Songs Before Sunrise Part 22

O sombre heart of earth and swoln with grief, That in thy time wast as a bird for mirth, Dim womb of life and many a seed and sheaf, And full of changes, ancient heart of earth, From grain and flower, from gra.s.s and every leaf, Thy mysteries and thy mult.i.tudes of birth, From hollow and hill, from vales and all thy springs, From all shapes born and breath of all lips made, From thunders, and the sound of winds and wings, From light, and from the solemn sleep of shade, From the full fountains of all living things, Speak, that this plague be stayed.

Bear witness all the ways of death and life If thou be with us in the world's old strife, If thou be mother indeed, And from these wounds that bleed Gather in thy great breast the dews that fall, And on thy sacred knees Lull with mute melodies, Mother, thy sleeping sons in death's dim hall.

For these thy sons, behold, Sons of thy sons of old, Bear witness if these be not as they were; If that high name of Greece Depart, dissolve, decease From mouths of men and memories like as air.

By the last milk that drips Dead on the child's dead lips, By old men's white unviolated hair, By sweet unburied faces That fill those red high places Where death and freedom found one lion's lair, By all the bloodred tears That fill the chaliced years, The vessels of the sacrament of time, Wherewith, O thou most holy, O Freedom, sure and slowly Thy ministrant white hands cleanse earth of crime; Though we stand off afar Where slaves and slaveries are, Among the chains and crowns of poisonous peace; Though not the beams that shone From rent Arcadion Can melt her mists and bid her snows decrease; Do thou with sudden wings Darken the face of kings, But turn again the beauty of thy brows on Greece; Thy white and woundless brows, Whereto her great heart bows; Give her the glories of thine eyes to see; Turn thee, O holiest head, Toward all thy quick and dead, For love's sake of the souls that cry for thee; O love, O light, O flame, By thine own Grecian name, We call thee and we charge thee that all these be free.

Jan. 1867.

"NON DOLET"

It does not hurt. She looked along the knife Smiling, and watched the thick drops mix and run Down the sheer blade; not that which had been done Could hurt the sweet sense of the Roman wife, But that which was to do yet ere the strife Could end for each for ever, and the sun: Nor was the palm yet nor was peace yet won While pain had power upon her husband's life.

It does not hurt, Italia. Thou art more Than bride to bridegroom; how shalt thou not take The gift love's blood has reddened for thy sake?

Was not thy lifeblood given for us before?

And if love's heartblood can avail thy need, And thou not die, how should it hurt indeed?

EURYDICE TO VICTOR HUGO

Orpheus, the night is full of tears and cries, And hardly for the storm and ruin shed Can even thine eyes be certain of her head Who never pa.s.sed out of thy spirit's eyes, But stood and shone before them in such wise As when with love her lips and hands were fed, And with mute mouth out of the dusty dead Strove to make answer when thou bad'st her rise.

Yet viper-stricken must her lifeblood feel The fang that stung her sleeping, the foul germ Even when she wakes of h.e.l.l's most poisonous worm, Though now it writhe beneath her wounded heel.

Turn yet, she will not fade nor fly from thee; Wait, and see h.e.l.l yield up Eurydice.

AN APPEAL

I

Art thou indeed among these, Thou of the tyrannous crew, The kingdoms fed upon blood, O queen from of old of the seas, England, art thou of them too That drink of the poisonous flood, That hide under poisonous trees?

II

Nay, thy name from of old, Mother, was pure, or we dreamed Purer we held thee than this, Purer fain would we hold; So goodly a glory it seemed, A fame so bounteous of bliss, So more precious than gold.

III

A praise so sweet in our ears, That thou in the tempest of things As a rock for a refuge shouldst stand, In the bloodred river of tears Poured forth for the triumph of kings; A safeguard, a sheltering land, In the thunder and torrent of years.

IV

Strangers came gladly to thee, Exiles, chosen of men, Safe for thy sake in thy shade, Sat down at thy feet and were free.

So men spake of thee then; Now shall their speaking be stayed?

Ah, so let it not be!

V

Not for revenge or affright, Pride, or a tyrannous l.u.s.t, Cast from thee the crown of thy praise.

Mercy was thine in thy might; Strong when thou wert, thou wert just; Now, in the wrong-doing days, Cleave thou, thou at least, to the right.

VI

How should one charge thee, how sway, Save by the memories that were?

Not thy gold nor the strength of thy ships, Nor the might of thine armies at bay, Made thee, mother, most fair; But a word from republican lips Said in thy name in thy day.

VII

Hast thou said it, and hast thou forgot?

Is thy praise in thine ears as a scoff?

Blood of men guiltless was shed, Children, and souls without spot, Shed, but in places far off; Let slaughter no more be, said Milton; and slaughter was not.

VIII

Was it not said of thee too, Now, but now, by thy foes, By the slaves that had slain their France, And thee would slay as they slew - "Down with her walls that enclose Freemen that eye us askance, Fugitives, men that are true!"

IX

This was thy praise or thy blame From bondsman or freeman--to be Pure from pollution of slaves, Clean of their sins, and thy name Bloodless, innocent, free; Now if thou be not, thy waves Wash not from off thee thy shame.

X

Freeman he is not, but slave, Whoso in fear for the State Cries for surety of blood, Help of gibbet and grave; Neither is any land great Whom, in her fear-stricken mood, These things only can save.

XI

Lo, how fair from afar, Taintless of tyranny, stands Thy mighty daughter, for years Who trod the winepress of war; Shines with immaculate hands; Slays not a foe, neither fears; Stains not peace with a scar.

XII

Be not as tyrant or slave, England; be not as these, Thou that wert other than they.

Stretch out thine hand, but to save; Put forth thy strength, and release; Lest there arise, if thou slay, Thy shame as a ghost from the grave.

November 20, 1867.

PERINDE AC CADAVER

In a vision Liberty stood By the childless charm-stricken bed Where, barren of glory and good, Knowing nought if she would not or would, England slept with her dead.