NOTES.

Nor stands the seer who raised him less augustBefore us, nor in judgment frail and rathe,Less constant or less loving or less just,But fruitful-ripe and full of tender faith,Holding all high and gentle names in trustOf time for honour; so his quickening breathCalled from the darkness of their martyred dustOur sweet Saints Alice and Elizabeth,Revived and reinspiredWith speech from heavenward firedBy love to say what Love the Archangel saithOnly, nor may such wordSave by such ears be heardAs hear the tongues of angels after deathDescending on them like a doveHas taken all earthly sense of thought away but love.

All sweet, all sacred, all heroic things,All generous names and loyal, and all wise,With all his heart in all its wayfaringsHe sought, and worshipped, seeing them with his eyesIn very present glory, clothed with wingsOf words and deeds and dreams immortal, riseVisible more than living slaves and kings,Audible more than actual vows and lies:These, with scorn's fieriest rod,These and the Lord their God,The Lord their likeness, tyrant of the skiesAs they Lord Gods of earth,These with a rage of mirthHe mocked and scourged and spat on, in such wiseThat none might stand before his rod,And these being slain the Spirit alone be lord or God.

For of all souls for all time glorious noneLoved Freedom better, of all who have loved her best,Than he who wrote that scripture of the sunWrit as with fire and light on heaven's own crest,Of all words heard on earth the noblest oneThat ever spake for souls and left them blest:Gladly we should rest ever, had we wonFreedom: we have lost, and very gladly rest.O poet hero, lordAnd father, we recordDeep in the burning tablets of the breastThankfully those divineAnd living words of thineFor faith and comfort in our hearts imprestWith strokes engraven past hurt of yearsAnd lines inured with fire of immemorial tears.

But who being less than thou shall sing of theeWords worthy of more than pity or less than scorn?Who sing the golden garland woven of three,Thy daughters, Graces mightier than the morn,More godlike than the graven gods men seeMade all but all immortal, human bornAnd heavenly natured? With the first came He,Led by the living hand, who left forlornLife by his death, and timeMore by his life sublimeThan by the lives of all whom all men mourn,And even for mourning praiseHeaven, as for all those daysThese dead men's lives clothed round with glories wornBy memory till all time lie dead,And higher than all behold the bay round Shakespeare's head.

Then, fairer than the fairest Grace of ours,Came girt with Grecian gold the second Grace,And verier daughter of his most perfect hoursThan any of latter time or alien placeNamed, or with hair inwoven of English flowersOnly, nor wearing on her statelier faceThe lordlier light of Athens. All the PowersThat graced and guarded round that holiest race,That heavenliest and most highTime hath seen live and die,Poured all their power upon him to retraceThe erased immortal rollOf Love's most sovereign scrollAnd Wisdom's warm from Freedom's wide embrace,The scroll that on Aspasia's kneesLaid once made manifest the Olympian Pericles.

Clothed on with tenderest weft of Tuscan air,Came laughing like Etrurian spring the third,With green Valdelsa's hill-flowers in her hairDeep-drenched with May-dews, in her voice the birdWhose voice hath night and morning in it; fairAs the ambient gold of wall-flowers that engirdThe walls engirdling with a circling stairMy sweet San Gimignano: nor a wordFell from her flowerlike mouthNot sweet with all the south;As though the dust shrined in Certaldo stirredAnd spake, as o'er it shoneThat bright Pentameron,And his own vines again and chestnuts heardBoccaccio: nor swift Elsa's chimeMixed not her golden babble with Petrarca's rhyme.

No lovelier laughed the garden which receivesYet, and yet hides not from our following eyesWith soft rose-laurels and low strawberry-leaves,Ternissa, sweet as April-coloured skies,Bowed like a flowering reed when May's wind heavesThe reed-bed that the stream kisses and sighs,In love that shrinks and murmurs and believesWhat yet the wisest of the starriest wiseWhom Greece might ever hearSpeaks in the gentlest earThat ever heard love's lips philosophizeWith such deep-reasoning wordsAs blossoms use and birds,Nor heeds Leontion lingering till they riseFar off, in no wise over far,Beneath a heaven all amorous of its first-born star.

What sound, what storm and splendour of what fire,Darkening the light of heaven, lightening the night,Rings, rages, flashes round what ravening pyreThat makes time's face pale with its reflex lightAnd leaves on earth, who seeing might scarce respire,A shadow of red remembrance? Right nor mightAlternating wore ever shapes more direNor manifest in all men's awful sightIn form and face that woreHeaven's light and likeness moreThan these, or held suspense men's hearts at heightMore fearful, since man firstSlaked with man's blood his thirst,Than when Rome clashed with Hannibal in fight,Till tower on ruining tower was hurledWhere Scipio stood, and Carthage was not in the world.

Nor lacked there power of purpose in his handWho carved their several praise in words of goldTo bare the brows of conquerors and to brand,Made shelterless of laurels bought and soldFor price of blood or incense, dust or sand,Triumph or terror. He that sought of oldHis father Ammon in a stranger's land,And shrank before the serpentining fold,Stood in our seer's wide eyeNo higher than man most high,And lowest in heart when highest in hope to holdFast as a scripture furledThe scroll of all the worldSealed with his signet: nor the blind and boldFirst thief of empire, round whose headSwarmed carrion flies for bees, on flesh for violets fed.[1]

As fire that kisses, killing with a kiss,He saw the light of death, riotous and red,Flame round the bent brows of SemiramisRe-risen, and mightier, from the Assyrian dead,Kindling, as dawn a frost-bound precipice,The steely snows of Russia, for the treadOf feet that felt before them crawl and hissThe snaky lines of blood violently shed.Like living creeping thingsThat writhe but have no stingsTo scare adulterers from the imperial bedBowed with its load of lust,Or chill the ravenous gustsThat made her body a fire from heel to head;Or change her high bright spirit and clear,For all its mortal stains, from taint of fraud or fear.

As light that blesses, hallowing with a look;He saw the godhead in Vittoria's faceShine soft on Buonarroti's, till he took,Albeit himself God, a more godlike grace,A strength more heavenly to confront and brookAll ill things coiled about his worldly race,From the bright scripture of that present bookWherein his tired grand eyes got power to traceComfort more sweet than youth,And hope whose child was truth,And love that brought forth sorrow for a space,Only that she might bearJoy: these things, written there,Made even his soul's high heaven a heavenlier place,Perused with eyes whose glory and glowHad in their fires the spirit of Michael Angelo.

With balms and dews of blessing he consoledThe fair fame wounded by the black priest's fang,Giovanna's, and washed off her blithe and boldBoy-bridegroom's blood, that seemed so long to hangOn her fair hand, even till the stain of oldWas cleansed with healing song, that after sangSharp truth by sweetest singers' lips untoldOf pale Beatrice, though her death-note rangFrom other strings divineEre his rekindling lineWith yet more piteous and intolerant pangPierced all men's hearts anewThat heard her passion throughTill fierce from throes of fiery pity sprangWrath, armed for chase of monstrous beasts,Strong to lay waste the kingdom of the seed of priests.

He knew the high-souled humbleness, the mirthAnd majesty of meanest men born free,That made with Luther's or with Hofer's birthThe whole world worthier of the sun to see:The wealth of spirit among the snows, the dearthWherein souls festered by the servile seaThat saw the lowest of even crowned heads on earthThronged round with worship in Parthenope.His hand bade Justice guideHer child Tyrannicide,Light winged by fire that brings the dawn to be;And pierced with Tyrrel's dartAgain the riotous heartThat mocked at mercy's tongue and manhood's knee:And oped the cell where kinglike deathHung o'er her brows discrowned who bare Elizabeth.

Toward Spenser or toward Bacon proud or kindHe bared the heart of Essex, twain and one,For the base heart that soiled the starry mindStern, for the father in his child undoneSoft as his own toward children, stamped and signedWith their sweet image visibly set onAs by God's hand, clear as his own designedThe likeness radiant out of ages goneThat none may now destroyOf that high Roman boyWhom Julius and Cleopatra saw their sonTrue-born of sovereign seed,Foredoomed even thence to bleed,The stately grace of bright Cæsarion,The head unbent, the heart unbowed,That not the shadow of death could make less clear and proud.

With gracious gods he communed, honouring thusAt once by service and similitude,Service devout and worship emulousOf the same golden Muses once they wooed,The names and shades adored of all of us,The nurslings of the brave world's earlier brood,Grown gods for us themselves: TheocritusFirst, and more dear Catullus, names bedewedWith blessings bright like tearsFrom the old memorial years,And loves and lovely laughters, every moodSweet as the drops that fellOf their own œnomelFrom living lips to cheer the multitudeThat feeds on words divine, and growsMore worthy, seeing their world reblossom like a rose.

Peace, the soft seal of long life's closing story,The silent music that no strange note jars,Crowned not with gentler hand the years that gloryCrowned, but could hide not all the spiritual scarsTime writes on the inward strengths of warriors hoaryWith much long warfare, and with gradual barsBlindly pent in: but these, being transitory,Broke, and the power came back that passion mars:And at the lovely lastAbove all anguish pastBefore his own the sightless eyes like starsArose that watched ariseLike stars in other skiesAbove the strife of ships and hurtling carsThe Dioscurian songs divineThat lighten all the world with lightning of their line.

He sang the last of Homer, having sungThe last of his Ulysses. Bright and wideFor him time's dark strait ways, like clouds that clungAbout the day-star, doubtful to divide,Waxed in his spiritual eyeshot, and his tongueSpake as his soul bore witness, that descried,Like those twin towering lights in darkness hung,Homer, and grey Laertes at his sideKingly as kings are noneBeneath a later sun,And the sweet maiden ministering in prideTo sovereign and to sageIn their more sweet old age:These things he sang, himself as old, and died.And if death be not, if life be,As Homer and as Milton are in heaven is he.

Poet whose large-eyed loyalty of loveWas pure toward all high poets, all their kindAnd all bright words and all sweet works thereof;Strong like the sun, and like the sunlight kind;Heart that no fear but every grief might moveWherewith men's hearts were bound of powers that bind;The purest soul that ever proof could proveFrom taint of tortuous or of envious mind;Whose eyes elate and clearNor shame nor ever fearBut only pity or glorious wrath could blind;Name set for love apart,Held lifelong in my heart,Face like a father's toward my face inclined;No gilts like thine are mine to give,Who by thine own words only bid thee hail, and live.

[1]Thy lifelong works, Napoleon, who shall write?Time, in his children's blood who takes delight.From the Greek of Landor.

[1]

Thy lifelong works, Napoleon, who shall write?Time, in his children's blood who takes delight.

From the Greek of Landor.

'J'en passe, et des meilleurs.' But who can enumerate all or half our obligations to the illimitable and inexhaustible genius of the great man whose life and whose labour lasted even from the generation of our fathers' fathers to our own? Hardly any reader can feel, I think, so deeply as I feel the inadequacy of my poor praise and too imperfect gratitude to the majestic subject of their attempted expression; but 'such as I had have I given him.'

Attempted in English verse after the original metre.

I was allured into the audacity of this experiment by consideration of a fact which hitherto does not seem to have been taken into consideration by any translator of the half divine humourist in whose incomparable genius the highest qualities of Rabelais were fused and harmonized with the supremest gifts of Shelley: namely, that his marvellous metrical invention of the anapæstic heptameter was almost exactly reproducible in a language to which all variations and combinations of anapæstic, iambic, or trochaic metre are as natural and pliable as all dactylic and spondaic forms of verse are unnatural and abhorrent. As it happens, this highest central interlude of a most adorable masterpiece is as easy to detach from its dramatic setting, and even from its lyrical context, as it was easy to give line for line of it in English. In two metrical points only does my version vary from the verbal pattern of the original. I have of course added rhymes, and double rhymes, as necessary makeweights for the imperfection of an otherwise inadequate language; and equally of course I have not attempted the impossible and undesirable task of reproducing the rare exceptional effect of a line overcharged on purpose with a preponderance of heavy-footed spondees: and this for the obvious reason that even if such a line—which I doubt—could be exactly represented, foot by foot and pause for pause, in English, this English line would no more be a verse in any proper sense of the word than is the line I am writing at this moment. And my main intention, or at least my main desire, in the undertaking of this brief adventure, was to renew as far as possible for English ears the music of this resonant and triumphant metre, which goes ringing at full gallop as of horses who

'dance as 'twere to the musicTheir own hoofs make.'

I would not seem over curious in search of an apt or inapt quotation: but nothing can be fitter than a verse of Shakespeare's to praise at once and to describe the most typical verse of Aristophanes.

Come on then, ye dwellers by nature in darkness, and like to the leaves' generations,That are little of might, that are moulded of mire, unenduring and shadowlike nations,Poor plumeless ephemerals, comfortless mortals, as visions of creatures fast fleeing,Lift up your mind unto us that are deathless, and dateless the date of our being:Us, children of heaven, us, ageless for aye, us, all of whose thoughts are eternal;That ye may from henceforth, having heard of us all things aright as to matters supernal,Of the being of birds and beginning of gods, and of streams, and the dark beyond reaching,Truthfully knowing aright, in my name bid Prodicus pack with his preaching.It was Chaos and Night at the first, and the blackness of darkness, and hell's broad border,Earth was not, nor air, neither heaven; when in depths of the womb of the dark without orderFirst thing first-born of the black-plumed Night was a wind-egg hatched in her bosom,Whence timely with seasons revolving again sweet Love burst out as a blossom,Gold wings glittering forth of his back, like whirlwinds gustily turning.He, after his wedlock with Chaos, whose wings are of darkness, in hell broad-burning,For his nestlings begat him the race of us first, and upraised us to light new-lighted.And before this was not the race of the gods, until all things by Love were united;And of kind united with kind in communion of nature the sky and the sea areBrought forth, and the earth, and the race of the gods everlasting and blest. So that we areFar away the most ancient of all things blest. And that we are of Love's generationThere are manifest manifold signs. We have wings, and with us have the Loves habitation;And manifold fair young folk that forswore love once, ere the bloom of them ended,Have the men that pursued and desired them subdued, by the help of us only befriended,With such baits as a quail, a flamingo, a goose, or a cock's comb staring and splendid.All best good things that befall men come from us birds, as is plain to all reason:For first we proclaim and make known to them spring, and the winter and autumn in season;Bid sow, when the crane starts clanging for Afric, in shrill-voiced emigrant number,And calls to the pilot to hang up his rudder again for the season, and slumber;And then weave a cloak for Orestes the thief, lest he strip men of theirs if it freezes.And again thereafter the kite reappearing announces a change in the breezes,And that here is the season for shearing your sheep of their spring wool. Then does the swallowGive you notice to sell your greatcoat, and provide something light for the heat that's to follow.Thus are we as Ammon or Delphi unto you, Dodona, nay, Phœbus Apollo.For, as first ye come all to get auguries of birds, even such is in all things your carriage,Be the matter a matter of trade, or of earning your bread, or of any one's marriage.And all things ye lay to the charge of a bird that belong to discerning prediction:Winged fame is a bird, as you reckon: you sneeze, and the sign's as a bird for conviction:All tokens are 'birds' with you—sounds too, and lackeys, and donkeys. Then must it not followThat we ARE to you all as the manifest godhead that speaks in prophetic Apollo?

It was Chaos and Night at the first, and the blackness of darkness, and hell's broad border,Earth was not, nor air, neither heaven; when in depths of the womb of the dark without orderFirst thing first-born of the black-plumed Night was a wind-egg hatched in her bosom,Whence timely with seasons revolving again sweet Love burst out as a blossom,Gold wings glittering forth of his back, like whirlwinds gustily turning.He, after his wedlock with Chaos, whose wings are of darkness, in hell broad-burning,For his nestlings begat him the race of us first, and upraised us to light new-lighted.And before this was not the race of the gods, until all things by Love were united;And of kind united with kind in communion of nature the sky and the sea areBrought forth, and the earth, and the race of the gods everlasting and blest. So that we areFar away the most ancient of all things blest. And that we are of Love's generationThere are manifest manifold signs. We have wings, and with us have the Loves habitation;And manifold fair young folk that forswore love once, ere the bloom of them ended,Have the men that pursued and desired them subdued, by the help of us only befriended,With such baits as a quail, a flamingo, a goose, or a cock's comb staring and splendid.

All best good things that befall men come from us birds, as is plain to all reason:For first we proclaim and make known to them spring, and the winter and autumn in season;Bid sow, when the crane starts clanging for Afric, in shrill-voiced emigrant number,And calls to the pilot to hang up his rudder again for the season, and slumber;And then weave a cloak for Orestes the thief, lest he strip men of theirs if it freezes.And again thereafter the kite reappearing announces a change in the breezes,And that here is the season for shearing your sheep of their spring wool. Then does the swallowGive you notice to sell your greatcoat, and provide something light for the heat that's to follow.Thus are we as Ammon or Delphi unto you, Dodona, nay, Phœbus Apollo.For, as first ye come all to get auguries of birds, even such is in all things your carriage,Be the matter a matter of trade, or of earning your bread, or of any one's marriage.And all things ye lay to the charge of a bird that belong to discerning prediction:Winged fame is a bird, as you reckon: you sneeze, and the sign's as a bird for conviction:All tokens are 'birds' with you—sounds too, and lackeys, and donkeys. Then must it not followThat we ARE to you all as the manifest godhead that speaks in prophetic Apollo?

October 19, 1880.

When the might of the summerIs most on the sea;When the days overcome herWith joy but to be,With rapture of royal enchantment, and sorcery that sets her not free,But for hours upon hoursAs a thrall she remainsSpell-bound as with flowersAnd content in their chains,And her loud steeds fret not, and lift not a lock of their deep white manes;Then only, far underIn the depths of her hold,Some gleam of its wonderMan's eye may behold,Its wild-weed forests of crimson and russet and olive and gold.Still deeper and dimmerAnd goodlier they glowFor the eyes of the swimmerWho scans them belowAs he crosses the zone of their flowerage that knows not of sunshine and snow.Soft blossomless frondageAnd foliage that gleamsAs to prisoners in bondageThe light of their dreams,The desire of a dawn unbeholden, with hope on the wings of its beams.Not as prisoners entombedWaxen haggard and wizen,But consoled and illumedIn the depths of their prisonWith delight of the light everlasting and vision of dawn on them risen,From the banks and the bedsOf the waters divineThey lift up their headsAnd the flowers of them shineThrough the splendour of darkness that clothes them of water that glimmers like wine.Bright bank over bankMaking glorious the gloom,Soft rank upon rank,Strange bloom after bloom,They kindle the liquid low twilight, the dusk of the dim sea's womb.Through the subtle and tangibleGloom without form,Their branches, infrangibleEver of stormSpread softer their sprays than the shoots of the woodland when April is warm.As the flight of the thunder, fullCharged with its word,Dividing the wonderfulDepths like a bird,Speaks wrath and delight to the heart of the night that exults to have heard,So swiftly, though soundlessIn silence's ear,Light, winged from the boundlessBlue depths full of cheer,Speaks joy to the heart of the waters that part not before him, but hear.Light, perfect and visibleGodhead of God,God indivisible,Lifts but his rod,And the shadows are scattered in sunder, and darkness is light at his nod.At the touch of his wand,At the nod of his headFrom the spaces beyondWhere the dawn hath her bed,Earth, water, and air are transfigured, and rise as one risen from the dead.He puts forth his hand,And the mountains are thrilledTo the heart as they standIn his presence, fulfilledWith his glory that utters his grace upon earth, and her sorrows are stilled.The moan of her travailThat groans for the lightTill dayspring unravelThe weft of the night,At the sound of the strings of the music of morning, falls dumb with delight.He gives forth his word,And the word that he saith,Ere well it be heard,Strikes darkness to death;For the thought of his heart is the sunrise, and dawn as the sound of his breath.And the strength of its pulsesThat passion makes proudConfounds and convulsesThe depths of the cloudOf the darkness that heaven was engirt with, divided and rent as a shroud,As the veil of the shrineOf the temple of oldWhen darkness divineOver noonday was rolled;So the heart of the night by the pulse of the light is convulsed and controlled.And the sea's heart, groaningFor glories withdrawn,And the waves' mouths, moaningAll night for the dawn,Are uplift as the hearts and the mouths of the singers on leaside and lawn.And the sound of the quiringOf all these as one,Desired and desiringTill dawn's will be done,Fills full with delight of them heaven till it burns as the heart of the sun.Till the waves too inheritAnd waters take partIn the sense of the spiritThat breathes from his heart,And are kindled with music as fire when the lips of the morning part,With music unheardIn the light of her lips,In the life-giving wordOf the dewfall that dripsOn the grasses of earth, and the wind that enkindles the wings of the ships.White glories of wingsAs of seafaring birdsThat flock from the springsOf the sunrise in herdsWith the wind for a herdsman, and hasten or halt at the change of his words.As the watchword's changeWhen the wind's note shifts,And the skies grow strange,And the white squall driftsUp sharp from the sea-line, vexing the sea till the low cloud lifts.At the charge of his wordBidding pause, bidding haste,When the ranks are stirredAnd the lines displaced,They scatter as wild swans parting adrift on the wan green waste.At the hush of his wordIn a pause of his breathWhen the waters have heardHis will that he saith,They stand as a flock penned close in its fold for division of death.As a flock by divisionOf death to be thinned,As the shades in a visionOf spirits that sinned;So glimmer their shrouds and their sheetings as clouds on the stream of the wind.But the sun stands fast,And the sea burns bright,And the flight of them pastIs no more than the flightOf the snow-soft swarm of serene wings poised and afloat in the light.Like flowers upon flowersIn a festival wayWhen hours after hoursShed grace on the day,White blossomlike butterflies hover and gleam through the snows of the spray.Like snow-coloured petalsOf blossoms that fleeFrom storm that unsettlesThe flower as the treeThey flutter, a legion of flowers on the wing, through the field of the sea.Through the furrowless fieldWhere the foam-blossoms blowAnd the secrets are sealedOf their harvest belowThey float in the path of the sunbeams, as flakes or as blossoms of snow.Till the sea's ways darken,And the God, withdrawn,Give ear not or hearkenIf prayer on him fawn,And the sun's self seem but a shadow, the noon as a ghost of the dawn.No shadow, but ratherGod, father of song,Shew grace to me, FatherGod, loved of me long,That I lose not the light of thy face, that my trust in thee work me not wrong.While yet I make forwardWith face toward theeNot turned yet in shoreward,Be thine upon me;Be thy light on my forehead or ever I turn it again from the sea.As a kiss on my browBe the light of thy grace,Be thy glance on me nowFrom the pride of thy place:As the sign of a sire to a son be the light on my face of thy face.Thou wast father of oldenTimes hailed and adored,And the sense of thy goldenGreat harp's monochordWas the joy in the soul of the singers that hailed thee for master and lord.Fair father of allIn thy ways that have trod,That have risen at thy call,That have thrilled at thy nod,Arise, shine, lighten upon me, O sun that we see to be God.As my soul has been dutifulOnly to thee,O God most beautiful,Lighten thou me,As I swim through the dim long rollers, with eyelids uplift from the sea.Be praised and adored of usAll in accord,Father and lord of usAlway adored,The slayer and the stayer and the harper, the light of us all and our lord.At the sound of thy lyre,At the touch of thy rod,Air quickens to fireBy the foot of thee trod,The saviour and healer and singer, the living and visible God.The years are before theeAs shadows of thee,As men that adore thee,As cloudlets that flee:But thou art the God, and thy kingdom is heaven, and thy shrine is the sea.

When the might of the summerIs most on the sea;When the days overcome herWith joy but to be,With rapture of royal enchantment, and sorcery that sets her not free,

But for hours upon hoursAs a thrall she remainsSpell-bound as with flowersAnd content in their chains,And her loud steeds fret not, and lift not a lock of their deep white manes;

Then only, far underIn the depths of her hold,Some gleam of its wonderMan's eye may behold,Its wild-weed forests of crimson and russet and olive and gold.

Still deeper and dimmerAnd goodlier they glowFor the eyes of the swimmerWho scans them belowAs he crosses the zone of their flowerage that knows not of sunshine and snow.

Soft blossomless frondageAnd foliage that gleamsAs to prisoners in bondageThe light of their dreams,The desire of a dawn unbeholden, with hope on the wings of its beams.

Not as prisoners entombedWaxen haggard and wizen,But consoled and illumedIn the depths of their prisonWith delight of the light everlasting and vision of dawn on them risen,

From the banks and the bedsOf the waters divineThey lift up their headsAnd the flowers of them shineThrough the splendour of darkness that clothes them of water that glimmers like wine.

Bright bank over bankMaking glorious the gloom,Soft rank upon rank,Strange bloom after bloom,They kindle the liquid low twilight, the dusk of the dim sea's womb.

Through the subtle and tangibleGloom without form,Their branches, infrangibleEver of stormSpread softer their sprays than the shoots of the woodland when April is warm.

As the flight of the thunder, fullCharged with its word,Dividing the wonderfulDepths like a bird,Speaks wrath and delight to the heart of the night that exults to have heard,

So swiftly, though soundlessIn silence's ear,Light, winged from the boundlessBlue depths full of cheer,Speaks joy to the heart of the waters that part not before him, but hear.

Light, perfect and visibleGodhead of God,God indivisible,Lifts but his rod,And the shadows are scattered in sunder, and darkness is light at his nod.

At the touch of his wand,At the nod of his headFrom the spaces beyondWhere the dawn hath her bed,Earth, water, and air are transfigured, and rise as one risen from the dead.

He puts forth his hand,And the mountains are thrilledTo the heart as they standIn his presence, fulfilledWith his glory that utters his grace upon earth, and her sorrows are stilled.

The moan of her travailThat groans for the lightTill dayspring unravelThe weft of the night,At the sound of the strings of the music of morning, falls dumb with delight.

He gives forth his word,And the word that he saith,Ere well it be heard,Strikes darkness to death;For the thought of his heart is the sunrise, and dawn as the sound of his breath.

And the strength of its pulsesThat passion makes proudConfounds and convulsesThe depths of the cloudOf the darkness that heaven was engirt with, divided and rent as a shroud,

As the veil of the shrineOf the temple of oldWhen darkness divineOver noonday was rolled;So the heart of the night by the pulse of the light is convulsed and controlled.

And the sea's heart, groaningFor glories withdrawn,And the waves' mouths, moaningAll night for the dawn,Are uplift as the hearts and the mouths of the singers on leaside and lawn.

And the sound of the quiringOf all these as one,Desired and desiringTill dawn's will be done,Fills full with delight of them heaven till it burns as the heart of the sun.

Till the waves too inheritAnd waters take partIn the sense of the spiritThat breathes from his heart,And are kindled with music as fire when the lips of the morning part,

With music unheardIn the light of her lips,In the life-giving wordOf the dewfall that dripsOn the grasses of earth, and the wind that enkindles the wings of the ships.

White glories of wingsAs of seafaring birdsThat flock from the springsOf the sunrise in herdsWith the wind for a herdsman, and hasten or halt at the change of his words.

As the watchword's changeWhen the wind's note shifts,And the skies grow strange,And the white squall driftsUp sharp from the sea-line, vexing the sea till the low cloud lifts.

At the charge of his wordBidding pause, bidding haste,When the ranks are stirredAnd the lines displaced,They scatter as wild swans parting adrift on the wan green waste.

At the hush of his wordIn a pause of his breathWhen the waters have heardHis will that he saith,They stand as a flock penned close in its fold for division of death.

As a flock by divisionOf death to be thinned,As the shades in a visionOf spirits that sinned;So glimmer their shrouds and their sheetings as clouds on the stream of the wind.

But the sun stands fast,And the sea burns bright,And the flight of them pastIs no more than the flightOf the snow-soft swarm of serene wings poised and afloat in the light.

Like flowers upon flowersIn a festival wayWhen hours after hoursShed grace on the day,White blossomlike butterflies hover and gleam through the snows of the spray.

Like snow-coloured petalsOf blossoms that fleeFrom storm that unsettlesThe flower as the treeThey flutter, a legion of flowers on the wing, through the field of the sea.

Through the furrowless fieldWhere the foam-blossoms blowAnd the secrets are sealedOf their harvest belowThey float in the path of the sunbeams, as flakes or as blossoms of snow.

Till the sea's ways darken,And the God, withdrawn,Give ear not or hearkenIf prayer on him fawn,And the sun's self seem but a shadow, the noon as a ghost of the dawn.

No shadow, but ratherGod, father of song,Shew grace to me, FatherGod, loved of me long,That I lose not the light of thy face, that my trust in thee work me not wrong.

While yet I make forwardWith face toward theeNot turned yet in shoreward,Be thine upon me;Be thy light on my forehead or ever I turn it again from the sea.

As a kiss on my browBe the light of thy grace,Be thy glance on me nowFrom the pride of thy place:As the sign of a sire to a son be the light on my face of thy face.

Thou wast father of oldenTimes hailed and adored,And the sense of thy goldenGreat harp's monochordWas the joy in the soul of the singers that hailed thee for master and lord.

Fair father of allIn thy ways that have trod,That have risen at thy call,That have thrilled at thy nod,Arise, shine, lighten upon me, O sun that we see to be God.

As my soul has been dutifulOnly to thee,O God most beautiful,Lighten thou me,As I swim through the dim long rollers, with eyelids uplift from the sea.

Be praised and adored of usAll in accord,Father and lord of usAlway adored,The slayer and the stayer and the harper, the light of us all and our lord.

At the sound of thy lyre,At the touch of thy rod,Air quickens to fireBy the foot of thee trod,The saviour and healer and singer, the living and visible God.

The years are before theeAs shadows of thee,As men that adore thee,As cloudlets that flee:But thou art the God, and thy kingdom is heaven, and thy shrine is the sea.

Primâ dicte mihi, summâ dicende Camenâ.

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