Putin the sickles and reap;For the morning of harvest is red,And the long large ranks of the cornColoured and clothed as the mornStand thick in the fields and deepFor them that faint to be fed.Let all that hunger and weepCome hither, and who would have breadPut in the sickles and reap.
Coloured and clothed as the morn,The grain grows ruddier than gold,And the good strong sun is alightIn the mists of the day-dawn white,And the crescent, a faint sharp horn,In the fear of his face turns coldAs the snakes of the night-time that creepFrom the flag of our faith unrolled.Put in the sickles and reap.
In the mists of the day-dawn whiteThat roll round the morning star,The large flame lightens and growsTill the red-gold harvest-rows,Full-grown, are full of the lightAs the spirits of strong men are,Crying, Who shall slumber or sleep?Who put back morning or mar?Put in the sickles and reap.
Till the red-gold harvest-rowsFor miles through shudder and shineIn the wind’s breath, fed with the sun,A thousand spear-heads as oneBowed as for battle to closeLine in rank against lineWith place and station to keepTill all men’s hands at a signPut in the sickles and reap.
A thousand spear-heads as oneWave as with swing of the seaWhen the mid tide sways at its height;For the hour is for harvest or fightIn face of the just calm sun,As the signal in season may beAnd the lot in the helm may leapWhen chance shall shake it; but ye,Put in the sickles and reap.
For the hour is for harvest or fightTo clothe with raiment of red;O men sore stricken of hours,Lo, this one, is not it oursTo glean, to gather, to smite?Let none make risk of his headWithin reach of the clean scythe-sweep,When the people that lay as the deadPut in the sickles and reap.
Lo, this one, is not it ours,Now the ruins of dead things rattleAs dead men’s bones in the pit,Now the kings wax lean as they sitGirt round with memories of powers,With musters counted as cattleAnd armies folded as sheepTill the red blind husbandman battlePut in the sickles and reap?
Now the kings wax lean as they sit,The people grow strong to stand;The men they trod on and spat,The dumb dread people that satAs corpses cast in a pit,Rise up with God at their hand,And thrones are hurled on a heap,And strong men, sons of the land,Put in the sickles and reap.
The dumb dread people that satAll night without screen for the night,All day without food for the day,They shall give not their harvest away,They shall eat of its fruit and wax fat:They shall see the desire of their sight,Though the ways of the seasons be steep,They shall climb with face to the light,Put in the sickles and reap.
Ilaidmy laurel-leafAt the white feet of grief,Seeing how with covered face and plumeless wings,With unreverted headVeiled, as who mourns his dead,Lay Freedom couched between the thrones of kings,A wearied lion without lair,And bleeding from base wounds, and vexed with alien air.
Who was it, who, put poison to thy mouth,Who lulled with craft or chant thy vigilant eyes,O light of all men, lamp to north and south,Eastward and westward, under all men’s skies?For if thou sleep, we perish, and thy nameDies with the dying of our ephemeral breath;And if the dust of death o’ergrows thy flame,Heaven also is darkened with the dust of death.If thou be mortal, if thou change or cease,If thine hand fail, or thine eyes turn from Greece,Thy firstborn, and the firstfruits of thy fame,God is no God, and man is moulded out of shame.
Is there change in the secret skies,In the sacred places that seeThe divine beginning of things,The weft of the web of the world?Is Freedom a worm that dies,And God no God of the free?Is heaven like as earth with her kingsAnd time as a serpent curledRound life as a tree?
From the steel-bound snows of the north,From the mystic mother, the east,From the sands of the fiery south,From the low-lit clouds of the west,A sound of a cry is gone forth;Arise, stand up from the feast,Let wine be far from the mouth,Let no man sleep or take rest,Till the plague hath ceased.
Let none rejoice or make mirthTill the evil thing be stayed,Nor grief be lulled in the lute,Nor hope be loud on the lyre;Let none be glad upon earth.O music of young man and maid,O songs of the bride, be mute.For the light of her eyes, her desire,Is the soul dismayed.
It is not a land new-bornThat is scourged of a stranger’s hand,That is rent and consumed with flame.We have known it of old, this face,With the cheeks and the tresses torn,With shame on the brow as a brand.We have named it of old by name,The land of the royallest race,The most holy land.
Had I words of fire,Whose words are weak as snow;Were my heart a lyreWhence all its love might flowIn the mighty modulations of desire,In the notes wherewith man’s passion worships woe;
Could my song releaseThe thought weak words confine,And my grief, O Greece,Prove how it worships thine;It would move with pulse of war the limbs of peace,Till she flushed and trembled and became divine.
(Once she held for trueThis truth of sacred strain;Though blood drip like dewAnd life run down like rain,It is better that war spare but one or twoThan that many live, and liberty be slain.)
Then with fierce increaseAnd bitter mother’s mirth,From the womb of peace,A womb that yearns for birth,As a man-child should deliverance come to Greece,As a saviour should the child be born on earth.
O that these my days had beenEre white peace and shame were wedWithout torch or dancers’ dinRound the unsacred marriage-bed!For of old the sweet-tongued law,Freedom, clothed with all men’s love,Girt about with all men’s awe,With the wild war-eagle matedThe white breast of peace the dove,And his ravenous heart abatedAnd his windy wings were furledIn an eyrie consecratedWhere the snakes of strife uncurled,And her soul was soothed and satedWith the welfare of the world.
But now, close-clad with peace,While war lays hand on Greece,The kingdoms and their kings stand by to see;“Aha, we are strong,” they say,“We are sure, we are well,” even they;“And if we serve, what ails ye to be free?We are warm, clothed round with peace and shame;But ye lie dead and naked, dying for a name.”
O kings and queens and nations miserable,O fools and blind, and full of sins and fears,With these it is, with you it is not well;Ye have one hour, but these the immortal years.These for a pang, a breath, a pulse of pain,Have honour, while that honour on earth shall be:Ye for a little sleep and sloth shall gainScorn, while one man of all men born is free.Even as the depth more deep than night or day,The sovereign heaven that keeps its eldest way,So without chance or change, so without stain,The heaven of their high memories shall nor wax nor wane.
As the soul on the lips of the deadStands poising her wings for flight,A bird scarce quit of her prison,But fair without form or flesh,So stands over each man’s headA splendour of imminent light,A glory of fame rearisen,Of day rearisen afreshFrom the hells of night.
In the hundred cities of CreteSuch glory was not of old,Though her name was great upon earthAnd her face was fair on the sea.The words of her lips were sweet,Her days were woven with gold,Her fruits came timely to birth;So fair she was, being free,Who is bought and sold.
So fair, who is fairer nowWith her children dead at her side,Unsceptred, unconsecrated,Unapparelled, unhelped, unpitied,With blood for gold on her brow,Where the towery tresses divide;The goodly, the golden-gated,Many-crowned, many-named, many-citied,Made like as a bride.
And these are the bridegroom’s gifts;Anguish that straitens the breath,Shame, and the weeping of mothers,And the suckling dead at the breast,White breast that a long sob lifts;And the dumb dead mouth, which saith,“How long, and how long, my brothers?”And wrath which endures not rest,And the pains of death.
Ah, but would that men,With eyelids purged by tears,Saw, and heard againWith consecrated ears,All the clamour, all the splendour, all the slain,All the lights and sounds of war, the fates and fears;
Saw far off aspire,With crash of mine and gate,From a single pyreThe myriad flames of fate,Soul by soul transfigured in funereal fire,Hate made weak by love, and love made strong by hate.
Children without speech,And many a nursing breast;Old men in the breach,Where death sat down a guest;With triumphant lamentation made for each,Let the world salute their ruin and their rest.
In one iron hourThe crescent flared and waned,As from tower to tower,Fire-scathed and sanguine-stained,Death, with flame in hand, an open bloodred flower,Passed, and where it bloomed no bloom of life remained.
Hear, thou earth, the heavy-heartedWeary nurse of waning races;From the dust of years departed,From obscure funereal places,Raise again thy sacred head,Lift the light up of thine eyesWhere are they of all thy deadThat did more than these men dyingIn their godlike Grecian wise?Not with garments rent and sighing,Neither gifts of myrrh and gold,Shall their sons lament them lying,Lest the fame of them wax cold;But with lives to lives replying,And a worship from of old.
O sombre heart of earth and swoln with grief,That in thy time wast as a bird for mirth,Dim womb of life and many a seed and sheaf,And full of changes, ancient heart of earth,From grain and flower, from grass and every leaf,Thy mysteries and thy multitudes of birth,From hollow and hill, from vales and all thy springs,From all shapes born and breath of all lips made,From thunders, and the sound of winds and wings,From light, and from the solemn sleep of shade,From the full fountains of all living things,Speak, that this plague be stayed.Bear witness all the ways of death and lifeIf thou be with us in the world’s old strife,If thou be mother indeed,And from these wounds that bleedGather in thy great breast the dews that fall,And on thy sacred kneesLull with mute melodies,Mother, thy sleeping sons in death’s dim hall.For these thy sons, behold,Sons of thy sons of old,Bear witness if these be not as they were;If that high name of GreeceDepart, dissolve, deceaseFrom mouths of men and memories like as air.By the last milk that dripsDead on the child’s dead lips,By old men’s white unviolated hair,By sweet unburied facesThat fill those red high placesWhere death and freedom found one lion’s lair,By all the bloodred tearsThat fill the chaliced years,The vessels of the sacrament of time,Wherewith, O thou most holy,O Freedom, sure and slowlyThy ministrant white hands cleanse earth of crime;Though we stand off afarWhere slaves and slaveries are,Among the chains and crowns of poisonous peace;Though not the beams that shoneFrom rent ArcadionCan melt her mists and bid her snows decrease;Do thou with sudden wingsDarken the face of kings,But turn again the beauty of thy brows on Greece;Thy white and woundless brows,Whereto her great heart bows;Give her the glories of thine eyes to see;Turn thee, O holiest head,Toward all thy quick and dead,For love’s sake of the souls that cry for thee;O love, O light, O flame,By thine own Grecian name,We call thee and we charge thee that all these be free.
Jan.1867.
Itdoes not hurt. She looked along the knifeSmiling, and watched the thick drops mix and runDown the sheer blade; not that which had been doneCould hurt the sweet sense of the Roman wife,But that which was to do yet ere the strifeCould end for each for ever, and the sun:Nor was the palm yet nor was peace yet wonWhile pain had power upon her husband’s life.
It does not hurt, Italia. Thou art moreThan bride to bridegroom; how shalt thou not takeThe gift love’s blood has reddened for thy sake?Was not thy lifeblood given for us before?And if love’s heartblood can avail thy need,And thou not die, how should it hurt indeed?
TO VICTOR HUGO
Orpheus, the night is full of tears and cries,And hardly for the storm and ruin shedCan even thine eyes be certain of her headWho never passed out of thy spirit’s eyes,But stood and shone before them in such wiseAs when with love her lips and hands were fed,And with mute mouth out of the dusty deadStrove to make answer when thou bad’st her rise.
Yet viper-stricken must her lifeblood feelThe fang that stung her sleeping, the foul germEven when she wakes of hell’s most poisonous worm,Though now it writhe beneath her wounded heel.Turn yet, she will not fade nor fly from thee;Wait, and see hell yield up Eurydice.
Artthou indeed among these,Thou of the tyrannous crew,The kingdoms fed upon blood,O queen from of old of the seas,England, art thou of them tooThat drink of the poisonous flood,That hide under poisonous trees?
Nay, thy name from of old,Mother, was pure, or we dreamedPurer we held thee than this,Purer fain would we hold;So goodly a glory it seemed,A fame so bounteous of bliss,So more precious than gold.
A praise so sweet in our ears,That thou in the tempest of thingsAs a rock for a refuge shouldst stand,In the bloodred river of tearsPoured forth for the triumph of kings;A safeguard, a sheltering land,In the thunder and torrent of years.
Strangers came gladly to thee,Exiles, chosen of men,Safe for thy sake in thy shade,Sat down at thy feet and were free.So men spake of thee then;Now shall their speaking be stayed?Ah, so let it not be!
Not for revenge or affright,Pride, or a tyrannous lust,Cast from thee the crown of thy praise.Mercy was thine in thy might;Strong when thou wert, thou wert just;Now, in the wrong-doing days,Cleave thou, thou at least, to the right.
How should one charge thee, how sway,Save by the memories that were?Not thy gold nor the strength of thy ships,Nor the might of thine armies at bay,Made thee, mother, most fair;But a word from republican lipsSaid in thy name in thy day.
Hast thou said it, and hast thou forgot?Is thy praise in thine ears as a scoff?Blood of men guiltless was shed,Children, and souls without spot,Shed, but in places far off;Let slaughter no more be, saidMilton; and slaughter was not.
Was it not said of thee too,Now, but now, by thy foes,By the slaves that had slain their France,And thee would slay as they slew—“Down with her walls that encloseFreemen that eye us askance,Fugitives, men that are true!”
This was thy praise or thy blameFrom bondsman or freeman—to bePure from pollution of slaves,Clean of their sins, and thy nameBloodless, innocent, free;Now if thou be not, thy wavesWash not from off thee thy shame.
Freeman he is not, but slave,Whoso in fear for the StateCries for surety of blood,Help of gibbet and grave;Neither is any land greatWhom, in her fear-stricken mood,These things only can save.
Lo, how fair from afar,Taintless of tyranny, standsThy mighty daughter, for yearsWho trod the winepress of war;Shines with immaculate hands;Slays not a foe, neither fears;Stains not peace with a scar.
Be not as tyrant or slave,England; be not as these,Thou that wert other than they.Stretch out thine hand, but to save;Put forth thy strength, and release;Lest there arise, if thou slay,Thy shame as a ghost from the grave.
November20, 1867.
Ina vision Liberty stoodBy the childless charm-stricken bedWhere, barren of glory and good,Knowing nought if she would not or would,England slept with her dead.
Her face that the foam had whitened,Her hands that were strong to strive,Her eyes whence battle had lightened,Over all was a drawn shroud tightenedTo bind her asleep and alive.
She turned and laughed in her dreamWith grey lips arid and cold;She saw not the face as a beamBurn on her, but only a gleamThrough her sleep as of new-stamped gold.
But the goddess, with terrible tearsIn the light of her down-drawn eyes,Spake fire in the dull sealed ears;“Thou, sick with slumbers and fears,Wilt thou sleep now indeed or arise?
“With dreams and with words and with lightMemories and empty desiresThou hast wrapped thyself round all night;Thou hast shut up thine heart from the right,And warmed thee at burnt-out fires.
“Yet once if I smote at thy gate,Thy sons would sleep not, but heard;O thou that wast found so great,Art thou smitten with folly or fateThat thy sons have forgotten my word?
“O Cromwell’s mother, O breastThat suckled Milton! thy nameThat was beautiful then, that was blest,Is it wholly discrowned and deprest,Trodden under by sloth into shame?
“Why wilt thou hate me and die?For none can hate me and live.What ill have I done to thee? whyWilt thou turn from me fighting, and fly,Who would follow thy feet and forgive?
“Thou hast seen me stricken, and said,What is it to me? I am strong:Thou hast seen me bowed down on my deadAnd laughed and lifted thine head,And washed thine hands of my wrong.
“Thou hast put out the soul of thy sight;Thou hast sought to my foemen as friend,To my traitors that kiss me and smite,To the kingdoms and empires of nightThat begin with the darkness, and end.
“Turn thee, awaken, arise,With the light that is risen on the lands,With the change of the fresh-coloured skies;Set thine eyes on mine eyes,Lay thy hands in my hands.”
She moved and mourned as she heard,Sighed and shifted her place,As the wells of her slumber were stirredBy the music and wind of the word,Then turned and covered her face.
“Ah,” she said in her sleep,“Is my work not done with and done?Is there corn for my sickle to reap?And strange is the pathway, and steep,And sharp overhead is the sun.
“I have done thee service enough,Loved thee enough in my day;Now nor hatred nor loveNor hardly remembrance thereofLives in me to lighten my way.
“And is it not well with us here?Is change as good as is rest?What hope should move me, or fear,That eye should open or ear,Who have long since won what is best?
“Where among us are such thingsAs turn men’s hearts into hell?Have we not queens without stings,Scotched princes, and fangless kings?Yea,” she said, “we are well.
“We have filed the teeth of the snakeMonarchy, how should it bite?Should the slippery slow thing wake,It will not sting for my sake;Yea,” she said, “I do right.”
So spake she, drunken with dreams,Mad; but again in her earsA voice as of storm-swelled streamsSpake; “No brave shame then redeemsThy lusts of sloth and thy fears?
“Thy poor lie slain of thine hands,Their starved limbs rot in thy sight;As a shadow the ghost of thee standsAmong men living and lands,And stirs not leftward or right.
“Freeman he is not, but slave,Who stands not out on my side;His own hand hollows his grave,Nor strength is in me to saveWhere strength is none to abide.
“Time shall tread on his nameThat was written for honour of old,Who hath taken in change for fameDust, and silver, and shame,Ashes, and iron, and gold.”
Becausethere is but one truth;Because there is but one banner;Because there is but one light;Because we have with us our youthOnce, and one chance and one mannerOf service, and then the night;
Because we have found not yetAny way for the world to followSave only that ancient way;Whosoever forsake or forget,Whose faith soever be hollow,Whose hope soever grow grey;
Because of the watchwords of kingsThat are many and strange and unwritten,Diverse, and our watchword is one;Therefore, though seven be the strings,One string, if the harp be smitten,Sole sounds, till the tune be done;
Sounds without cadence or changeIn a weary monotonous burden,Be the keynote of mourning or mirth;Free, but free not to range;Taking for crown and for guerdonNo man’s praise upon earth;
Saying one sole word evermore,In the ears of the charmed world saying,Charmed by spells to its death;One that chanted of yoreTo a tune of the sword-sweep’s playingIn the lips of the dead blew breath;
Therefore I set not mine handTo the shifting of changed modulations,To the smiting of manifold strings;While the thrones of the throned men stand,One song for the morning of nations,One for the twilight of kings.
One chord, one word, and one way,One hope as our law, one heaven,Till slain be the great one wrong;Till the people it could not slay,Risen up, have for one star seven,For a single, a sevenfold song.
Asknothing more of me, sweet;All I can give you I give.Heart of my heart, were it more,More would be laid at your feet:Love that should help you to live,Song that should spur you to soar.
All things were nothing to giveOnce to have sense of you more,Touch you and taste of you sweet,Think you and breathe you and live,Swept of your wings as they soar,Trodden by chance of your feet.
I that have love and no moreGive you but love of you, sweet:He that hath more, let him give;He that hath wings, let him soar;Mine is the heart at your feetHere, that must love you to live.
1870
Fireand wild light of hope and doubt and fear,Wind of swift change, and clouds and hours that veerAs the storm shifts of the tempestuous year;Cry wellaway, but well befall the right.
Hope sits yet hiding her war-wearied eyes,Doubt sets her forehead earthward and denies,But fear brought hand to hand with danger dies,Dies and is burnt up in the fire of fight.
Hearts bruised with loss and eaten through with shameTurn at the time’s touch to devouring flame;Grief stands as one that knows not her own name,Nor if the star she sees bring day or night.
No song breaks with it on the violent air,But shrieks of shame, defeat, and brute despair;Yet something at the star’s heart far up thereBurns as a beacon in our shipwrecked sight.
O strange fierce light of presage, unknown star,Whose tongue shall tell us what thy secrets are,What message trembles in thee from so far?Cry wellaway, but well befall the right.
From shores laid waste across an iron seaWhere the waifs drift of hopes that were to be,Across the red rolled foam we look for thee,Across the fire we look up for the light.
From days laid waste across disastrous years,From hopes cut down across a world of fears,We gaze with eyes too passionate for tears,Where faith abides though hope be put to flight.
Old hope is dead, the grey-haired hope grown blindThat talked with us of old things out of mind,Dreams, deeds and men the world has left behind;Yet, though hope die, faith lives in hope’s despite.
Ay, with hearts fixed on death and hopeless handsWe stand about our banner while it standsAbove but one field of the ruined lands;Cry wellaway, but well befall the right.
Though France were given for prey to bird and beast,Though Rome were rent in twain of king and priest,The soul of man, the soul is safe at leastThat gives death life and dead men hands to smite.
Are ye so strong, O kings, O strong men? Nay,Waste all ye will and gather all ye may,Yet one thing is there that ye shall not slay,Even thought, that fire nor iron can affright.
The woundless and invisible thought that goesFree throughout time as north or south wind blows,Far throughout space as east or west sea flows,And all dark things before it are made bright.
Thy thought, thy word, O soul republican,O spirit of life, O God whose name is man:What sea of sorrows but thy sight shall span?Cry wellaway, but well befall the right.
With all its coils crushed, all its rings uncurled,The one most poisonous worm that soiled the worldIs wrenched from off the throat of man, and hurledInto deep hell from empire’s helpless height.
Time takes no more infection of it now;Like a dead snake divided of the plough,The rotten thing lies cut in twain; but thou,Thy fires shall heal us of the serpent’s bite.
Ay, with red cautery and a burning brandPurge thou the leprous leaven of the land;Take to thee fire, and iron in thine hand,Till blood and tears have washed the soiled limbs white.
We have sinned against thee in dreams and wicked sleep;Smite, we will shrink not; strike, we will not weep;Let the heart feel thee; let thy wound go deep;Cry wellaway, but well befall the right.
Wound us with love, pierce us with longing, makeOur souls thy sacrifices; turn and takeOur hearts for our sin-offerings lest they break,And mould them with thine hands and give them might.
Then, when the cup of ills is drained indeed,Will we come to thee with our wounds that bleed,With famished mouths and hearts that thou shalt feed,And see thee worshipped as the world’s delight.
There shall be no more wars nor kingdoms won,But in thy sight whose eyes are as the sunAll names shall be one name, all nations one,All souls of men in man’s one soul unite.
O sea whereon men labour, O great seaThat heaven seems one with, shall these things not be?O earth, our earth, shall time not make us free?Cry wellaway, but well befall the right.
Betweenthe wave-ridge and the strandI let you forth in sight of land,Songs that with storm-crossed wings and eyesStrain eastward till the darkness dies;Let signs and beacons fall or stand,And stars and balefires set and rise;Ye, till some lordlier lyric handWeave the beloved brows their crown,At the beloved feet lie down.
O, whatsoever of life or lightLove hath to give you, what of mightOr heart or hope is yours to live,I charge you take in trust to giveFor very love’s sake, in whose sight,Through poise of hours alternativeAnd seasons plumed with light or night,Ye live and move and have your breathTo sing with on the ridge of death.
I charge you faint not all night throughFor love’s sake that was breathed on youTo be to you as wings and feetFor travel, and as blood to heatAnd sense of spirit to renewAnd bloom of fragrance to keep sweetAnd fire of purpose to keep trueThe life, if life in such things be,That I would give you forth of me.
Out where the breath of war may bear,Out in the rank moist reddened airThat sounds and smells of death, and hathNo light but death’s upon its pathSeen through the black wind’s tangled hair,I send you past the wild time’s wrathTo find his face who bade you bearFruit of his seed to faith and love,That he may take the heart thereof.
By day or night, by sea or street,Fly till ye find and clasp his feetAnd kiss as worshippers who bringToo much love on their lips to sing,But with hushed heads accept and greetThe presence of some heavenlier thingIn the near air; so may ye meetHis eyes, and droop not utterlyFor shame’s sake at the light you see.
Not utterly struck spiritlessFor shame’s sake and unworthinessOf these poor forceless hands that comeEmpty, these lips that should be dumb,This love whose seal can but impressThese weak word-offerings wearisomeWhose blessings have not strength to blessNor lightnings fire to burn up aughtNor smite with thunders of their thought.
One thought they have, even love; one light,Truth, that keeps clear the sun by night;One chord, of faith as of a lyre;One heat, of hope as of a fire;One heart, one music, and one might,One flame, one altar, and one choir;And one man’s living head in sightWho said, when all time’s sea was foam,“Let there be Rome”—and there was Rome.
As a star set in space for tokenLike a live word of God’s mouth spoken,Visible sound, light audible,In the great darkness thick as hellA stanchless flame of love unsloken,A sign to conquer and compel,A law to stand in heaven unbrokenWhereby the sun shines, and wherethroughTime’s eldest empires are made new;
So rose up on our generationsThat light of the most ancient nations,Law, life, and light, on the world’s way,The very God of very day,The sun-god; from their star-like stationsFar down the night in disarrayFled, crowned with fires of tribulations,The suns of sunless years, whose lightAnd life and law were of the night.
The naked kingdoms quenched and starkDrave with their dead things down the dark,Helmless; their whole world, throne by throne,Fell, and its whole heart turned to stone,Hopeless; their hands that touched our arkWithered; and lo, aloft, alone,On time’s white waters man’s one bark,Where the red sundawn’s open eyeLit the soft gulf of low green sky.
So for a season pilotedIt sailed the sunlight, and struck redWith fire of dawn reverberateThe wan face of incumbent fateThat paused half pitying overheadAnd almost had foregone the freightOf those dark hours the next day bredFor shame, and almost had forswornService of night for love of morn.
Then broke the whole night in one blow,Thundering; then all hell with one throeHeaved, and brought forth beneath the strokeDeath; and all dead things moved and wokeThat the dawn’s arrows had brought low,At the great sound of night that brokeThundering, and all the old world-wide woe;And under night’s loud-sounding domeMen sought her, and she was not Rome.
Still with blind hands and robes blood-wetNight hangs on heaven, reluctant yet,With black blood dripping from her eyesOn the soiled lintels of the skies,With brows and lips that thirst and threat,Heart-sick with fear lest the sun rise,And aching with her fires that set,And shuddering ere dawn bursts her bars,Burns out with all her beaten stars.
In this black wind of war they flyNow, ere that hour be in the skyThat brings back hope, and memory back,And light and law to lands that lack;That spiritual sweet hour wherebyThe bloody-handed night and blackShall be cast out of heaven to die;Kingdom by kingdom, crown by crown,The fires of darkness are blown down.
Yet heavy, grievous yet the weightSits on us of imperfect fate.From wounds of other days and deedsStill this day’s breathing body bleeds;Still kings for fear and slaves for hateSow lives of men on earth like seedsIn the red soil they saturate;And we, with faces eastward set,Stand sightless of the morning yet.
And many for pure sorrow’s sakeLook back and stretch back hands to takeGifts of night’s giving, ease and sleep,Flowers of night’s grafting, strong to steepThe soul in dreams it will not break,Songs of soft hours that sigh and sweepIts lifted eyelids nigh to wakeWith subtle plumes and lulling breathThat soothe its weariness to death.
And many, called of hope and pride,Fall ere the sunrise from our side.Fresh lights and rumours of fresh famesThat shift and veer by night like flames,Shouts and blown trumpets, ghosts that glideCalling, and hail them by dead names,Fears, angers, memories, dreams divideSpirit from spirit, and wear outStrong hearts of men with hope and doubt.
Till time beget and sorrow bearThe soul-sick eyeless child despair,That comes among us, mad and blind,With counsels of a broken mind,Tales of times dead and woes that were,And, prophesying against mankind,Shakes out the horror of her hairTo take the sunlight with its coilsAnd hold the living soul in toils.
By many ways of death and moodsSouls pass into their servitudes.Their young wings weaken, plume by plumeDrops, and their eyelids gather gloomAnd close against man’s frauds and feuds,And their tongues call they know not whomTo help in their vicissitudes;For many slaveries are, but oneLiberty, single as the sun.
One light, one law, that burns up strife,And one sufficiency of life.Self-stablished, the sufficing soulHears the loud wheels of changes roll,Sees against man man bare the knife,Sees the world severed, and is whole;Sees force take dowerless fraud to wife,And fear from fraud’s incestuous bedCrawl forth and smite his father dead:
Sees death made drunk with war, sees timeWeave many-coloured crime with crime,State overthrown on ruining state,And dares not be disconsolate.Only the soul hath feet to climb,Only the soul hath room to wait,Hath brows and eyes to hold sublimeAbove all evil and all good,All strength and all decrepitude.
She only, she since earth began,The many-minded soul of man,From one incognizable rootThat bears such divers-coloured fruit,Hath ruled for blessing or for banThe flight of seasons and pursuit;She regent, she republican,With wide and equal eyes and wingsBroods on things born and dying things.
Even now for love or doubt of usThe hour intense and hazardousHangs high with pinions vibratingWhereto the light and darkness cling,Dividing the dim season thus,And shakes from one ambiguous wingShadow, and one is luminous,And day falls from it; so the pastTorments the future to the last.
And we that cannot hear or seeThe sounds and lights of liberty,The witness of the naked GodThat treads on burning hours unshodWith instant feet unwounded; weThat can trace only where he trodBy fire in heaven or storm at sea,Not know the very present wholeAnd naked nature of the soul;
We that see wars and woes and kings,And portents of enormous things,Empires, and agonies, and slaves,And whole flame of town-swallowing graves;That hear the harsh hours clap sharp wingsAbove the roar of ranks like waves,From wreck to wreck as the world swings;Know but that men there are who seeAnd hear things other far than we.
By the light sitting on their brows,The fire wherewith their presence glows,The music falling with their feet,The sweet sense of a spirit sweetThat with their speech or motion growsAnd breathes and burns men’s hearts with heat;By these signs there is none but knowsMen who have life and grace to give,Men who have seen the soul and live.
By the strength sleeping in their eyes,The lips whereon their sorrow liesSmiling, the lines of tears unshed,The large divine look of one deadThat speaks out of the breathless skiesIn silence, when the light is shedUpon man’s soul of memories;The supreme look that sets love free,The look of stars and of the sea;
By the strong patient godhead seenImplicit in their mortal mien,The conscience of a God held stillAnd thunders ruled by their own willAnd fast-bound fires that might burn cleanThis worldly air that foul things fill,And the afterglow of what has been,That, passing, shows us without wordWhat they have seen, what they have heard,
By all these keen and burning signsThe spirit knows them and divines.In bonds, in banishment, in grief,Scoffed at and scourged with unbelief,Foiled with false trusts and thwart designs,Stripped of green days and hopes in leaf,Their mere bare body of glory shinesHigher, and man gazing surelier seesWhat light, what comfort is of these.
So I now gazing; till the senseBeing set on fire of confidenceStrains itself sunward, feels out farBeyond the bright and morning star,Beyond the extreme wave’s refluence,To where the fierce first sunbeams areWhose fire intolerant and intenseAs birthpangs whence day burns to beParts breathless heaven from breathing sea.
I see not, know not, and am blest,Master, who know that thou knowest,Dear lord and leader, at whose handThe first days and the last days stand,With scars and crowns on head and breast,That fought for love of the sweet landOr shall fight in her latter quest;All the days armed and girt and crownedWhose glories ring thy glory round.
Thou sawest, when all the world was blind,The light that should be of mankind,The very day that was to be;And how shalt thou not sometime seeThy city perfect to thy mindStand face to living face with thee,And no miscrowned man’s head behind;The hearth of man, the human home,The central flame that shall be Rome?
As one that ere a June day riseMakes seaward for the dawn, and triesThe water with delighted limbsThat taste the sweet dark sea, and swimsRight eastward under strengthening skies,And sees the gradual rippling rimsOf waves whence day breaks blossom-wiseTake fire ere light peer well above,And laughs from all his heart with love;
And softlier swimming with raised headFeels the full flower of morning shedAnd fluent sunrise round him rolledThat laps and laves his body boldWith fluctuant heaven in water’s stead,And urgent through the growing goldStrikes, and sees all the spray flash red,And his soul takes the sun, and yearnsFor joy wherewith the sea’s heart burns;
So the soul seeking through the darkHeavenward, a dove without an ark,Transcends the unnavigable seaOf years that wear out memory;So calls, a sunward-singing lark,In the ear of souls that should be free;So points them toward the sun for markWho steer not for the stress of waves,And seek strange helmsmen, and are slaves.
For if the swimmer’s eastward eyeMust see no sunrise—must put byThe hope that lifted him and ledOnce, to have light about his head,To see beneath the clear low skyThe green foam-whitened wave wax redAnd all the morning’s banner fly—Then, as earth’s helpless hopes go down,Let earth’s self in the dark tides drown.
Yea, if no morning must beholdMan, other than were they now cold,And other deeds than past deeds done,Nor any near or far-off sunSalute him risen and sunlike-souled,Free, boundless, fearless, perfect, one,Let man’s world die like worlds of old,And here in heaven’s sight only beThe sole sun on the worldless sea.
That called on Cotys by her name.Æsch. Fr. 54 (Ἠδωνοὶ).
That called on Cotys by her name.
Æsch. Fr. 54 (Ἠδωνοὶ).
Was it Love brake forth flower-fashion,a bird with gold on his wings?Ar. Av. 696.
Was it Love brake forth flower-fashion,a bird with gold on his wings?
Ar. Av. 696.
That saw Saint Catherine bodily.
That saw Saint Catherine bodily.
Her pilgrimage to Avignon to recall the Pope into Italy as its redeemer from the distractions of the time is of course the central act of St. Catherine’s life, the great abiding sign of the greatness of spirit and genius of heroism which distinguished this daughter of the people, and should yet keep her name fresh above the holy horde of saints, in other records than the calendar; but there is no less significance in the story which tells how she succeeded in humanizing a criminal under sentence of death, and given over by the priests as a soul doomed and desperate; how the man thus raised and melted out of his fierce and brutal despair besought her to sustain him to the last by her presence; how, having accompanied him with comfort and support to the very scaffold, and seen his head fall, she took it up, and turning to the spectators who stood doubtful whether the poor wretch could be “saved,” kissed it in sign of her faith that his sins were forgiven him. The high and fixed passion of her heroic temperament gives her a right to remembrance and honour of which the miracle-mongers have donetheir best to deprive her. Cleared of all the refuse rubbish of thaumaturgy, her life would deserve a chronicler who should do justice at once to the ardour of her religious imagination and to a thing far rarer and more precious—the strength and breadth of patriotic thought and devotion which sent this girl across the Alps to seek the living symbol of Italian hope and unity, and bring it back by force of simple appeal in the name of God and of the country. By the light of those solid and actual qualities which ensure to her no ignoble place on the noble roll of Italian women who have deserved well of Italy, the record of her visions and ecstasies may be read without contemptuous intolerance of hysterical disease. The rapturous visionary and passionate ascetic was in plain matters of this earth as pure and practical a heroine as Joan of Arc.
There on the dim side-chapel wall.
There on the dim side-chapel wall.
In the church of San Domenico.
But blood nor tears ye love not,you.
But blood nor tears ye love not,you.
In the Sienese Academy the two things notable to me were the detached wall-painting by Sodoma of the tortures of Christ bound to the pillar, and the divine though mutilated group of the Graces in the centre of the main hall. The glory and beauty of ancient sculpture refresh and satisfy beyond expression a sense wholly wearied and well-nigh nauseated with contemplation of endless sanctities and agonies attempted by mediæval art, while yet as handless as accident or barbarism has left the sculptured goddesses.
Saw all Italian things save one.
Saw all Italian things save one.
O patria mia, vedo le mura e gli archi,E le colonne e i simulacri e l’ermeTorri degli avi nostri;Ma la gloria non vedo,Non vedo il lauro a il ferro ond’ eran carchiI nostri padri antichi.
LEOPARDI.
LEOPARDI.
Mother,that by that Pegasean spring.
Mother,that by that Pegasean spring.
Call. Lav. Pall. 105–112.
With black blood dripping from her eyes.κὰξ ὸμμάτων στάςουσιν αἷμα δυσφιλές.Æsch. Cho. 1058.
With black blood dripping from her eyes.
κὰξ ὸμμάτων στάςουσιν αἷμα δυσφιλές.
Æsch. Cho. 1058.