Isit so, that the sword is broken,Our sword, that was halfway drawn?Is it so, that the light was a spark,That the bird we hailed as the larkSang in her sleep in the dark,And the song we took for a tokenBore false witness of dawn?
Spread in the sight of the lion,Surely, we said, is the netSpread but in vain, and the snareVain; for the light is aware,And the common, the chainless air,Of his coming whom all we cry on;Surely in vain is it set.
Surely the day is on our side,And heaven, and the sacred sun;Surely the stars, and the brightImmemorial inscrutable night:Yea, the darkness, because of our light,Is no darkness, but blooms as a bower-sideWhen the winter is over and done;
Blooms underfoot with young grassesGreen, and with leaves overhead,Windflowers white, and the lowNew-dropped blossoms of snow;And or ever the May winds blow,And or ever the March wind passes,Flames with anemones red.
We are here in the world’s bower-garden,We that have watched out the snow.Surely the fruitfuller showers,The splendider sunbeams are ours;Shall winter return on the flowers,And the frost after April harden,And the fountains in May not flow?
We have in our hands the shiningAnd the fire in our hearts of a star.Who are we that our tongues should palter,Hearts bow down, hands falter,Who are clothed as with flame from the altar,That the kings of the earth, repining,Far off, watch from afar?
Woe is ours if we doubt or dissemble,Woe, if our hearts not abide.Are our chiefs not among us, we said,Great chiefs, living and dead,To lead us glad to be led?For whose sake, if a man of us tremble,He shall not be on our side.
What matter if these lands tarry,That tarried (we said) not of old?France, made drunken by fate,England, that bore up the weightOnce of men’s freedom, a freightHoly, but heavy to carryFor hands overflowing with gold.
Though this be lame, and the otherFleet, but blind from the sun,And the race be no more to these,Alas! nor the palm to seize,Who are weary and hungry of ease,Yet, O Freedom, we said, O our mother,Is there not left to thee one?
Is there not left of thy daughters,Is there not one to thine hand?Fairer than these, and of fameHigher from of old by her name;Washed in her tears, and in flameBathed as in baptism of waters,Unto all men a chosen land.
Her hope in her heart was broken,Fire was upon her, and clomb,Hiding her, high as her head;And the world went past her, and said(We heard it say) she was dead;And now, behold, she bath spoken,She that was dead, saying, “Rome.”
O mother of all men’s nations,Thou knowest if the deaf world heard!Heard not now to her lowestDepths, where the strong blood slowestBeats at her bosom, thou knowest,In her toils, in her dim tribulations,Rejoiced not, hearing the word.
The sorrowful, bound unto sorrow,The woe-worn people, and allThat of old were discomforted,And men that famish for bread,And men that mourn for their dead,She bade them be glad on the morrow,Who endured in the day of her thrall.
The blind, and the people in prison,Souls without hope, without home,How glad were they all that heard!When the winged white flame of the wordPassed over men’s dust, and stirredDeath; for Italia was risen,And risen her light upon Rome.
The light of her sword in the gatewayShone, an unquenchable flame,Bloodless, a sword to release,A light from the eyes of peace,To bid grief utterly cease,And the wrong of the old world straightwayPass from the face of her fame:
Hers, whom we turn to and cry on,Italy, mother of men:From the light of the face of her glory,At the sound of the storm of her story,That the sanguine shadows and hoaryShould flee from the foot of the lion,Lion-like, forth of his den.
As the answering of thunder to thunderIs the storm-beaten sound of her past;As the calling of sea unto seaIs the noise of her years yet to be;For this ye knew not is she,Whose bonds are broken in sunder;This is she at the last.
So spake we aloud, high-minded,Full of our will; and behold,The speech that was halfway spokenBreaks, as a pledge that is broken,As a king’s pledge, leaving in tokenGrief only for high hopes blinded,New grief grafted on old.
We halt by the walls of the city,Within sound of the clash of her chain.Hearing, we know that in thereThe lioness chafes in her lair,Shakes the storm of her hair,Struggles in hands without pity,Roars to the lion in vain.
Whose hand is stretched forth upon her?Whose curb is white with her foam?Clothed with the cloud of his deeds,Swathed in the shroud of his creeds,Who is this that has trapped her and leads,Who turns to despair and dishonourHer name, her name that was Rome?
Over fields without harvest or culture,Over hordes without honour or love,Over nations that groan with their kings,As an imminent pestilence flingsSwift death from her shadowing wings,So he, who hath claws as a vulture,Plumage and beak as a dove.
He saith, “I am pilot and haven,Light and redemption I amUnto souls overlaboured,” he saith;And to all men the blast of his breathIs a savour of death unto death;And the Dove of his worship a raven,And a wolf-cub the life-giving Lamb.
He calls his sheep as a shepherd,Calls from the wilderness home,“Come unto me and be fed,”To feed them with ashes for breadAnd grass from the graves of the dead,Leaps on the fold as a leopard,Slays, and says, “I am Rome,”
Rome, having rent her in sunder,With the clasp of an adder he clasps;Swift to shed blood are his feet,And his lips, that have man for their meat,Smoother than oil, and more sweetThan honey, but hidden thereunderFesters the poison of asps.
As swords are his tender mercies,His kisses as mortal stings;Under his hallowing handsLife dies down in all lands;Kings pray to him, prone where he stands,And his blessings, as other men’s curses,Disanoint where they consecrate kings.
With an oil of unclean consecration,With effusion of blood and of tears,With uplifting of cross and of keys,Priest, though thou hallow us these,Yet even as they cling to thy kneesNation awakens by nation,King by king disappears.
How shall the spirit be loyalTo the shell of a spiritless thing?Erred once, in only a word,The sweet great song that we heardPoured upon Tuscany, erred,Calling a crowned man royalThat was no more than a king.
Sea-eagle of English feather,A song-bird beautiful-souled,She knew not them that she sang;The golden trumpet that rangFrom Florence, in vain for them, sprangAs a note in the nightingales’ weatherFar over Fiesole rolled.
She saw not—happy, not seeing—Saw not as we with her eyesAspromonte; she feltNever the heart in her meltAs in us when the news was dealtMelted all hope out of being,Dropped all dawn from the skies.
In that weary funereal season,In that heart-stricken grief-ridden time,The weight of a king and the worth,With anger and sorrowful mirth,We weighed in the balance of earth,And light was his word as a treason,And heavy his crown as a crime.
Banners of kings shall ye followNone, and have thrones on your sideNone; ye shall gather and growSilently, row upon row,Chosen of Freedom to goGladly where darkness may swallow,Gladly where death may divide.
Have we not men with us royal,Men the masters of things?In the days when our life is made new,All souls perfect and trueShall adore whom their forefathers slew;And these indeed shall be loyal,And those indeed shall be kings.
Yet for a space they abide with us,Yet for a little they stand,Bearing the heat of the day.When their presence is taken away,We shall wonder and worship, and say,“Was not a star on our side with us?Was not a God at our hand?”
These, O men, shall ye honour,Liberty only, and these.For thy sake and for all men’s and mine,Brother, the crowns of them shineLighting the way to her shrine,That our eyes may be fastened upon her,That our hands may encompass her knees.
In this day is the sign of her shown to you;Choose ye, to live or to die,Now is her harvest in hand;Now is her light in the land;Choose ye, to sink or to stand,For the might of her strength is made known to youNow, and her arm is on high.
Serve not for any man’s wages,Pleasure nor glory nor gold;Not by her side are they wonWho saith unto each of you, “Son,Silver and gold have I none;I give but the love of all ages,And the life of my people of old.”
Fear not for any man’s terrors;Wait not for any man’s word;Patiently, each in his place,Gird up your loins to the race;Following the print of her pace,Purged of desires and of errors,March to the tune ye have heard.
March to the tune of the voice of her,Breathing the balm of her breath,Loving the light of her skies.Blessed is he on whose eyesDawns but her light as he dies;Blessed are ye that make choice of her,Equal to life and to death.
Ye that when faith is nigh frozen,Ye that when hope is nigh gone,Still, over wastes, over waves,Still, among wrecks, among graves,Follow the splendour that saves,Happy, her children, her chosen,Loyally led of her on.
The sheep of the priests, and the cattleThat feed in the penfolds of kings,Sleek is their flock and well-fed;Hardly she giveth you bread,Hardly a rest for the head,Till the day of the blast of the battleAnd the storm of the wind of her wings.
Ye that have joy in your living,Ye that are careful to live,You her thunders go by:Live, let men be, let them lie,Serve your season, and die;Gifts have your masters for giving,Gifts hath not Freedom to give;
She, without shelter or station,She, beyond limit or bar,Urges to slumberless speedArmies that famish, that bleed,Sowing their lives for her seed,That their dust may rebuild her a nation,That their souls may relight her a star.
Happy are all they that follow her;Them shall no trouble cast down;Though she slay them, yet shall they trust in her,For unsure there is nought nor unjust in her,Blemish is none, neither rust in her;Though it threaten, the night shall not swallow her,Tempest and storm shall not drown.
Hither, O strangers, that cry for her,Holding your lives in your hands,Hither, for here is your light,Where Italy is, and her might;Strength shall be given you to fight,Grace shall be given you to die for her,For the flower, for the lady of lands;
Turn ye, whose anguish oppressing youCrushes, asleep and awake,For the wrong which is wrought as of yore;That Italia may give of her store,Having these things to give and no more;Only her hands on you, blessing you;Only a pang for her sake;
Only her bosom to die on;Only her heart for a home,And a name with her children to beFrom Calabrian to Adrian seaFamous in cities made freeThat ring to the roar of the lionProclaiming republican Rome.
Atthe time when the stars are grey,And the gold of the molten moonFades, and the twilight is thinned,And the sun leaps up, and the wind,A light rose, not of the day,A stronger light than of noon.
As the light of a face much lovedWas the face of the light that clomb;As a mother’s whitened with woesHer adorable head that arose;As the sound of a God that is moved,Her voice went forth upon Rome.
At her lips it fluttered and failedTwice, and sobbed into song,And sank as a flame sinks under;Then spake, and the speech was thunder,And the cheek as he heard it paledOf the wrongdoer grown grey with the wrong.
“Is it time, is it time appointed,Angel of time, is it near?For the spent night aches into dayWhen the kings shall slay not or pray,And the high-priest, accursed and anointed,Sickens to deathward with fear.
“For the bones of my slain are stirred,And the seed of my earth in her wombMoves as the heart of a budBeating with odorous bloodTo the tune of the loud first birdBurns and yearns into bloom.
“I lay my hand on her bosom,My hand on the heart of my earth,And I feel as with shiver and sobThe triumphant heart in her throb,The dead petals dilate into blossom,The divine blood beat into birth.
“O my earth, are the springs in thee dry?O sweet, is thy body a tomb?Nay, springs out of springs derive,And summers from summers alive,And the living from them that die;No tomb is here, but a womb.
“O manifold womb and divine,Give me fruit of my children, give!I have given thee my dew for thy root,Give thou me for my mouth of thy fruit;Thine are the dead that are mine,And mine are thy sons that live.
“O goodly children, O strongItalian spirits, that wearMy glories as garments about you,Could time or the world misdoubt you,Behold, in disproof of the wrong,The field of the grave-pits there.
“And ye that fell upon sleep,We have you too with us yet.Fairer than life or than youthIs this, to die for the truth:No death can sink you so deepAs their graves whom their brethren forget.
“Were not your pains as my pains?As my name are your names not divine?Was not the light in your eyesMine, the light of my skies,And the sweet shed blood of your veins,O my beautiful martyrs, mine?
“Of mine earth were your dear limbs made,Of mine air was your sweet life’s breath;At the breasts of my love ye were fed,O my children, my chosen, my dead,At my breasts where again ye are laid,At the old mother’s bosom, in death.
“But ye that live, O their brothers,Be ye to me as they were;Give me, my children that live,What these dead grudged not to give,Who alive were sons of your mother’s,Whose lips drew breath of your air.
“Till darkness by dawn be cloven,Let youth’s self mourn and abstain;And love’s self find not an hour,And spring’s self wear not a flower,And Lycoris, with hair unenwoven,Hail back to the banquet in vain.
“So sooner and surer the gloryThat is not with us shall be,And stronger the hands that smiteThe heads of the sons of night,And the sound throughout earth of our storyGive all men heart to be free.”
To the Signora Cairoli
Blessedwas she that bare,Hidden in flesh most fair,For all men’s sake the likeness of all love;Holy that virgin’s womb,The old record saith, on whomThe glory of God alighted as a dove;Blessed, who brought to gracious birthThe sweet-souled Saviour of a man-tormented earth.
But four times art thou blest,At whose most holy breastFour times a godlike soldier-saviour hung;And thence a fourfold ChristGiven to be sacrificedTo the same cross as the same bosom clung;Poured the same blood, to leave the sameLight on the many-folded mountain-skirts of fame.
Shall they and thou not live,The children thou didst giveForth of thine hands, a godlike gift, to death,Through fire of death to passFor her high sake that wasThine and their mother, that gave all you breath?Shall ye not live till time drop dead,O mother, and each her children’s consecrated head?
Many brought gifts to takeFor her love’s supreme sake,Life and life’s love, pleasure and praise and rest,And went forth bare; but thou,So much once richer, and nowPoorer than all these, more than these be blest;Poorer so much, by so much given,Than who gives earth for heaven’s sake, not for earth’s sake heaven.
Somewhat could each soul save,What thing soever it gave,But thine, mother, what has thy soul kept back?None of thine all, not one,To serve thee and be thy son,Feed with love all thy days, lest one day lack;All thy whole life’s love, thine heart’s whole,Thou hast given as who gives gladly, O thou the supreme soul.
The heart’s pure flesh and blood,The heaven thy motherhood,The live lips, the live eyes, that lived on thee;The hands that clove with sweetBlind clutch to thine, the feetThat felt on earth their first way to thy knee;The little laughter of mouths milk-fed,Now open again to feed on dust among the dead;
The fair, strong, young men’s strength,Light of life-days and length,And glory of earth seen under and stars above,And years that bring to tameNow the wild falcon fame,Now, to stroke smooth, the dove-white breast of love;The life unlived, the unsown seeds,Suns unbeholden, songs unsung, and undone deeds.
Therefore shall man’s love beAs an own son to thee,And the world’s worship of thee for a child;All thine own land as oneNew-born, a nursing son,All thine own people a new birth undefiled;And all the unborn Italian time,And all its glory, and all its works, thy seed sublime.
That henceforth no man’s breath,Saying “Italy,” but saithIn that most sovereign word thine equal name;Nor can one speak of theeBut he saith “Italy,”Seeing in two suns one co-eternal flame;One heat, one heaven, one heart, one fire,One light, one love, one benediction, one desire.
Blest above praise and prayerAnd incense of men’s air,Thy place is higher than where such voices riseAs in men’s temples makeMusic for some vain sake,This God’s or that God’s, in one weary wise;Thee the soul silent, the shut heart,The locked lips of the spirit praise thee that thou art.
Yea, for man’s whole life’s length,And with man’s whole soul’s strength,We praise thee, O holy, and bless thee, O mother of lights;And send forth as on wingsThe world’s heart’s thanksgivings,Song-birds to sing thy days through and thy nights;And wrap thee around and arch thee aboveWith the air of benediction and the heaven of love.
And toward thee our unbreathed wordsFly speechless, winged as birds,As the Indian flock, children of Paradise,The winged things without feet,Fed with God’s dew for meat,That live in the air and light of the utter skies;So fleet, so flying a footless flight,With wings for feet love seeks thee, to partake thy sight.
Love like a clear sky spreadBends over thy loved head,As a new heaven bends over a new-born earth,When the old night’s womb is greatWith young stars passionateAnd fair new planets fiery-fresh from birth;And moon-white here, there hot like Mars,Souls that are worlds shine on thee, spirits that are stars.
Till the whole sky burns throughWith heaven’s own heart-deep hue,With passion-coloured glories of lit souls;And thine above all namesWrit highest with lettering flamesLightens, and all the old starriest aureolesAnd all the old holiest memories wane,And the old names of love’s chosen, found in thy sight vain.
And crowned heads are discrowned,And stars sink without sound,And love’s self for thy love’s sake waxes paleSeeing from his storied skiesIn what new reverent wiseThee Rome’s most highest, her sovereign daughters, hail;Thee Portia, thee Veturia grey,Thee Arria, thee Cornelia, Roman more than they.
Even all these as all weSubdue themselves to thee,Bow their heads haloed, quench their fiery fame;Seen through dim years divine,Their faint lights feminineSink, then spring up rekindled from thy flame;Fade, then reflower and reillumeFrom thy fresh spring their wintering age with new-blown bloom.
To thy much holier headEven theirs, the holy and dead,Bow themselves each one from her heavenward height;Each in her shining turn,All tremble toward thee and yearnTo melt in thine their consummated light;Till from day’s Capitolian domeOne glory of many glories lighten upon Rome.
Hush thyself, song, and cease,Close, lips, and hold your peace;What help hast thou, what part have ye herein?But you, with sweet shut eyes,Heart-hidden memories,Dreams and dumb thoughts that keep what things have beenSilent, and pure of all words said,Praise without song the living, without dirge the dead.
Thou, strengthless in these things,Song, fold thy feebler wings,And as a pilgrim go forth girt and shod,And where the new graves are,And where the sunset star,To the pure spirit of man that men call God,To the high soul of things, that isMade of men’s heavenlier hopes and mightier memories;
To the elements that makeFor the soul’s living sakeThis raiment of dead things, of shadow and trance,That give us chance and timeWherein to aspire and climbAnd set our life’s work higher than time or chanceThe old sacred elements, that giveThe breath of life to days that die, to deeds that live;
To them, veiled gods and great,There bow thee and dedicateThe speechless spirit in these thy weak words hidden;And mix thy reverent breathWith holier air of death,At the high feast of sorrow a guest unbidden,Till with divine triumphal tearsThou fill men’s eyes who listen with a heart that hears.
γα Γα, μα Γα, βοὰνφοβερδν ὰπότρεπε.Æsch.Supp.890.
γα Γα, μα Γα, βοὰνφοβερδν ὰπότρεπε.
Æsch.Supp.890.
Ifwith voice of words or prayers thy sons may reach thee,We thy latter sons, the men thine after-birth,We the children of thy grey-grown age, O Earth,O our mother everlasting, we beseech thee,By the sealed and secret ages of thy life;By the darkness wherein grew thy sacred forces;By the songs of stars thy sisters in their courses;By thine own song hoarse and hollow and shrill with strife;By thy voice distuned and marred of modulation;By the discord of thy measure’s march with theirs;By the beauties of thy bosom, and the cares;By thy glory of growth, and splendour of thy station;By the shame of men thy children, and the pride;By the pale-cheeked hope that sleeps and weeps and passes,As the grey dew from the morning mountain-grasses;By the white-lipped sightless memories that abide;By the silence and the sound of many sorrows;By the joys that leapt up living and fell dead;By the veil that hides thy hands and breasts and head,Wrought of divers-coloured days and nights and morrows;Isis, thou that knowest of God what worlds are worth,Thou the ghost of God, the mother uncreated,Soul for whom the floating forceless ages waitedAs our forceless fancies wait on thee, O Earth;Thou the body and soul, the father-God and mother,If at all it move thee, knowing of all things doneHere where evil things and good things are not one,But their faces are as fire against each other;By thy morning and thine evening, night and day;By the first white light that stirs and strives and hoversAs a bird above the brood her bosom covers,By the sweet last star that takes the westward way;By the night whose feet are shod with snow or thunder,Fledged with plumes of storm, or soundless as the dew;By the vesture bound of many-folded blueRound her breathless breasts, and all the woven wonder;By the golden-growing eastern stream of sea;By the sounds of sunrise moving in the mountains;By the forces of the floods and unsealed fountains;Thou that badest man be born, bid man be free.
I am she that made thee lovely with my beautyFrom north to south:Mine, the fairest lips, took first the fire of dutyFrom thine own mouth.Mine, the fairest eyes, sought first thy laws and knew themTruths undefiled;Mine, the fairest hands, took freedom first into them,A weanling child.By my light, now he lies sleeping, seen above himWhere none sees other;By my dead that loved and living men that love him;(Cho.) Hear us, O mother.
I am she that was the light of thee enkindledWhen Greece grew dim;She whose life grew up with man’s free life, and dwindledWith wane of him.She that once by sword and once by word imperialStruck bright thy gloom;And a third time, casting off these years funereal,Shall burst thy tomb.By that bond ‘twixt thee and me whereat affrightedThy tyrants fear us;By that hope and this remembrance reunited;(Cho.) O mother, hear us.
I am she that set my seal upon the namelessWest worlds of seas;And my sons as brides took unto them the tamelessHesperides.Till my sins and sons through sinless lands dispersèd,With red flame shod,Made accurst the name of man, and thrice accursèdThe name of God.Lest for those past fires the fires of my repentanceHell’s fume yet smother,Now my blood would buy remission of my sentence;(Cho.) Hear us, O mother.
I am she that was thy sign and standard-bearer,Thy voice and cry;She that washed thee with her blood and left thee fairer,The same was I.Were not these the hands that raised thee fallen and fed thee,These hands defiled?Was not I thy tongue that spake, thine eye that led thee,Not I thy child?By the darkness on our dreams, and the dead errorsOf dead times near us;By the hopes that hang around thee, and the terrors;(Cho.) O mother, hear us.
I am she whose hands are strong and her eyes blindedAnd lips athirstTill upon the night of nations many-mindedOne bright day burst:Till the myriad stars be molten into one light,And that light thine;Till the soul of man be parcel of the sunlight,And thine of mine.By the snows that blanch not him nor cleanse from slaughterWho slays his brother;By the stains and by the chains on me thy daughter;(Cho.) Hear us, O mother.
I am she that shews on mighty limbs and maidenNor chain nor stain;For what blood can touch these hands with gold unladen,These feet what chain?By the surf of spears one shieldless bosom breastedAnd was my shield,Till the plume-plucked Austrian vulture-heads twin-crestedTwice drenched the field;By the snows and souls untrampled and untroubledThat shine to cheer us,Light of those to these responsive and redoubled;(Cho.) O mother, hear us.
I am she beside whose forest-hidden fountainsSlept freedom armed,By the magic born to music in my mountainsHeart-chained and charmed.By those days the very dream whereof deliversMy soul from wrong;By the sounds that make of all my ringing riversNone knows what song;By the many tribes and names of my divisionOne from another;By the single eye of sun-compelling vision;(Cho.) Hear us, O mother.
I am she that was and was not of thy chosen,Free, and not free;She that fed thy springs, till now her springs are frozen;Yet I am she.By the sea that clothed and sun that saw me splendidAnd fame that crowned,By the song-fires and the sword-fires mixed and blendedThat robed me round;By the star that Milton’s soul for Shelley’s lighted,Whose rays insphere us;By the beacon-bright Republic far-off sighted;(Cho.) O mother, hear us.
Turn away from us the cross-blown blasts of error,That drown each other;Turn away the fearful cry, the loud-tongued terror,O Earth, O mother.Turn away their eyes who track, their hearts who follow,The pathless past;Shew the soul of man, as summer shews the swallow,The way at last.By the sloth of men that all too long endure menOn man to tread;By the cry of men, the bitter cry of poor menThat faint for bread;By the blood-sweat of the people in the gardenInwalled of kings;By his passion interceding for their pardonWho do these things;By the sightless souls and fleshless limbs that labourFor not their fruit;By the foodless mouth with foodless heart for neighbour,That, mad, is mute;By the child that famine eats as worms the blossom—Ah God, the child!By the milkless lips that strain the bloodless bosomTill woe runs wild;By the pastures that give grass to feed the lamb in,Where men lack meat;By the cities clad with gold and shame and famine;By field and street;By the people, by the poor man, by the masterThat men call slave;By the cross-winds of defeat and of disaster,By wreck, by wave;By the helm that keeps us still to sunwards driving,Still eastward bound,Till, as night-watch ends, day burn on eyes reviving,And land be found:We thy children, that arraign not nor impeach theeThough no star steer us,By the waves that wash the morning we beseech thee,O mother, hear us.
Iamthat which began;Out of me the years roll;Out of me God and man;I am equal and whole;God changes, and man, and the form of them bodily; I am the soul.
Before ever land was,Before ever the sea,Or soft hair of the grass,Or fair limbs of the tree,Or the flesh-coloured fruit of my branches, I was, and thy soul was in me.
First life on my sourcesFirst drifted and swam;Out of me are the forcesThat save it or damn;Out of me man and woman, and wild-beast and bird; before God was, I am.
Beside or above meNought is there to go;Love or unlove me,Unknow me or know,I am that which unloves me and loves; I am stricken, and I am the blow.
I the mark that is missedAnd the arrows that miss,I the mouth that is kissedAnd the breath in the kiss,The search, and the sought, and the seeker, the soul and the body that is.
I am that thing which blessesMy spirit elate;That which caressesWith hands uncreateMy limbs unbegotten that measure the length of the measure of fate.
But what thing dost thou now,Looking Godward, to cry“I am I, thou art thou,I am low, thou art high”?I am thou, whom thou seekest to find him; find thou but thyself, thou art I.
I the grain and the furrow,The plough-cloven clodAnd the ploughshare drawn thorough,The germ and the sod,The deed and the doer, the seed and the sower, the dust which is God.
Hast thou known how I fashioned thee,Child, underground?Fire that impassioned thee,Iron that bound,Dim changes of water, what thing of all these hast thou known of or found?
Canst thou say in thine heartThou hast seen with thine eyesWith what cunning of artThou wast wrought in what wise,By what force of what stuff thou wast shapen, and shown on my breast to the skies?
Who hath given, who hath sold it thee,Knowledge of me?Hath the wilderness told it thee?Hast thou learnt of the sea?Hast thou communed in spirit with night? have the winds taken counsel with thee?
Have I set such a starTo show light on thy browThat thou sawest from afarWhat I show to thee now?Have ye spoken as brethren together, the sun and the mountains and thou?
What is here, dost thou know it?What was, hast thou known?Prophet nor poetNor tripod nor throneNor spirit nor flesh can make answer, but only thy mother alone.
Mother, not maker,Born, and not made;Though her children forsake her,Allured or afraid,Praying prayers to the God of their fashion, she stirs not for all that have prayed.
A creed is a rod,And a crown is of night;But this thing is God,To be man with thy might,To grow straight in the strength of thy spirit, and live out thy life as the light.
I am in thee to save thee,As my soul in thee saith;Give thou as I gave thee,Thy life-blood and breath,Green leaves of thy labour, white flowers of thy thought, and red fruit of thy death,
Be the ways of thy givingAs mine were to thee;The free life of thy living,Be the gift of it free;Not as servant to lord, nor as master to slave, shalt thou give thee to me.
O children of banishment,Souls overcast,Were the lights ye see vanish meantAlway to last,Ye would know not the sun overshining the shadows and stars overpast.
I that saw where ye trodThe dim paths of the nightSet the shadow called GodIn your skies to give light;But the morning of manhood is risen, and the shadowless soul is in sight.
The tree many-rootedThat swells to the skyWith frondage red-fruited,The life-tree am I;In the buds of your lives is the sap of my leaves: ye shall live and not die.
But the Gods of your fashionThat take and that give,In their pity and passionThat scourge and forgive,They are worms that are bred in the bark that falls off; they shall die and not live.
My own blood is what stanchesThe wounds in my bark;Stars caught in my branchesMake day of the dark,And are worshipped as suns till the sunrise shall tread out their fires as a spark.
Where dead ages hide underThe live roots of the tree,In my darkness the thunderMakes utterance of me;In the clash of my boughs with each other ye hear the waves sound of the sea.
That noise is of Time,As his feathers are spreadAnd his feet set to climbThrough the boughs overhead,And my foliage rings round him and rustles, and branches are bent with his tread.
The storm-winds of agesBlow through me and cease,The war-wind that rages,The spring-wind of peace,Ere the breath of them roughen my tresses, ere one of my blossoms increase.
All sounds of all changes,All shadows and lightsOn the world’s mountain-rangesAnd stream-riven heights,Whose tongue is the wind’s tongue and language of storm-clouds on earth-shaking nights;
All forms of all faces,All works of all handsIn unsearchable placesOf time-stricken lands,All death and all life, and all reigns and all ruins, drop through me as sands.
Though sore be my burdenAnd more than ye know,And my growth have no guerdonBut only to grow,Yet I fail not of growing for lightnings above me or deathworms below.
These too have their part in me,As I too in these;Such fire is at heart in me,Such sap is this tree’s,Which hath in it all sounds and all secrets of infinite lands and of seas.
In the spring-coloured hoursWhen my mind was as May’s,There brake forth of me flowersBy centuries of days,Strong blossoms with perfume of manhood, shot out from my spirit as rays.
And the sound of them springingAnd smell of their shootsWere as warmth and sweet singingAnd strength to my roots;And the lives of my children made perfect with freedom of soul were my fruits.
I bid you but be;I have need not of prayer;I have need of you freeAs your mouths of mine air;That my heart may be greater within me, beholding the fruits of me fair.
More fair than strange fruit isOf faiths ye espouse;In me only the root isThat blooms in your boughs;Behold now your God that ye made you, to feed him with faith of your vows.
In the darkening and whiteningAbysses adored,With dayspring and lightningFor lamp and for sword,God thunders in heaven, and his angels are red with the wrath of the Lord.
O my sons, O too dutifulToward Gods not of me,Was not I enough beautiful?Was it hard to be free?For behold, I am with you, am in you and of you; look forth now and see.
Lo, winged with world’s wonders,With miracles shod,With the fires of his thundersFor raiment and rod,God trembles in heaven, and his angels are white with the terror of God.
For his twilight is come on him,His anguish is here;And his spirits gaze dumb on him,Grown grey from his fear;And his hour taketh hold on him stricken, the last of his infinite year.
Thought made him and breaks him,Truth slays and forgives;But to you, as time takes him,This new thing it gives,Even love, the beloved Republic, that feeds upon freedom and lives.
For truth only is living,Truth only is whole,And the love of his givingMan’s polestar and pole;Man, pulse of my centre, and fruit of my body, and seed of my soul.
One birth of my bosom;One beam of mine eye;One topmost blossomThat scales the sky;Man, equal and one with me, man that is made of me, man that is I.
Here, down between the dusty trees,At this lank edge of haggard wood,Women with labour-loosened knees,With gaunt backs bowed by servitude,Stop, shift their loads, and pray, and fareForth with souls easier for the prayer.
The suns have branded black, the rainsStriped grey this piteous God of theirs;The face is full of prayers and pains,To which they bring their pains and prayers;Lean limbs that shew the labouring bones,And ghastly mouth that gapes and groans.
God of this grievous people, wroughtAfter the likeness of their race,By faces like thine own besought,Thine own blind helpless eyeless face,I too, that have nor tongue nor kneeFor prayer, I have a word to thee.
It was for this then, that thy speechWas blown about the world in flameAnd men’s souls shot up out of reachOf fear or lust or thwarting shame—That thy faith over souls should passAs sea-winds burning the grey grass?
It was for this, that prayers like theseShould spend themselves about thy feet,And with hard overlaboured kneesKneeling, these slaves of men should beatBosoms too lean to suckle sonsAnd fruitless as their orisons?
It was for this, that men should makeThy name a fetter on men’s necks,Poor men’s made poorer for thy sake,And women’s withered out of sex?It was for this, that slaves should be,Thy word was passed to set men free?
The nineteenth wave of the ages rollsNow deathward since thy death and birth.Hast thou fed full men’s starved-out souls?Hast thou brought freedom upon earth?Or are there less oppressions doneIn this wild world under the sun?
Nay, if indeed thou be not dead,Before thy terrene shrine be shaken,Look down, turn usward, bow thine head;O thou that wast of God forsaken,Look on thine household here, and seeThese that have not forsaken thee.
Thy faith is fire upon their lips,Thy kingdom golden in their hands;They scourge us with thy words for whips,They brand us with thy words for brands;The thirst that made thy dry throat shrinkTo their moist mouths commends the drink.
The toothèd thorns that bit thy browsLighten the weight of gold on theirs;Thy nakedness enrobes thy spouseWith the soft sanguine stuff she wearsWhose old limbs use for ointment yetThine agony and bloody sweat.
The blinding buffets on thine headOn their crowned heads confirm the crown;Thy scourging dyes their raiment red,And with thy bands they fasten downFor burial in the blood-bought fieldThe nations by thy stripes unhealed.
With iron for thy linen bandsAnd unclean cloths for winding-sheetThey bind the people’s nail-pierced hands,They hide the people’s nail-pierced feet;And what man or what angel knownShall roll back the sepulchral stone?
But these have not the rich man’s graveTo sleep in when their pain is done.These were not fit for God to save.As naked hell-fire is the sunIn their eyes living, and when deadThese have not where to lay their head.
They have no tomb to dig, and hide;Earth is not theirs, that they should sleep.On all these tombless crucifiedNo lovers’ eyes have time to weep.So still, for all man’s tears and creeds,The sacred body hangs and bleeds.
Through the left hand a nail is driven,Faith, and another through the right,Forged in the fires of hell and heaven,Fear that puts out the eye of light:And the feet soiled and scarred and paleAre pierced with falsehood for a nail.
And priests against the mouth divinePush their sponge full of poison yetAnd bitter blood for myrrh and wine,And on the same reed is it setWherewith before they buffetedThe people’s disanointed head.
O sacred head, O desecrate,O labour-wounded feet and hands,O blood poured forth in pledge to fateOf nameless lives in divers lands,O slain and spent and sacrificedPeople, the grey-grown speechless Christ!
Is there a gospel in the redOld witness of thy wide-mouthed wounds?From thy blind stricken tongueless headWhat desolate evangel soundsA hopeless note of hope deferred?What word, if there be any word?
O son of man, beneath man’s feetCast down, O common face of manWhereon all blows and buffets meet,O royal, O republicanFace of the people bruised and dumbAnd longing till thy kingdom come!
The soldiers and the high priests partThy vesture: all thy days are priced,And all the nights that eat thine heart.And that one seamless coat of Christ,The freedom of the natural soul,They cast their lots for to keep whole.
No fragment of it save the nameThey leave thee for a crown of scornsWherewith to mock thy naked shameAnd forehead bitten through with thornsAnd, marked with sanguine sweat and tears,The stripes of eighteen hundred years
And we seek yet if God or manCan loosen thee as Lazarus,Bid thee rise up republicanAnd save thyself and all of us;But no disciple’s tongue can sayWhen thou shalt take our sins away.
And mouldering now and hoar with mossBetween us and the sunlight swingsThe phantom of a Christless crossShadowing the sheltered heads of kingsAnd making with its moving shadeThe souls of harmless men afraid.
It creaks and rocks to left and rightConsumed of rottenness and rust,Worm-eaten of the worms of night,Dead as their spirits who put trust,Round its base muttering as they sit,In the time-cankered name of it.
Thou, in the day that breaks thy prison,People, though these men take thy name,And hail and hymn thee rearisen,Who made songs erewhile of thy shame,Give thou not ear; for these are theyWhose good day was thine evil day.
Set not thine hand unto their cross.Give not thy soul up sacrificed.Change not the gold of faith for drossOf Christian creeds that spit on Christ.Let not thy tree of freedom beRegrafted from that rotting tree.
This dead God here against my faceHath help for no man; who hath seenThe good works of it, or such graceAs thy grace in it, Nazarene,As that from thy live lips which ranFor man’s sake, O thou son of man?
The tree of faith ingraffed by priestsPuts its foul foliage out above thee,And round it feed man-eating beastsBecause of whom we dare not love thee;Though hearts reach back and memories ache,We cannot praise thee for their sake.
O hidden face of man, whereoverThe years have woven a viewless veil,If thou wast verily man’s lover,What did thy love or blood avail?Thy blood the priests make poison of,And in gold shekels coin thy love.
So when our souls look back to theeThey sicken, seeing against thy side,Too foul to speak of or to see,The leprous likeness of a bride,Whose kissing lips through his lips grownLeave their God rotten to the bone.
When we would see thee man, and knowWhat heart thou hadst toward men indeed,Lo, thy blood-blackened altars; lo,The lips of priests that pray and feedWhile their own hell’s worm curls and licksThe poison of the crucifix.
Thou bad’st let children come to thee;What children now but curses come?What manhood in that God can beWho sees their worship, and is dumb?No soul that lived, loved, wrought, and died,Is this their carrion crucified.
Nay, if their God and thou be one,If thou and this thing be the same,Thou shouldst not look upon the sun;The sun grows haggard at thy name.Come down, be done with, cease, give o’er;Hide thyself, strive not, be no more.
Atthe chill high tide of the night,At the turn of the fluctuant hours,When the waters of time are at height,In a vision arose on my sightThe kingdoms of earth and the powers.
In a dream without lightening of eyesI saw them, children of earth,Nations and races arise,Each one after his wise,Signed with the sign of his birth.
Sound was none of their feet,Light was none of their faces;In their lips breath was not, or heat,But a subtle murmur and sweetAs of water in wan waste places.
Pale as from passionate years,Years unassuaged of desire,Sang they soft in mine ears,Crowned with jewels of tears,Girt with girdles of fire.
A slow song beaten and broken,As it were from the dust and the dead,As of spirits athirst unsloken,As of things unspeakable spoken,As of tears unendurable shed.
In the manifold sound remote,In the molten murmur of song,There was but a sharp sole noteAlive on the night and afloat,The cry of the world’s heart’s wrong.
As the sea in the strait sea-caves,The sound came straitened and strange;A noise of the rending of graves,A tidal thunder of waves,The music of death and of change.
“We have waited so long,” they say,“For a sound of the God, for a breath,For a ripple of the refluence of day,For the fresh bright wind of the fray,For the light of the sunrise of death.
“We have prayed not, we, to be strong,To fulfil the desire of our eyes;—Howbeit they have watched for it long,Watched, and the night did them wrong,Yet they say not of day, shall it rise?
“They are fearful and feeble with years,Yet they doubt not of day if it be;Yea, blinded and beaten with tears,Yea, sick with foresight of fears,Yet a little, and hardly, they see.
“We pray not, we, for the palm,For the fruit ingraffed of the fight,For the blossom of peace and the balm,And the tender triumph and calmOf crownless and weaponless right.
“We pray not, we, to beholdThe latter august new birth,The young day’s purple and gold,And divine, and rerisen as of old,The sun-god Freedom on earth.
“Peace, and world’s honour, and fame,We have sought after none of these things;The light of a life like flamePassing, the storm of a nameShaking the strongholds of kings:
“Nor, fashioned of fire and of air,The splendour that burns on his headWho was chiefest in ages that were,Whose breath blew palaces bare,Whose eye shone tyrannies dead:
“All these things in your dayYe shall see, O our sons, and shall holdSurely; but we, in the greyTwilight, for one thing we pray,In that day though our memories be cold:
“To feel on our brows as we waitAn air of the morning, a breathFrom the springs of the east, from the gateWhence freedom issues, and fate,Sorrow, and triumph, and death
“From a land whereon time hath not trod,Where the spirit is bondless and bare,And the world’s rein breaks, and the rod,And the soul of a man, which is God,He adores without altar or prayer:
“For alone of herself and her rightShe takes, and alone gives grace:And the colours of things lose light,And the forms, in the limitless whiteSplendour of space without space:
“And the blossom of man from his tombYearns open, the flower that survives;And the shadows of changes consumeIn the colourless passionate bloomOf the live light made of our lives:
“Seeing each life given is a leafOf the manifold multiform flower,And the least among these, and the chief,As an ear in the red-ripe sheafStored for the harvesting hour.
“O spirit of man, most holy,The measure of things and the root,In our summers and winters a lowlySeed, putting forth of them slowlyThy supreme blossom and fruit;
“In thy sacred and perfect year,The souls that were parcel of theeIn the labour and life of us hereShall be rays of thy sovereign sphere,Springs of thy motion shall be.
“There is the fire that was man,The light that was love, and the breathThat was hope ere deliverance began,And the wind that was life for a span,And the birth of new things, which is death
“There, whosoever had light,And, having, for men’s sake gave;All that warred against night;All that were found in the fightSwift to be slain and to save;
“Undisbranched of the storms that disroot us,Of the lures that enthrall unenticed;The names that exalt and transmute us;The blood-bright splendour of Brutus,The snow-bright splendour of Christ.
“There all chains are undone;Day there seems but as night;Spirit and sense are as oneIn the light not of star nor of sun;Liberty there is the light.
“She, sole mother and maker,Stronger than sorrow, than strife;Deathless, though death overtake her;Faithful, though faith should forsake her;Spirit, and saviour, and life.”