Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode | Page 3

or a chain,
A
throne for torment or a crown for bane
Rose, moulded out of poor
men's molten pain,

There, said he, should man's heaviest hate be set

Inexorably, to faint not or forget
Till the last warmth bled forth of
the last vein
In flesh that none should call a king's again,
Seeing
wolves and dogs and birds that plague-strike air
Leave the last bone
of all the carrion bare.
And hope the high song taught him: hope whose eyes
Can sound the

seas unsoundable, the skies
Inaccessible of eyesight; that can see

What earth beholds not, hear what wind and sea
Hear not, and speak
what all these crying in one
Can speak not to the sun.
For in her
sovereign eyelight all things are
Clear as the closest seen and kindlier
star
That marries morn and even and winter and spring
With one
love's golden ring.
For she can see the days of man, the birth
Of
good and death of evil things on earth
Inevitable and infinite, and
sure
As present pain is, or herself is pure.
Yea, she can hear and see,
beyond all things
That lighten from before Time's thunderous wings

Through the awful circle of wheel-winged periods,
The tempest of
the twilight of all Gods:
And higher than all the circling course they
ran
The sundawn of the spirit that was man.
And fear the song too taught him; fear to be
Worthless the dear love
of the wind and sea
That bred him fearless, like a sea-mew reared

In rocks of man's foot feared,
Where nought of wingless life may sing
or shine.
Fear to wax worthless of that heaven he had
When all the
life in all his limbs was glad
And all the drops in all his veins were
wine
And all the pulses music; when his heart,
Singing, bade
heaven and wind and sea bear part
In one live song's reiterance, and
they bore:
Fear to go crownless of the flower he wore
When the
winds loved him and the waters knew,
The blithest life that clove
their blithe life through
With living limbs exultant, or held strife

More amorous than all dalliance aye anew
With the bright breath and
strength of their large life,
With all strong wrath of all sheer winds
that blew,
All glories of all storms of the air that fell
Prone,
ineluctable,
With roar from heaven of revel, and with hue
As of a
heaven turned hell.

For when the red blast of their breath had made

All heaven aflush with light more dire than shade,
He felt it in his
blood and eyes and hair
Burn as if all the fires of the earth and air

Had laid strong hold upon his flesh, and stung
The soul behind it as
with serpent's tongue,
Forked like the loveliest lightnings: nor could
bear
But hardly, half distraught with strong delight,
The joy that

like a garment wrapped him round
And lapped him over and under

With raiment of great light
And rapture of great sound
At every
loud leap earthward of the thunder
From heaven's most furthest
bound:
So seemed all heaven in hearing and in sight,
Alive and mad
with glory and angry joy,
That something of its marvellous mirth and
might
Moved even to madness, fledged as even for flight,
The
blood and spirit of one but mortal boy.
So, clothed with love and fear that love makes great,
And armed with
hope and hate,
He set first foot upon the spring-flowered ways
That
all feet pass and praise.
And one dim dawn between the winter and
spring,
In the sharp harsh wind harrying heaven and earth
To put
back April that had borne his birth
From sunward on her sunniest
shower-struck wing,
With tears and laughter for the dew-dropt thing,

Slight as indeed a dew-drop, by the sea
One met him lovelier than
all men may be,
God-featured, with god's eyes; and in their might

Somewhat that drew men's own to mar their sight,
Even of all eyes
drawn toward him: and his mouth
Was as the very rose of all men's
youth,
One rose of all the rose-beds in the world:
But round his
brows the curls were snakes that curled,
And like his tongue a
serpent's; and his voice
Speaks death, and bids rejoice.
Yet then he
spake no word, seeming as dumb,
A dumb thing mild and hurtless;
nor at first
From his bowed eyes seemed any light to come,
Nor his
meek lips for blood or tears to thirst:
But as one blind and mute in
mild sweet wise
Pleading for pity of piteous lips and eyes,
He
strayed with faint bare lily-lovely feet
Helpless, and flowerlike sweet:

Nor might man see, not having word hereof,
That this of all gods
was the great god Love.
And seeing him lovely and like a little child

That wellnigh wept for
wonder that it smiled
And was so feeble and fearful, with soft speech

The youth bespake him softly; but there fell
From the sweet lips no
sweet word audible
That ear or thought might reach:
No sound to

make the dim cold silence glad,
No breath to thaw the hard harsh air
with heat;
Only the saddest smile of all things sweet,
Only the
sweetest smile of all things sad.
And so they went together one green way
Till April dying made free
the world for