you....And know not that your breasts,Carven delicately of ivory and gold,The lips, red and subtile,Are born of the bitter sea-foam and bright blood.

It is propped in a corner of the yard,Where vines wreathe itWith leaves and delicate tendrils;A mutilated trunk,Worn, and gray with weather stains;Lichens cling to its flesh as a leprosy.But for a moment I stood in adoration,Reverent, as the sun-raysStruck between the glistening leaves;Lighting the frail, lean form,The shrunken flanks,That knew more suffering than heldThe agonies of Laocoon.For the memory of many prayers clung to it,Tenderly, and glistening,Even as the delicate vineTo the sacred flesh.

It is propped in a corner of the yard,Where vines wreathe itWith leaves and delicate tendrils;A mutilated trunk,Worn, and gray with weather stains;Lichens cling to its flesh as a leprosy.

But for a moment I stood in adoration,Reverent, as the sun-raysStruck between the glistening leaves;Lighting the frail, lean form,The shrunken flanks,That knew more suffering than heldThe agonies of Laocoon.

For the memory of many prayers clung to it,Tenderly, and glistening,Even as the delicate vineTo the sacred flesh.

Menace, hidden, but pulsing in the air of night:Then a throbbing thunder, split and searedWith the scarlet flashes of innumerable shells,And against it, suddenly, a shell, closer;A purr that changes to a whineLike a beast of prey that has missed its kill,And again, closer.But even in the thunder of the gunsThere is a silence: and the soul groweth still.Yea, it is cloaked in stillness:And it is not fear.But the torn and screaming airTrembles under the onset of warring angelsWith terrible and beautiful faces;And the soul is stilled, knowing these awful shapes,That burden the night with oppression,To be but the creatures of its own lusts.

But even in the thunder of the gunsThere is a silence: and the soul groweth still.Yea, it is cloaked in stillness:And it is not fear.

But the torn and screaming airTrembles under the onset of warring angelsWith terrible and beautiful faces;And the soul is stilled, knowing these awful shapes,That burden the night with oppression,To be but the creatures of its own lusts.

We are here in a wood of little beeches:And the leaves are like black laceAgainst a sky of nacre.One bough of clear promiseAcross the moon.It is in this wise that God speaketh unto me.He layeth hands of healing upon my flesh,Stilling it in an eternal peace.Until my soul reaches out myriad and infinite handsToward him;And is eased of its hunger.And I know that this passes:This implacable fury and torment of men,As a thing insensate and vain:And the stillness hath said unto me,Over the tumult of sounds and shaken flame,Out of the terrible beauty of wrath,I alone am eternal.One bough of clear promiseAcross the moon.

We are here in a wood of little beeches:And the leaves are like black laceAgainst a sky of nacre.

One bough of clear promiseAcross the moon.

It is in this wise that God speaketh unto me.He layeth hands of healing upon my flesh,Stilling it in an eternal peace.Until my soul reaches out myriad and infinite handsToward him;And is eased of its hunger.

And I know that this passes:This implacable fury and torment of men,As a thing insensate and vain:And the stillness hath said unto me,Over the tumult of sounds and shaken flame,Out of the terrible beauty of wrath,I alone am eternal.

One bough of clear promiseAcross the moon.

Here we are all, naked as Greeks,Killing the lice in our shirts:Suddenly the air is torn asunder,Ripped as coarse silk,Then a dull thud....We are all squatting.

Out of the smoke of men’s wrath,The red mist of anger,Suddenly,As a wraith of sleep,A boy’s face, white and tense,Convulsed with terror and hate,The lips trembling....Then a red smear, falling....I thrust aside the cloud, as it were tangible,Blinded with a mist of blood.The face cometh againAs a wraith of sleep:A boy’s face delicate and blonde,The very mask of God,Broken.

Out of the smoke of men’s wrath,The red mist of anger,Suddenly,As a wraith of sleep,A boy’s face, white and tense,Convulsed with terror and hate,The lips trembling....

Then a red smear, falling....I thrust aside the cloud, as it were tangible,Blinded with a mist of blood.The face cometh againAs a wraith of sleep:A boy’s face delicate and blonde,The very mask of God,Broken.

Blow, wind! Strip the great treesThat are like ebony against a sky of jade,Ebony fretted and contorted.Blow, hunt the piled clouds that lash the earth with rain;Roar among the swayed branches; sing shrilly in the grass,Burdening the pines with the music of pain;For mine eyes desire the stars.Drown the senseless thunder of the guns,Stream on the ways of air hurrying before theeThe yellow leaves, and the tawny, and scarlet,Till my soul dance with them,Dance delightedly as a child or a kittenCatching at the gay leaves laughingly,For I would forget, I would forget and laugh again.Sing, thou great wind; smite the harp of the wood,For in thee the souls of slain men are singing exultant,Now free of the air, feather-footed! Yea, they swim thereinToward the green twilight, surgingNaked and beautiful with playing muscles,Yea, even the naked souls of menWhose beauty is a fierce thing, and slayeth usLike the terrible majesty of the gods;Blow, thou great wind, scatter the yellowing leaves.

Drown the senseless thunder of the guns,Stream on the ways of air hurrying before theeThe yellow leaves, and the tawny, and scarlet,Till my soul dance with them,Dance delightedly as a child or a kittenCatching at the gay leaves laughingly,For I would forget, I would forget and laugh again.

Sing, thou great wind; smite the harp of the wood,For in thee the souls of slain men are singing exultant,Now free of the air, feather-footed! Yea, they swim thereinToward the green twilight, surgingNaked and beautiful with playing muscles,Yea, even the naked souls of menWhose beauty is a fierce thing, and slayeth usLike the terrible majesty of the gods;Blow, thou great wind, scatter the yellowing leaves.

Men have marred thee, O Mother:Autumn hath now no tawny and gilded leaves;Nor murmuring among sleepy boughs;But stark and writhen as a woman ravished,With twisted tortured limbs,Are Mametz’ woods.Hath not thy child, Persephone, tall men,Yea, even all the children of the earth,Bringing her tribute?But the reapers sing not in thy wheatfields:Tall sheaves wait ungarnered,Though swallows are shrilling in the skies.We are reaped, who were thy reapers, and slain our songs;We are torn as Iason, beloved of thee, Mother:Heavy the clay upon our lips,The gray rats fear us not, but pass quickly, sated,Over prone trunks, rent limbs, dead faces,That are ashen under the moon.Love, who begat us, shall Love slay us utterly?Shall we not mingle with earth, as with sleep,Dream into grasses, leafage, flowers,Such being our very flesh; and shudderIn the glitter of thin shivering poplars,That tremble like slim girls shakenAt a caress,Bowed in a clear, keen wind?Lo, in us the glory of a new being,A wonder, a terror, an exultation,Even in the filth of our shambles,Loosened as lightnings upon us, devouring us;Till we be but a shaken wrath of flames,A many-tongued music of thunder,Beyond the thunder of guns.And we fail beneath it,Sink into our ashes, cower as dogs;While the glory of many shaken flamesDrowns in the gray of thy dawns,That reveal unto usEarth wasted and riven with iron and fire.Desolate!Thou hast turned from us....Even so thou art lovely,As a woman grown old in sorrows,With patient kindly eyes,From whom hath passed the shadow of desire;And her ears keep the whispers of many lovers,As things heard in sleep.But thou heed’st not our prayers, our strivings,The moans of our anguish,Our mute agonies;Though thy loins bare us in travail,Though thou art the bride of our desiring,Yea, and the child of our desire,In triple deity;Knowing things past, and things to come, when bothMeet on the instant, rounding to a whoThis intense keen edge of flameConsuming our poor dust.Sit’st thou thus wisely silent,With subtile and inviolate eyes,Knowing us but the shadow of thy substance,As transitory as the leaves?Wiselier even....Knowing us from the matter of our lives:Not the sweet leaves the wind stirs,But the wind,Whose passage the leaves shadoweth.There are no leaves now in thy woods, Mametz.

Men have marred thee, O Mother:Autumn hath now no tawny and gilded leaves;Nor murmuring among sleepy boughs;But stark and writhen as a woman ravished,With twisted tortured limbs,Are Mametz’ woods.

Hath not thy child, Persephone, tall men,Yea, even all the children of the earth,Bringing her tribute?But the reapers sing not in thy wheatfields:Tall sheaves wait ungarnered,Though swallows are shrilling in the skies.

We are reaped, who were thy reapers, and slain our songs;We are torn as Iason, beloved of thee, Mother:Heavy the clay upon our lips,The gray rats fear us not, but pass quickly, sated,Over prone trunks, rent limbs, dead faces,That are ashen under the moon.

Love, who begat us, shall Love slay us utterly?Shall we not mingle with earth, as with sleep,Dream into grasses, leafage, flowers,Such being our very flesh; and shudderIn the glitter of thin shivering poplars,That tremble like slim girls shakenAt a caress,Bowed in a clear, keen wind?

Lo, in us the glory of a new being,A wonder, a terror, an exultation,Even in the filth of our shambles,Loosened as lightnings upon us, devouring us;Till we be but a shaken wrath of flames,A many-tongued music of thunder,Beyond the thunder of guns.And we fail beneath it,Sink into our ashes, cower as dogs;While the glory of many shaken flamesDrowns in the gray of thy dawns,That reveal unto usEarth wasted and riven with iron and fire.Desolate!

Thou hast turned from us....Even so thou art lovely,As a woman grown old in sorrows,With patient kindly eyes,From whom hath passed the shadow of desire;And her ears keep the whispers of many lovers,As things heard in sleep.But thou heed’st not our prayers, our strivings,The moans of our anguish,Our mute agonies;Though thy loins bare us in travail,Though thou art the bride of our desiring,Yea, and the child of our desire,In triple deity;Knowing things past, and things to come, when bothMeet on the instant, rounding to a whoThis intense keen edge of flameConsuming our poor dust.

Sit’st thou thus wisely silent,With subtile and inviolate eyes,Knowing us but the shadow of thy substance,As transitory as the leaves?

Wiselier even....Knowing us from the matter of our lives:Not the sweet leaves the wind stirs,But the wind,Whose passage the leaves shadoweth.

There are no leaves now in thy woods, Mametz.

Endless lanes sunken in the clay,Bays, and traverses, fringed with wasted herbage,Seed-pods of blue scabious, and some lingering blooms;And the sky, seen as from a well,Brilliant with frosty stars.We stumble, cursing, on the slippery duck-boards,Goaded like the damned by some invisible wrath,A will stronger than weariness, stronger than animal fear,Implacable and monotonous.Here a shaft, slanting, and belowA dusty and flickering light from one feeble candleAnd prone figures sleeping uneasily,Murmuring,And men who cannot sleep,With faces impassive as masks,Bright, feverish eyes, and drawn lips,Sad, pitiless, terrible faces,Each an incarnate curse.Here in a bay, a helmeted sentrySilent and motionless, watching while two sleep,And he sees before himWith indifferent eyes the blasted and torn landPeopled with stiff prone forms, stupidly rigid,As tho’ they had not been men.Dead are the lips where love laughed or sang,The hands of youth eager to lay hold of life,Eyes that have laughed to eyes,And these were begotten,O love, and lived lightly, and burntWith the lust of a man’s first strength: ere they were rent,Almost at unawares, savagely; and strewnIn bloody fragments, to be the carrionOf rats and crows.And the sentry moves not, searchingNight for menace with weary eyes.

Here a shaft, slanting, and belowA dusty and flickering light from one feeble candleAnd prone figures sleeping uneasily,Murmuring,And men who cannot sleep,With faces impassive as masks,Bright, feverish eyes, and drawn lips,Sad, pitiless, terrible faces,Each an incarnate curse.

Here in a bay, a helmeted sentrySilent and motionless, watching while two sleep,And he sees before himWith indifferent eyes the blasted and torn landPeopled with stiff prone forms, stupidly rigid,As tho’ they had not been men.

Dead are the lips where love laughed or sang,The hands of youth eager to lay hold of life,Eyes that have laughed to eyes,And these were begotten,O love, and lived lightly, and burntWith the lust of a man’s first strength: ere they were rent,Almost at unawares, savagely; and strewnIn bloody fragments, to be the carrionOf rats and crows.

And the sentry moves not, searchingNight for menace with weary eyes.

A frail and tenuous mist lingers on baffled and intricate branches;Little gilt leaves are still, for quietness holds every bough;Pools in the muddy road slumber, reflecting indifferent stars;Steeped in the loveliness of moonlight is earth, and the valleys,Brimmed up with quiet shadow, with a mist of sleep.But afar on the horizon rise great pulses of light,The hammering of guns, wrestling, locked in conflictLike brute, stone gods of old struggling confusedly;Then overhead purrs a shell, and our heaviesAnswer, with sudden clapping bruits of sound,Loosening our shells that stream whining and whimpering precipitately,Hounding through air athirst for blood.And the little gilt leavesFlicker in falling, like waifs and flakes of flame.

But afar on the horizon rise great pulses of light,The hammering of guns, wrestling, locked in conflictLike brute, stone gods of old struggling confusedly;Then overhead purrs a shell, and our heaviesAnswer, with sudden clapping bruits of sound,Loosening our shells that stream whining and whimpering precipitately,Hounding through air athirst for blood.

And the little gilt leavesFlicker in falling, like waifs and flakes of flame.

The moon swims in milkiness,The road glimmers curving down into the wooded valleyAnd with a clashing and creaking of tackle and axlesThe train of limbers passes me, and the mulesSplash me with mud, thrusting me from the road into puddles,Straining at the tackle with a bitter patience,Passing me....And into a patch of moonlight,With beautiful curved necks and manes,Heads reined back, and nostrils dilated,Impatient of restraint,Pass two gray stallions,Such as Oenetia bred;Beautiful as the horses of HippolytusCarven on some antique frieze.And my heart rejoices seeing their strength in play,The mere animal life of them,Lusting,As a thing passionate and proud.Then again the limbers and grotesque mules.

Then again the limbers and grotesque mules.

I am alone: even ranked with multitudes:And they alone, each man.So are we free.For some few friends of me, some earth of mine,Some shrines, some dreams I dream, some hopes that emergeFrom the rude stone of life vaguely, and tendToward form in me: the progeny of dreamsI father; even this England which is mineWhereof no man has seen the lovelinessAs with mine eyes: and even too, my GodWhom none have known as I: for these I fight,For mine own self, that thus in giving selfProdigally, as a mere breath in the air,I may possess myself, and spend me soMingling with earth, and dreams, and God: and beingIn them the master of all these in me,Perfected thus.Fight for your own dreams, you.

Earth held thee not, whom now the gray seas hold,By the blue Cyclades, and even the seaPalls but the mortal, for men’s hearts enfold,Inviolate, the untamed youth of thee.

I praise ye for the noble and prodigal virtues,That are spendthrift of all,Giving and taking with a light hand;For this moment only is ours:Of old ye were provident, and frugal,With the parsimony of peace.Now ye will jeopard your lives for a song,For a mere breath, the shadow of a desire;Cloaking your valour with a jest,Veiling its holiness,Lest wisdom deem ye fools;The vain wisdom of peace.The old and hoary craft,That seeth not the brightness of the sun,That hideth in the earths of foxes,That weigheth love, and delight, and laughter,Against minted gold.The wise ...These but traffic in our gems,They are but the merchants of our pleasureMiserly!Who shall hoard up lifeAs it were but a heap of golden discs?For it hath the lightest of light feet,This quarry of our chase:As it were Proteus,Flowing from shape to shape under our hands....Who shall spread a net to entoil itOr snare it as a bird?Ye play with life as with a gamester,Full of doubles and shifts,And ye laugh at each turn of the game,Your hearts hawking at a chanceWith a keen-edged zest.Ye know not what ye seek,Having it always.Ye have stolen of my riches;But ye have given me of your dearthThe last fragment of your broken breadAnd gone hungry yourselves:Despising the matter of our lives,The faults and incompletenessOf the crude earth,From which we are moulding,With cunning and nimble fingers,Images of desire.Let us laugh and understand each other,For how could I blame you, my friends,When ye are so generousWith the fruit of your thefts?Yea, this moment is sufficient:And being artists, after our diverse manners,When each white dawn comethBuild we the earth anew:Repenting notYesterdays now drowned in dark, nor desiringThe hastening to-morrows.

I praise ye for the noble and prodigal virtues,That are spendthrift of all,Giving and taking with a light hand;For this moment only is ours:

Of old ye were provident, and frugal,With the parsimony of peace.Now ye will jeopard your lives for a song,For a mere breath, the shadow of a desire;Cloaking your valour with a jest,Veiling its holiness,Lest wisdom deem ye fools;The vain wisdom of peace.

The old and hoary craft,That seeth not the brightness of the sun,That hideth in the earths of foxes,That weigheth love, and delight, and laughter,Against minted gold.The wise ...These but traffic in our gems,They are but the merchants of our pleasureMiserly!

Who shall hoard up lifeAs it were but a heap of golden discs?For it hath the lightest of light feet,This quarry of our chase:As it were Proteus,Flowing from shape to shape under our hands....Who shall spread a net to entoil itOr snare it as a bird?

Ye play with life as with a gamester,Full of doubles and shifts,And ye laugh at each turn of the game,Your hearts hawking at a chanceWith a keen-edged zest.Ye know not what ye seek,Having it always.

Ye have stolen of my riches;But ye have given me of your dearthThe last fragment of your broken breadAnd gone hungry yourselves:Despising the matter of our lives,The faults and incompletenessOf the crude earth,From which we are moulding,With cunning and nimble fingers,Images of desire.

Let us laugh and understand each other,For how could I blame you, my friends,When ye are so generousWith the fruit of your thefts?

Yea, this moment is sufficient:And being artists, after our diverse manners,When each white dawn comethBuild we the earth anew:Repenting notYesterdays now drowned in dark, nor desiringThe hastening to-morrows.

These are the damned circles Dante trod,Terrible in hopelessness,But even skulls have their humour,An eyeless and sardonic mockery:And we,Sitting with streaming eyes in the acrid smoke,That murks our foul, damp billet,Chant bitterly, with raucous voicesAs a choir of frogsIn hideous irony, our patriotic songs.

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