Abou Ben Adhem(may his tribe decreaseBy cautious birth-control and die in peace)Mellow with learning lightly took the wordThat marked him not with them that love the Lord,And told the angel of the book and pen“Write me as one that loves his fellow-men:For them alone I labour; to reclaimThe ragged roaming Bedouin and to tameTo ordered service; to uproot their vineWho mock the Prophet, being mad with wine,Let daylight through their tents and through their lives,Number their camels, even count their wives,Plot out the desert into streets and squares;And count it a more fruitful work than theirsWho lift a vain and visionary loveTo your vague Allah in the skies above.”Gently replied the angel of the pen:“Labour in peace and love your fellow-men:And love not God, since men alone are dear,Only fear God; for you have cause to fear.”
Abou Ben Adhem(may his tribe decreaseBy cautious birth-control and die in peace)Mellow with learning lightly took the wordThat marked him not with them that love the Lord,And told the angel of the book and pen“Write me as one that loves his fellow-men:For them alone I labour; to reclaimThe ragged roaming Bedouin and to tameTo ordered service; to uproot their vineWho mock the Prophet, being mad with wine,Let daylight through their tents and through their lives,Number their camels, even count their wives,Plot out the desert into streets and squares;And count it a more fruitful work than theirsWho lift a vain and visionary loveTo your vague Allah in the skies above.”
Gently replied the angel of the pen:“Labour in peace and love your fellow-men:And love not God, since men alone are dear,Only fear God; for you have cause to fear.”
Whenyou came over the top of the worldIn the great day on the Downs,The air was crisp and the clouds were curled,When you came over the top of the world,And under your feet were spire and streetAnd seven English towns.And I could not think that the pride was perishedAs you came over the down;Liberty, chivalry, all we cherished,Lost in a rattle of pelf and perished;Or the land we love that you walked aboveWithering town by town.For you came out on the dome of the earthLike a vision of victory,Out on the great green dome of the earthAs the great blue dome of the sky for girth,And under your feet the shires could meetAnd your eyes went out to sea.Under your feet the towns were seven,Alive and alone on high,Your back to the broad white wall of heaven;You were one and the towns were seven,Single and one as the soaring sunAnd your head upheld the sky.And I thought of a thundering flag unfurledAnd the roar of the burghers’ bell:Beacons crackled and bolts were hurledAs you came over the top of the world;And under your feet were chance and cheatAnd the slime of the slopes of hell.It has not been as the great wind spokeOn the great green down that day:We have seen, wherever the wide wind spoke,Slavery slaying the English folk:The robbers of land we have seen commandThe rulers of land obey.We have seen the gigantic golden wormsIn the garden of paradise:We have seen the great and the wise make termsWith the peace of snakes and the pride of worms,and them that plant make covenantWith the locust and the lice.And the wind blows and the world goes onAnd the world can say that we,Who stood on the cliffs where the quarries shone,Stood upon clouds that the sun shone on:And the clouds dissunder and drown in thunderThe news that will never be.Lady of all that have loved the people,Light over roads astray,Maze of steading and street and steeple,Great as a heart that has loved the people:Stand on the crown of the soaring down,Lift up your arms and pray.Only you I have not forgottenFor wreck of the world’s renown,Rending and ending of things gone rotten,Only the face of you unforgotten:And your head upthrown in the skies aloneAs you came over the down.
Whenyou came over the top of the worldIn the great day on the Downs,The air was crisp and the clouds were curled,When you came over the top of the world,And under your feet were spire and streetAnd seven English towns.
And I could not think that the pride was perishedAs you came over the down;Liberty, chivalry, all we cherished,Lost in a rattle of pelf and perished;Or the land we love that you walked aboveWithering town by town.
For you came out on the dome of the earthLike a vision of victory,Out on the great green dome of the earthAs the great blue dome of the sky for girth,And under your feet the shires could meetAnd your eyes went out to sea.
Under your feet the towns were seven,Alive and alone on high,Your back to the broad white wall of heaven;You were one and the towns were seven,Single and one as the soaring sunAnd your head upheld the sky.
And I thought of a thundering flag unfurledAnd the roar of the burghers’ bell:Beacons crackled and bolts were hurledAs you came over the top of the world;And under your feet were chance and cheatAnd the slime of the slopes of hell.
It has not been as the great wind spokeOn the great green down that day:We have seen, wherever the wide wind spoke,Slavery slaying the English folk:The robbers of land we have seen commandThe rulers of land obey.
We have seen the gigantic golden wormsIn the garden of paradise:We have seen the great and the wise make termsWith the peace of snakes and the pride of worms,and them that plant make covenantWith the locust and the lice.
And the wind blows and the world goes onAnd the world can say that we,Who stood on the cliffs where the quarries shone,Stood upon clouds that the sun shone on:And the clouds dissunder and drown in thunderThe news that will never be.
Lady of all that have loved the people,Light over roads astray,Maze of steading and street and steeple,Great as a heart that has loved the people:Stand on the crown of the soaring down,Lift up your arms and pray.
Only you I have not forgottenFor wreck of the world’s renown,Rending and ending of things gone rotten,Only the face of you unforgotten:And your head upthrown in the skies aloneAs you came over the down.
Oursouls shall be LeviathansIn purple seas of wineWhen drunkenness is dead with death,And drink is all divine;Learning in those immortal vatsWhat mortal vineyards mean;For only in heaven we shall knowHow happy we have been.Like clouds that wallow in the windBe free to drift and drink;Tower without insolence when we rise,Without surrender sink:Dreams dizzy and crazy we shall knowAnd have no need to writeOur blameless blasphemies of praise,Our nightmares of delight.For so in such misshapen shapeThe vision came to me,Where such titanian dolphins darkRoll in a sunset sea:Dark with dense colours, strange and strongAs terrible true love,Haloed like fish in phospher lightThe holy monsters move.Measure is here and law, to learn,When honour rules it so,To lift the glass and lay it downOr break the glass and go.But when the world’s New Deluge boilsFrom the New Noah’s vine,Our souls shall be LeviathansIn sanguine seas of wine.
Oursouls shall be LeviathansIn purple seas of wineWhen drunkenness is dead with death,And drink is all divine;Learning in those immortal vatsWhat mortal vineyards mean;For only in heaven we shall knowHow happy we have been.
Like clouds that wallow in the windBe free to drift and drink;Tower without insolence when we rise,Without surrender sink:Dreams dizzy and crazy we shall knowAnd have no need to writeOur blameless blasphemies of praise,Our nightmares of delight.
For so in such misshapen shapeThe vision came to me,Where such titanian dolphins darkRoll in a sunset sea:Dark with dense colours, strange and strongAs terrible true love,Haloed like fish in phospher lightThe holy monsters move.
Measure is here and law, to learn,When honour rules it so,To lift the glass and lay it downOr break the glass and go.But when the world’s New Deluge boilsFrom the New Noah’s vine,Our souls shall be LeviathansIn sanguine seas of wine.
(Suggested Inscription probably not selected by the Committee.)
Thehucksters haggle in the martThe cars and carts go by;Senates and schools go droning on;For dead things cannot die.A storm stooped on the place of tombsWith bolts to blast and rive;But these be names of many menThe lightning found alive.If usurers rule and rights decayAnd visions view once moreGreat Carthage like a golden shellGape hollow on the shore,Still to the last of crumbling timeUpon this stone be readHow many men of England diedTo prove they were not dead.
Thehucksters haggle in the martThe cars and carts go by;Senates and schools go droning on;For dead things cannot die.
A storm stooped on the place of tombsWith bolts to blast and rive;But these be names of many menThe lightning found alive.
If usurers rule and rights decayAnd visions view once moreGreat Carthage like a golden shellGape hollow on the shore,
Still to the last of crumbling timeUpon this stone be readHow many men of England diedTo prove they were not dead.
IfI ever go back to Baltimore,The city of Maryland,I shall miss again as I missed beforeA thousand things of the world in store,The story standing in every doorThat beckons with every hand.I shall not know where the bonds were rivenAnd a hundred faiths set free,Where a wandering cavalier had givenHer hundredth name to the Queen of Heaven,And made oblation of feuds forgivenTo Our Lady of Liberty.I shall not travel the tracks of fameWhere the war was not to the strong;When Lee the last of the heroes cameWith the Men of the South and a flag like flame,And called the land by its lovely nameIn the unforgotten song.If ever I cross the sea and strayTo the city of Maryland,I will sit on a stone and watch or prayFor a stranger’s child that was there one day:And the child will never come back to play,And no-one will understand.
IfI ever go back to Baltimore,The city of Maryland,I shall miss again as I missed beforeA thousand things of the world in store,The story standing in every doorThat beckons with every hand.
I shall not know where the bonds were rivenAnd a hundred faiths set free,Where a wandering cavalier had givenHer hundredth name to the Queen of Heaven,And made oblation of feuds forgivenTo Our Lady of Liberty.
I shall not travel the tracks of fameWhere the war was not to the strong;When Lee the last of the heroes cameWith the Men of the South and a flag like flame,And called the land by its lovely nameIn the unforgotten song.
If ever I cross the sea and strayTo the city of Maryland,I will sit on a stone and watch or prayFor a stranger’s child that was there one day:And the child will never come back to play,And no-one will understand.
WereI that wandering citizen whose city is the world,I would not weep for all that fell before the flags were furled;I would not let one murmur mar the trumpets volleying forthHow God grew weary of the kings, and the cold hell in the north.But we whose hearts are homing birds have heavier thoughts of home,Though the great eagles burn with gold on Paris or on Rome,Who stand beside our dead and stare, like seers at an eclipse,At the riddle of the island tale and the twilight of the ships.For these were simple men that loved with hands and feet and eyes,Whose souls were humbled to the hills and narrowed to the skies,The hundred little lands within one little land that lie,Where Severn seeks the sunset isles or Sussex scales the sky.And what is theirs, though banners blow on Warsaw risen again,Or ancient laughter walks in gold through the vineyards of Lorraine,Their dead are marked on English stones, their loves on English trees,How little is the prize they win, how mean a coin for these—How small a shrivelled laurel-leaf lies crumpled here and curled:They died to save their country and they only saved the world.
WereI that wandering citizen whose city is the world,I would not weep for all that fell before the flags were furled;I would not let one murmur mar the trumpets volleying forthHow God grew weary of the kings, and the cold hell in the north.But we whose hearts are homing birds have heavier thoughts of home,Though the great eagles burn with gold on Paris or on Rome,Who stand beside our dead and stare, like seers at an eclipse,At the riddle of the island tale and the twilight of the ships.
For these were simple men that loved with hands and feet and eyes,Whose souls were humbled to the hills and narrowed to the skies,The hundred little lands within one little land that lie,Where Severn seeks the sunset isles or Sussex scales the sky.
And what is theirs, though banners blow on Warsaw risen again,Or ancient laughter walks in gold through the vineyards of Lorraine,Their dead are marked on English stones, their loves on English trees,How little is the prize they win, how mean a coin for these—How small a shrivelled laurel-leaf lies crumpled here and curled:They died to save their country and they only saved the world.
Thesilver and violet leopard of the nightSpotted with stars and smooth with silence sprang;And though three doors stood open, the end of lightClosed like a trap; and stillness was a clang.Under the leopard sky of lurid starsI strove with evil sleep the hot night long,Dreams dumb and swollen of triumphs without wars,Of tongueless trumpet and unanswering gong.I saw a pale imperial pomp go by,Helmet and hornèd mitre and heavy wreath;Their high strange ensigns hung upon the skyAnd their great shields were like the doors of death.Their mitres were as moving pyramidsAnd all their crowns as marching towers were tall;Their eyes were cold under their carven lidsAnd the same carven smile was on them all.Over a paven plain that seemed unendingThey passed unfaltering till it found an endIn one long shallow step; and these descendingFared forth anew as long away to wend.I thought they travelled for a thousand years;And at the end was nothing for them all,For all that splendour of sceptres and of spears,But a new step, another easy fall.The smile of stone seemed but a little less,The load of silver but a little more:And ever was that terraced wildernessAnd falling plain paved like a palace floor.Rust red as gore crawled on their arms of mightAnd on their faces wrinkles and not scars:Till the dream suddenly ended; noise and lightLoosened the tyranny of the tropic stars.But over them like a subterranean sunI saw the sign of all the fiends that fell;And a wild voice cried “Hasten and be done,Is there no steepness in the stairs of hell?”He that returns, He that remains the same,Turned the round real world, His iron vice;Down the grey garden paths a bird called twice,And through three doors mysterious daylight came.
Thesilver and violet leopard of the nightSpotted with stars and smooth with silence sprang;And though three doors stood open, the end of lightClosed like a trap; and stillness was a clang.
Under the leopard sky of lurid starsI strove with evil sleep the hot night long,Dreams dumb and swollen of triumphs without wars,Of tongueless trumpet and unanswering gong.
I saw a pale imperial pomp go by,Helmet and hornèd mitre and heavy wreath;Their high strange ensigns hung upon the skyAnd their great shields were like the doors of death.
Their mitres were as moving pyramidsAnd all their crowns as marching towers were tall;Their eyes were cold under their carven lidsAnd the same carven smile was on them all.
Over a paven plain that seemed unendingThey passed unfaltering till it found an endIn one long shallow step; and these descendingFared forth anew as long away to wend.
I thought they travelled for a thousand years;And at the end was nothing for them all,For all that splendour of sceptres and of spears,But a new step, another easy fall.
The smile of stone seemed but a little less,The load of silver but a little more:And ever was that terraced wildernessAnd falling plain paved like a palace floor.
Rust red as gore crawled on their arms of mightAnd on their faces wrinkles and not scars:Till the dream suddenly ended; noise and lightLoosened the tyranny of the tropic stars.
But over them like a subterranean sunI saw the sign of all the fiends that fell;And a wild voice cried “Hasten and be done,Is there no steepness in the stairs of hell?”
He that returns, He that remains the same,Turned the round real world, His iron vice;Down the grey garden paths a bird called twice,And through three doors mysterious daylight came.
Whenall my days are endingAnd I have no song to sing,I think I shall not be too oldTo stare at everything;As I stared once at a nursery doorOr a tall tree and a swing.Wherein God’s ponderous mercy hangsOn all my sins and me,Because He does not take awayThe terror from the treeAnd stones still shine along the roadThat are and cannot be.Men grow too old for love, my love,Men grow too old for wine,But I shall not grow too old to seeUnearthly daylight shine,Changing my chamber’s dust to snowTill I doubt if it be mine.Behold, the crowning mercies melt,The first surprises stay;And in my dross is dropped a giftFor which I dare not pray:That a man grow used to grief and joyBut not to night and day.Men grow too old for love, my love,Men grow too old for lies;But I shall not grow too old to seeEnormous night arise,A cloud that is larger than the worldAnd a monster made of eyes.Nor am I worthy to unlooseThe latchet of my shoe;Or shake the dust from off my feetOr the staff that bears me throughOn ground that is too good to last,Too solid to be true.Men grow too old to woo, my love,Men grow too old to wed:But I shall not grow too old to seeHung crazily overheadIncredible rafters when I wakeAnd find I am not dead.A thrill of thunder in my hair:Though blackening clouds be plain,Still I am stung and startledBy the first drop of the rain:Romance and pride and passion passAnd these are what remain.Strange crawling carpets of the grass,Wide windows of the sky:So in this perilous grace of GodWith all my sins go I:And things grow new though I grow old,Though I grow old and die.
Whenall my days are endingAnd I have no song to sing,I think I shall not be too oldTo stare at everything;As I stared once at a nursery doorOr a tall tree and a swing.
Wherein God’s ponderous mercy hangsOn all my sins and me,Because He does not take awayThe terror from the treeAnd stones still shine along the roadThat are and cannot be.
Men grow too old for love, my love,Men grow too old for wine,But I shall not grow too old to seeUnearthly daylight shine,Changing my chamber’s dust to snowTill I doubt if it be mine.
Behold, the crowning mercies melt,The first surprises stay;And in my dross is dropped a giftFor which I dare not pray:That a man grow used to grief and joyBut not to night and day.
Men grow too old for love, my love,Men grow too old for lies;But I shall not grow too old to seeEnormous night arise,A cloud that is larger than the worldAnd a monster made of eyes.
Nor am I worthy to unlooseThe latchet of my shoe;Or shake the dust from off my feetOr the staff that bears me throughOn ground that is too good to last,Too solid to be true.
Men grow too old to woo, my love,Men grow too old to wed:But I shall not grow too old to seeHung crazily overheadIncredible rafters when I wakeAnd find I am not dead.
A thrill of thunder in my hair:Though blackening clouds be plain,Still I am stung and startledBy the first drop of the rain:Romance and pride and passion passAnd these are what remain.
Strange crawling carpets of the grass,Wide windows of the sky:So in this perilous grace of GodWith all my sins go I:And things grow new though I grow old,Though I grow old and die.
Ifmen should rise and return to the noise and time of the tourney,The name and fame of the tabard, the tangle of gules and gold,Would these things stand and suffice for the bourne of a backward journey,A light on our days returning, as it was in the days of old?Nay, there is none rides back to pick up a glove or a feather,Though the gauntlet rang with honour or the plume was more than a crown:And hushed is the holy trumpet that called the nations togetherAnd under the Horns of Hattin the hope of the world went down.Ah, not in remembrance stored, but out of oblivion starting,Because you have sought new homes and all that you sought is so,Because you had trodden the fire and barred the door in departing,Returns in your chosen exile the glory of long ago.Not then when you barred the door, not then when you trod the embers,But now, at your new road’s end, you have seen the face of a fate,That not as a child looks back, and not as a fool remembers,All that men took too lightly and all that they love too late.It is you that have made no rubric for saints, no raiment for lovers,Your caps that cry for a feather, your roofs that sigh for a spire:Is it a dream from the dead if your own decay discoversAlive in your rotting graveyard the worm of the world’s desire?Therefore the old trees tower, that the green trees grow and are stunted:Therefore these dead men mock you, that you the living are dead:Since ever you battered the saints and the tools of your crafts were blunted,Or shattered the glass in its glory and loaded yourselves with the lead.When the usurer hunts the squire as the squire has hunted the peasant,As sheep that are eaten of worms where men were eaten of sheep:Now is the judgment of earth, and the weighing of past and present,Who scorn to weep over ruins, behold your ruin and weep.Have ye not known, ye fools, that have made the present a prison,That thirst can remember water and hunger remember bread?We went not gathering ghosts; but the shriek of your shame is arisenOut of your own black Babel too loud; and it woke the dead.
Ifmen should rise and return to the noise and time of the tourney,The name and fame of the tabard, the tangle of gules and gold,Would these things stand and suffice for the bourne of a backward journey,A light on our days returning, as it was in the days of old?
Nay, there is none rides back to pick up a glove or a feather,Though the gauntlet rang with honour or the plume was more than a crown:And hushed is the holy trumpet that called the nations togetherAnd under the Horns of Hattin the hope of the world went down.
Ah, not in remembrance stored, but out of oblivion starting,Because you have sought new homes and all that you sought is so,Because you had trodden the fire and barred the door in departing,Returns in your chosen exile the glory of long ago.
Not then when you barred the door, not then when you trod the embers,But now, at your new road’s end, you have seen the face of a fate,That not as a child looks back, and not as a fool remembers,All that men took too lightly and all that they love too late.
It is you that have made no rubric for saints, no raiment for lovers,Your caps that cry for a feather, your roofs that sigh for a spire:Is it a dream from the dead if your own decay discoversAlive in your rotting graveyard the worm of the world’s desire?
Therefore the old trees tower, that the green trees grow and are stunted:Therefore these dead men mock you, that you the living are dead:Since ever you battered the saints and the tools of your crafts were blunted,Or shattered the glass in its glory and loaded yourselves with the lead.
When the usurer hunts the squire as the squire has hunted the peasant,As sheep that are eaten of worms where men were eaten of sheep:Now is the judgment of earth, and the weighing of past and present,Who scorn to weep over ruins, behold your ruin and weep.
Have ye not known, ye fools, that have made the present a prison,That thirst can remember water and hunger remember bread?We went not gathering ghosts; but the shriek of your shame is arisenOut of your own black Babel too loud; and it woke the dead.
Augursthat watched archaic birdsSuch plumèd prodigies might read,The eagles that were double-faced,The eagle that was black indeed;And when the battle-birds went downAnd in their track the vultures come,We know what pardon and what peaceWill keep our little masters dumb.The men that sell what others make,As vultures eat what others slay,Will prove in matching plume with plumeThat naught is black and all is grey;Grey as those dingy doves that once,By money-changers palmed and priced,Amid the crash of tables flappedAnd huddled from the wrath of Christ.But raised for ever for a signSince God made anger glorious,Where eagles black and vultures greyFlocked back about the heroic house,Where war is holier than peace,Where hate is holier than love,Shone terrible as the Holy GhostAn eagle whiter than a dove.
Augursthat watched archaic birdsSuch plumèd prodigies might read,The eagles that were double-faced,The eagle that was black indeed;And when the battle-birds went downAnd in their track the vultures come,We know what pardon and what peaceWill keep our little masters dumb.
The men that sell what others make,As vultures eat what others slay,Will prove in matching plume with plumeThat naught is black and all is grey;Grey as those dingy doves that once,By money-changers palmed and priced,Amid the crash of tables flappedAnd huddled from the wrath of Christ.
But raised for ever for a signSince God made anger glorious,Where eagles black and vultures greyFlocked back about the heroic house,Where war is holier than peace,Where hate is holier than love,Shone terrible as the Holy GhostAn eagle whiter than a dove.
Whenwe went hunting the DragonIn the days when we were young,We tossed the bright world over our shoulderAs bugle and baldrick slung;Never was world so wild and fairAs what went by on the wind,Never such fields of paradiseAs the fields we left behind:For this is the best of a rest for menThat men should rise and rideMaking a flying fairylandOf market and country-side,Wings on the cottage, wings on the wood,Wings upon pot and pan,For the hunting of the DragonThat is the life of a man.For men grow weary of fairylandWhen the Dragon is a dream,And tire of the talking bird in the tree,The singing fish in the stream;And the wandering stars grow stale, grow stale,And the wonder is stiff with scorn;For this is the honour of fairylandAnd the following of the horn;Beauty on beauty called us backWhen we could rise and ride,And a woman looked out of every windowAs wonderful as a bride:And the tavern-sign as a tabard blazed,And the children cheered and ran,For the love of the hate of the DragonThat is the pride of a man.The sages called him a shadowAnd the light went out of the sun:And the wise men told us that all was wellAnd all was weary and one:And then, and then, in the quiet garden,With never a weed to kill,We knew that his shining tail had shoneIn the white road over the hill:We knew that the clouds were flakes of flame,We knew that the sunset fireWas red with the blood of the DragonWhose death is the world’s desire.For the horn was blown in the heart of the nightThat men should rise and ride,Keeping the tryst of a terrible jestNever for long untried;Drinking a dreadful blood for wine,Never in cup or can,The death of a deathless Dragon,That is the life of a man.
Whenwe went hunting the DragonIn the days when we were young,We tossed the bright world over our shoulderAs bugle and baldrick slung;Never was world so wild and fairAs what went by on the wind,Never such fields of paradiseAs the fields we left behind:For this is the best of a rest for menThat men should rise and rideMaking a flying fairylandOf market and country-side,Wings on the cottage, wings on the wood,Wings upon pot and pan,For the hunting of the DragonThat is the life of a man.
For men grow weary of fairylandWhen the Dragon is a dream,And tire of the talking bird in the tree,The singing fish in the stream;And the wandering stars grow stale, grow stale,And the wonder is stiff with scorn;For this is the honour of fairylandAnd the following of the horn;
Beauty on beauty called us backWhen we could rise and ride,And a woman looked out of every windowAs wonderful as a bride:And the tavern-sign as a tabard blazed,And the children cheered and ran,For the love of the hate of the DragonThat is the pride of a man.
The sages called him a shadowAnd the light went out of the sun:And the wise men told us that all was wellAnd all was weary and one:And then, and then, in the quiet garden,With never a weed to kill,We knew that his shining tail had shoneIn the white road over the hill:We knew that the clouds were flakes of flame,We knew that the sunset fireWas red with the blood of the DragonWhose death is the world’s desire.
For the horn was blown in the heart of the nightThat men should rise and ride,Keeping the tryst of a terrible jestNever for long untried;Drinking a dreadful blood for wine,Never in cup or can,The death of a deathless Dragon,That is the life of a man.
Highon the wall that holds JerusalemI saw one stand under the stars like stone.And when I perish it shall not be knownWhether he lived, some strolling son of Shem,Or was some great ghost wearing the diademOf Solomon or Saladin on a throne:I only know, the features being unshown,I did not dare draw near and look on them.Did ye not guess ... the diadem might bePlaited in stranger style by hands of hate ...But when I looked, the wall was desolateAnd the grey starlight powdered tower and tree:And vast and vague beyond the Golden GateHeaved Moab of the mountains like a sea.
Highon the wall that holds JerusalemI saw one stand under the stars like stone.And when I perish it shall not be knownWhether he lived, some strolling son of Shem,Or was some great ghost wearing the diademOf Solomon or Saladin on a throne:I only know, the features being unshown,I did not dare draw near and look on them.
Did ye not guess ... the diadem might bePlaited in stranger style by hands of hate ...But when I looked, the wall was desolateAnd the grey starlight powdered tower and tree:And vast and vague beyond the Golden GateHeaved Moab of the mountains like a sea.
Thehappy men that lose their headsThey find their heads in heaven,As cherub heads with cherub wings,And cherub haloes even:Out of the infinite evening landsAlong the sunset sea,Leaving the purple fields behind,The cherub wings beat down the windBack to the groping body and blindAs the bird back to the tree.Whether the plumes be passion-redFor him that truly diesBy headsmen’s blade or battle-axe,Or blue like butterflies,For him that lost it in a laneIn April’s fits and starts,His folly is forgiven then:But higher, and far beyond our ken,Is the healing of the unhappy men,The men that lost their hearts.Is there not pardon for the braveAnd broad release above,Who lost their heads for libertyOr lost their hearts for love?Or is the wise man wise indeedWhom larger thoughts keep whole?Who sees life equal like a chart,Made strong to play the saner part,And keep his head and keep his heart,And only lose his soul.
Thehappy men that lose their headsThey find their heads in heaven,As cherub heads with cherub wings,And cherub haloes even:Out of the infinite evening landsAlong the sunset sea,Leaving the purple fields behind,The cherub wings beat down the windBack to the groping body and blindAs the bird back to the tree.
Whether the plumes be passion-redFor him that truly diesBy headsmen’s blade or battle-axe,Or blue like butterflies,For him that lost it in a laneIn April’s fits and starts,His folly is forgiven then:But higher, and far beyond our ken,Is the healing of the unhappy men,The men that lost their hearts.
Is there not pardon for the braveAnd broad release above,Who lost their heads for libertyOr lost their hearts for love?Or is the wise man wise indeedWhom larger thoughts keep whole?Who sees life equal like a chart,Made strong to play the saner part,And keep his head and keep his heart,And only lose his soul.
(The Chief Constable has issued a statement declaring that carol singing in the streets by children is illegal, and morally and physically injurious. He appeals to the public to discourage the practice.—Daily Paper.)
Godrest you merry gentlemen,Let nothing you dismay;The Herald Angels cannot sing,The cops arrest them on the wing,And warn them of the docketingOf anything they say.God rest you merry gentlemen,May nothing you dismay:On your reposeful cities lieDeep silence, broken only byThe motor horn’s melodious cry,The hooter’s happy bray.So, when the song of children ceasedAnd Herod was obeyed,In his high hall CorinthianWith purple and with peacock fan,Rested that merry gentleman;And nothing him dismayed.
Godrest you merry gentlemen,Let nothing you dismay;The Herald Angels cannot sing,The cops arrest them on the wing,And warn them of the docketingOf anything they say.
God rest you merry gentlemen,May nothing you dismay:On your reposeful cities lieDeep silence, broken only byThe motor horn’s melodious cry,The hooter’s happy bray.
So, when the song of children ceasedAnd Herod was obeyed,In his high hall CorinthianWith purple and with peacock fan,Rested that merry gentleman;And nothing him dismayed.
Trampledyet red is the last of the embers,Red the last cloud of a sun that has set;What of your sleeping though Flanders remembers,What of your waking, if England forget?Why should you share in the hearts that we harden,In the shame of our nature, who see it and live?How more than the godly the greedy can pardon,How well and how quickly the hungry forgive.Ah, well if the soil of the stranger had wrapped you,While the lords that you served and the friends that you knewHawk in the marts of the tyrants that trapped you,Tout in the shops of the butchers that slew.Why should you wake for a realm that is rotten,Stuffed with their bribes and as dead to their debts?Sleep and forget us, as we have forgotten;For Flanders remembers and England forgets.
Trampledyet red is the last of the embers,Red the last cloud of a sun that has set;What of your sleeping though Flanders remembers,What of your waking, if England forget?
Why should you share in the hearts that we harden,In the shame of our nature, who see it and live?How more than the godly the greedy can pardon,How well and how quickly the hungry forgive.
Ah, well if the soil of the stranger had wrapped you,While the lords that you served and the friends that you knewHawk in the marts of the tyrants that trapped you,Tout in the shops of the butchers that slew.
Why should you wake for a realm that is rotten,Stuffed with their bribes and as dead to their debts?Sleep and forget us, as we have forgotten;For Flanders remembers and England forgets.
Toevery Man his Mystery,A trade and only one:The masons make the hives of men,The domes of grey or dun,But we have wrought in rose and goldThe houses of the sun.The shipwrights build the houses high,Whose green foundations swayAlive with fish like little flames,When the wind goes out to slay.But we abide with painted sailsThe cyclone of the day.The weavers make the clothes of menAnd coats for everyone;They walk the streets like sunset clouds;But we have woven and spunIn scarlet or in golden-greenThe gay coats of the sun.You whom the usurers and the lordsWith insolent liveries trod,Deep in dark church behold, aboveTheir lance-lengths by a rod,Where we have blazed the tabardOf the trumpeter of God.
Toevery Man his Mystery,A trade and only one:The masons make the hives of men,The domes of grey or dun,But we have wrought in rose and goldThe houses of the sun.
The shipwrights build the houses high,Whose green foundations swayAlive with fish like little flames,When the wind goes out to slay.But we abide with painted sailsThe cyclone of the day.
The weavers make the clothes of menAnd coats for everyone;They walk the streets like sunset clouds;But we have woven and spunIn scarlet or in golden-greenThe gay coats of the sun.
You whom the usurers and the lordsWith insolent liveries trod,Deep in dark church behold, aboveTheir lance-lengths by a rod,Where we have blazed the tabardOf the trumpeter of God.
Inthe world’s whitest morningAs hoary with hope,The Builder of BridgesWas priest and was pope:And the mitre of mysteryAnd the canopy his,Who darkened the chasmsAnd domed the abyss.To eastward and westwardSpread wings at his wordThe arch with the key-stoneThat stoops like a bird;That rides the wild airAnd the daylight cast under;The highway of danger,The gateway of wonder.Of his throne were the thundersThat rivet and fixWild weddings of strangersThat meet and not mix;The town and the cornland;The bride and the groom:In the breaking of bridgesIs treason and doom.But he bade us, who fashionThe road that can fly,That we build not too heavyAnd build not too high:Seeing alway that underThe dark arch’s bendShine death and white daylightUnchanged to the end.Who walk on his mercyWalk light, as he saith,Seeing that our lifeIs a bridge above death;And the world and its gardensAnd hills, as ye heard,Are born above spaceOn the wings of a bird.Not high and not heavyIs building of his:When ye seal up the floodAnd forget the abyss,When your towers are uplifted,Your banners unfurled,In the breaking of bridgesIs the end of the world.
Inthe world’s whitest morningAs hoary with hope,The Builder of BridgesWas priest and was pope:And the mitre of mysteryAnd the canopy his,Who darkened the chasmsAnd domed the abyss.
To eastward and westwardSpread wings at his wordThe arch with the key-stoneThat stoops like a bird;That rides the wild airAnd the daylight cast under;The highway of danger,The gateway of wonder.
Of his throne were the thundersThat rivet and fixWild weddings of strangersThat meet and not mix;The town and the cornland;The bride and the groom:In the breaking of bridgesIs treason and doom.
But he bade us, who fashionThe road that can fly,That we build not too heavyAnd build not too high:Seeing alway that underThe dark arch’s bendShine death and white daylightUnchanged to the end.
Who walk on his mercyWalk light, as he saith,Seeing that our lifeIs a bridge above death;And the world and its gardensAnd hills, as ye heard,Are born above spaceOn the wings of a bird.
Not high and not heavyIs building of his:When ye seal up the floodAnd forget the abyss,When your towers are uplifted,Your banners unfurled,In the breaking of bridgesIs the end of the world.
Wehave graven the mountain of God with hands,As our hands were graven of God, they say,Where the seraphs burn in the sun like brandsAnd the devils carry the rains away;Making a thrift of the throats of hell,Our gargoyles gather the roaring rain,Whose yawn is more than a frozen yellAnd their very vomiting not in vain.Wilder than all that a tongue can utter,Wiser than all that is told in words,The wings of stone of the soaring gutterFly out and follow the flight of the birds;The rush and rout of the angel warsStand out above the astounded street,Where we flung our gutters against the starsFor a sign that the first and the last shall meet.We have graven the forest of heaven with hands,Being great with a mirth too gross for pride,In the stone that battered him Stephen standsAnd Peter himself is petrified:Such hands as have grubbed in the glebe for breadHave bidden the blank rock blossom and thrive,Such hands as have stricken a live man deadHave struck, and stricken the dead alive.Fold your hands before heaven in praying,Lift up your hands into heaven and cry;But look where our dizziest spires are sayingWhat the hands of a man did up in the sky:Drenched before you have heard the thunder,White before you have felt the snow;For the giants lift up their hands to wonderHow high the hands of a man could go.
Wehave graven the mountain of God with hands,As our hands were graven of God, they say,Where the seraphs burn in the sun like brandsAnd the devils carry the rains away;Making a thrift of the throats of hell,Our gargoyles gather the roaring rain,Whose yawn is more than a frozen yellAnd their very vomiting not in vain.
Wilder than all that a tongue can utter,Wiser than all that is told in words,The wings of stone of the soaring gutterFly out and follow the flight of the birds;The rush and rout of the angel warsStand out above the astounded street,Where we flung our gutters against the starsFor a sign that the first and the last shall meet.
We have graven the forest of heaven with hands,Being great with a mirth too gross for pride,In the stone that battered him Stephen standsAnd Peter himself is petrified:Such hands as have grubbed in the glebe for breadHave bidden the blank rock blossom and thrive,Such hands as have stricken a live man deadHave struck, and stricken the dead alive.
Fold your hands before heaven in praying,Lift up your hands into heaven and cry;But look where our dizziest spires are sayingWhat the hands of a man did up in the sky:Drenched before you have heard the thunder,White before you have felt the snow;For the giants lift up their hands to wonderHow high the hands of a man could go.
Theangels are singing like birds in a treeIn the organ of good St. Cecily:And the parson reads with his hand uponThe graven eagle of great St. John:But never the fluted pipes shall goLike the fifes of an army all a-row,Merrily marching down the streetTo the marts where the busy and idle meet;And never the brazen bird shall flyOut of the window and into the sky,Till men in cities and shires and shipsLook up at the living Apocalypse.But all can hark at the dark of evenThe bells that bay like the hounds of heaven,Tolling and telling that over and under,In the ways of the air like a wandering thunder,The hunt is up over hills untrod:For the wind is the way of the dogs of God:From the tyrant’s tower to the outlaw’s denHunting the souls of the sons of men.Ruler and robber and pedlar and peer,Who will not harken and yet will hear;Filling men’s heads with the hurry and humMaking them welcome before they come.And we poor men stand under the steepleDrawing the cords that can draw the people,And in our leash like the leaping dogsAre God’s most deafening demagogues:And we are but little, like dwarfs underground,While hang up in heaven the houses of sound,Moving like mountains that faith sets free,Yawning like caverns that roar with the sea,As awfully loaded, as airily buoyed,Armoured archangels that trample the void:Wild as with dancing and weighty with dooms,Heavy as their panoply, light as their plumes.Neither preacher nor priest are we:Each man mount to his own degree:Only remember that just such a cordTosses in heaven the trumpet and sword;Souls on their terraces, saints on their towers,Rise up in arms at alarum like ours:Glow like great watchfires that redden the skiesTitans whose wings are a glory of eyes,Crowned constellations by twelves and by sevens,Domed dominations more old than the heavens,Virtues that thunder and thrones that endureSway like a bell to the prayers of the poor.
Theangels are singing like birds in a treeIn the organ of good St. Cecily:And the parson reads with his hand uponThe graven eagle of great St. John:But never the fluted pipes shall goLike the fifes of an army all a-row,Merrily marching down the streetTo the marts where the busy and idle meet;And never the brazen bird shall flyOut of the window and into the sky,Till men in cities and shires and shipsLook up at the living Apocalypse.
But all can hark at the dark of evenThe bells that bay like the hounds of heaven,Tolling and telling that over and under,In the ways of the air like a wandering thunder,The hunt is up over hills untrod:For the wind is the way of the dogs of God:From the tyrant’s tower to the outlaw’s denHunting the souls of the sons of men.Ruler and robber and pedlar and peer,Who will not harken and yet will hear;Filling men’s heads with the hurry and humMaking them welcome before they come.
And we poor men stand under the steepleDrawing the cords that can draw the people,And in our leash like the leaping dogsAre God’s most deafening demagogues:And we are but little, like dwarfs underground,While hang up in heaven the houses of sound,Moving like mountains that faith sets free,Yawning like caverns that roar with the sea,As awfully loaded, as airily buoyed,Armoured archangels that trample the void:Wild as with dancing and weighty with dooms,Heavy as their panoply, light as their plumes.
Neither preacher nor priest are we:Each man mount to his own degree:Only remember that just such a cordTosses in heaven the trumpet and sword;Souls on their terraces, saints on their towers,Rise up in arms at alarum like ours:Glow like great watchfires that redden the skiesTitans whose wings are a glory of eyes,Crowned constellations by twelves and by sevens,Domed dominations more old than the heavens,Virtues that thunder and thrones that endureSway like a bell to the prayers of the poor.