Songs before Sunrise | Page 7

at heel wherewith he ran,
And on the red pit's edge sits down distraught?To talk with death of days republican
And dreams and fights long since dreamt out and fought;
Of the last hope that drew?To that red edge anew?The firewhite faith of Poland without spot;
Of the blind Russian might,?And fire that is not light;?Of the green Rhineland where thy spirit wrought;
But though time, hope, and memory tire,?Canst thou wax dark as they do, thou whose light is fire?
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I set the trumpet to my lips and blow.
The night is broken westward; the wide sea?That makes immortal motion to and fro
From world's end unto world's end, and shall be?When nought now grafted of men's hands shall grow
And as the weed in last year's waves are we?Or spray the sea-wind shook a year ago
From its sharp tresses down the storm to lee,
The moving god that hides?Time in its timeless tides?Wherein time dead seems live eternity,
That breaks and makes again?Much mightier things than men,?Doth it not hear change coming, or not see?
Are the deeps deaf and dead and blind,?To catch no light or sound from landward of mankind?
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O thou, clothed round with raiment of white waves,
Thy brave brows lightening through the grey wet air,?Thou, lulled with sea-sounds of a thousand caves,
And lit with sea-shine to thine inland lair,?Whose freedom clothed the naked souls of slaves
And stripped the muffled souls of tyrants bare,?O, by the centuries of thy glorious graves,
By the live light of the earth that was thy care,
Live, thou must not be dead,?Live; let thine armed head?Lift itself up to sunward and the fair
Daylight of time and man,?Thine head republican,?With the same splendour on thine helmless hair
That in his eyes kept up a light?Who on thy glory gazed away their sacred sight;
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Who loved and looked their sense to death on thee;
Who taught thy lips imperishable things,?And in thine ears outsang thy singing sea;
Who made thy foot firm on the necks of kings?And thy soul somewhile steadfast--woe are we
It was but for a while, and all the strings?Were broken of thy spirit; yet had he
Set to such tunes and clothed it with such wings
It seemed for his sole sake?Impossible to break,?And woundless of the worm that waits and stings,
The golden-headed worm?Made headless for a term,?The king-snake whose life kindles with the spring's,
To breathe his soul upon her bloom,?And while she marks not turn her temple to her tomb.
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By those eyes blinded and that heavenly head
And the secluded soul adorable,?O Milton's land, what ails thee to be dead?
Thine ears are yet sonorous with his shell?That all the songs of all thy sea-line fed
With motive sound of spring-tides at mid swell,?And through thine heart his thought as blood is shed,
Requickening thee with wisdom to do well;
Such sons were of thy womb,?England, for love of whom?Thy name is not yet writ with theirs that fell,
But, till thou quite forget?What were thy children, yet?On the pale lips of hope is as a spell;
And Shelley's heart and Landor's mind?Lit thee with latter watch-fires; why wilt thou be blind?
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Though all were else indifferent, all that live
Spiritless shapes of nations; though time wait?In vain on hope till these have help to give,
And faith and love crawl famished from the gate;?Canst thou sit shamed and self-contemplative
With soulless eyes on thy secluded fate??Though time forgive them, thee shall he forgive,
Whose choice was in thine hand to be so great?
Who cast out of thy mind?The passion of man's kind,?And made thee and thine old name separate?
Now when time looks to see?New names and old and thee?Build up our one Republic state by state,
England with France, and France with Spain,?And Spain with sovereign Italy strike hands and reign.
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O known and unknown fountain-heads that fill
Our dear life-springs of England! O bright race?Of streams and waters that bear witness still
To the earth her sons were made of! O fair face?Of England, watched of eyes death cannot kill,
How should the soul that lit you for a space?Fall through sick weakness of a broken will
To the dead cold damnation of disgrace?
Such wind of memory stirs?On all green hills of hers,?Such breath of record from so high a place,
From years whose tongues of flame?Prophesied in her name?Her feet should keep truth's bright and burning trace,
We needs must have her heart with us,?Whose hearts are one with man's; she must be dead or thus.
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Who is against us? who is on our side?
Whose heart of all men's hearts is one with man's??Where art thou that wast prophetess and bride,
When truth and thou trod under time and chance??What latter light of what new hope shall guide
Out of the snares of hell thy feet, O France??What heel shall bruise these heads that hiss and glide,
What wind blow out these fen-born fires that dance
Before thee to thy death??No light, no life, no breath,?From thy dead eyes and lips shall take the trance,
Till on that deadliest crime?Reddening the