Two Nations | Page 9

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Where is hope, and promise where, in all these things, Shocks of strength with strength, and jar of hurtling kings? Who of all men, who will show us any good? Shall these lightnings of blind battles give men light? Where is freedom? who will bring us in her sight, That have hardly seen her footprint where she stood?

STROPHE 4
Who is this that rises red with wounds and splendid, All her breast and brow made beautiful with scars, Burning bare as naked daylight, undefended, In her hands for spoils her splintered prison-bars, In her eyes the light and fire of long pain ended, In her lips a song as of the morning stars?

STROPHE 5
O torn out of thy trance, O deathless, O my France, O many-wounded mother, O redeemed to reign! O rarely sweet and bitter The bright brief tears that glitter On thine unclosing eyelids, proud of their own pain; The beautiful brief tears That wash the stains of years White as the names immortal of thy chosen and slain. O loved so much so long, O smitten with such wrong, O purged at last and perfect without spot or stain, Light of the light of man, Reborn republican, At last, O first Republic, hailed in heaven again! Out of the obscene eclipse Rerisen, with burning lips To witness for us if we looked for thee in vain.
STROPHE 6
Thou wast the light whereby men saw Light, thou the trumpet of the law Proclaiming manhood to mankind; And what if all these years were blind And shameful? Hath the sun a flaw Because one hour hath power to draw Mist round him wreathed as links to bind? And what if now keen anguish drains The very wellspring of thy veins And very spirit of thy breath? The life outlives them and disdains; The sense which makes the soul remains, And blood of thought which travaileth To bring forth hope with procreant pains. O thou that satest bound in chains Between thine hills and pleasant plains As whom his own soul vanquisheth, Held in the bonds of his own thought, Whence very death can take off nought, Nor sleep, with bitterer dreams than death, What though thy thousands at thy knees Lie thick as grave-worms feed on these, Though thy green fields and joyous places Are populous with blood-blackening faces And wan limbs eaten by the sun? Better an end of all men's races, Better the world's whole work were done, And life wiped out of all our traces, And there were left to time not one, Than such as these that fill thy graves Should sow in slaves the seed of slaves.

ANTISTROPHE 1
Not of thy sons, O mother many-wounded, Not of thy sons are slaves ingrafted and grown. Was it not thine, the fire whence light rebounded From kingdom on rekindling kingdom thrown, From hearts confirmed on tyrannies confounded, From earth on heaven, fire mightier than his own? Not thine the breath wherewith time's clarion sounded, And all the terror in the trumpet blown? The voice whereat the thunders stood astounded As at a new sound of a God unknown? And all the seas and shores within them bounded Shook at the strange speech of thy lips alone, And all the hills of heaven, the storm-surrounded, Trembled, and all the night sent forth a groan.

ANTISTROPHE 2
What hast thou done that such an hour should be More than another clothed with blood to thee? Thou hast seen many a bloodred hour before this one. What art thou that thy lovers should misdoubt? What is this hour that it should cast hope out? If hope turn back and fall from thee, what hast thou done?
Thou hast done ill against thine own soul; yea, Thine own soul hast thou slain and burnt away, Dissolving it with poison into foul thin fume. Thine own life and creation of thy fate Thou hast set thine hand to unmake and discreate; And now thy slain soul rises between dread and doom.
Yea, this is she that comes between them led; That veiled head is thine own soul's buried head, The head that was as morning's in the whole world's sight. These wounds are deadly on thee, but deadlier Those wounds the ravenous poison left on her; How shall her weak hands hold thy weak hands up to fight?
Ah, but her fiery eyes, her eyes are these That, gazing, make thee shiver to the knees And the blood leap within thee, and the strong joy rise. What, doth her sight yet make thine heart to dance? O France, O freedom, O the soul of France, Are ye then quickened, gazing in each other's eyes?
Ah, and her words, the words wherewith she sought thee Sorrowing, and bare in hand the robe she wrought thee To wear when soul and body