Songs Before Sunrise Part 8

The storm-winds of ages Blow through me and cease, The war-wind that rages, The spring-wind of peace, Ere the breath of them roughen my tresses, ere one of my blossoms increase.

All sounds of all changes, All shadows and lights On the world's mountain-ranges And stream-riven heights, Whose tongue is the wind's tongue and language of storm-clouds on earth-shaking nights;

All forms of all faces, All works of all hands In unsearchable places Of time-stricken lands, All death and all life, and all reigns and all ruins, drop through me as sands.

Though sore be my burden And more than ye know, And my growth have no guerdon But only to grow, Yet I fail not of growing for lightnings above me or deathworms below.

These too have their part in me, As I too in these; Such fire is at heart in me, Such sap is this tree's, Which hath in it all sounds and all secrets of infinite lands and of seas.

In the spring-coloured hours When my mind was as May's, There brake forth of me flowers By centuries of days, Strong blossoms with perfume of manhood, shot out from my spirit as rays.

And the sound of them springing And smell of their shoots Were as warmth and sweet singing And strength to my roots; And the lives of my children made perfect with freedom of soul were my fruits.

I bid you but be; I have need not of prayer; I have need of you free As your mouths of mine air; That my heart may be greater within me, beholding the fruits of me fair.

More fair than strange fruit is Of faiths ye espouse; In me only the root is That blooms in your boughs; Behold now your G.o.d that ye made you, to feed him with faith of your vows.

In the darkening and whitening Abysses adored, With dayspring and lightning For lamp and for sword, G.o.d thunders in heaven, and his angels are red with the wrath of the Lord.

O my sons, O too dutiful Toward G.o.ds not of me, Was not I enough beautiful?

Was it hard to be free?

For behold, I am with you, am in you and of you; look forth now and see.

Lo, winged with world's wonders, With miracles shod, With the fires of his thunders For raiment and rod, G.o.d trembles in heaven, and his angels are white with the terror of G.o.d.

For his twilight is come on him, His anguish is here; And his spirits gaze dumb on him, Grown grey from his fear; And his hour taketh hold on him stricken, the last of his infinite year.

Thought made him and breaks him, Truth slays and forgives; But to you, as time takes him, This new thing it gives, Even love, the beloved Republic, that feeds upon freedom and lives.

For truth only is living, Truth only is whole, And the love of his giving Man's polestar and pole; Man, pulse of my centre, and fruit of my body, and seed of my soul.

One birth of my bosom; One beam of mine eye; One topmost blossom That scales the sky; Man, equal and one with me, man that is made of me, man that is I.

BEFORE A CRUCIFIX

Here, down between the dusty trees, At this lank edge of haggard wood, Women with labour-loosened knees, With gaunt backs bowed by servitude, Stop, shift their loads, and pray, and fare Forth with souls easier for the prayer.

The suns have branded black, the rains Striped grey this piteous G.o.d of theirs; The face is full of prayers and pains, To which they bring their pains and prayers; Lean limbs that shew the labouring bones, And ghastly mouth that gapes and groans.

G.o.d of this grievous people, wrought After the likeness of their race, By faces like thine own besought, Thine own blind helpless eyeless face, I too, that have nor tongue nor knee For prayer, I have a word to thee.

It was for this then, that thy speech Was blown about the world in flame And men's souls shot up out of reach Of fear or l.u.s.t or thwarting shame - That thy faith over souls should pa.s.s As sea-winds burning the grey gra.s.s?

It was for this, that prayers like these Should spend themselves about thy feet, And with hard overlaboured knees Kneeling, these slaves of men should beat Bosoms too lean to suckle sons And fruitless as their orisons?

It was for this, that men should make Thy name a fetter on men's necks, Poor men's made poorer for thy sake, And women's withered out of s.e.x?

It was for this, that slaves should be, Thy word was pa.s.sed to set men free?

The nineteenth wave of the ages rolls Now deathward since thy death and birth.

Hast thou fed full men's starved-out souls?

Hast thou brought freedom upon earth?

Or are there less oppressions done In this wild world under the sun?

Nay, if indeed thou be not dead, Before thy terrene shrine be shaken, Look down, turn usward, bow thine head; O thou that wast of G.o.d forsaken, Look on thine household here, and see These that have not forsaken thee.

Thy faith is fire upon their lips, Thy kingdom golden in their hands; They scourge us with thy words for whips, They brand us with thy words for brands; The thirst that made thy dry throat shrink To their moist mouths commends the drink.

The toothed thorns that bit thy brows Lighten the weight of gold on theirs; Thy nakedness enrobes thy spouse With the soft sanguine stuff she wears Whose old limbs use for ointment yet Thine agony and b.l.o.o.d.y sweat.

The blinding buffets on thine head On their crowned heads confirm the crown; Thy scourging dyes their raiment red, And with thy bands they fasten down For burial in the blood-bought field The nations by thy stripes unhealed.

With iron for thy linen bands And unclean cloths for winding-sheet They bind the people's nail-pierced hands, They hide the people's nail-pierced feet; And what man or what angel known Shall roll back the sepulchral stone?

But these have not the rich man's grave To sleep in when their pain is done.

These were not fit for G.o.d to save.

As naked h.e.l.l-fire is the sun In their eyes living, and when dead These have not where to lay their head.

They have no tomb to dig, and hide; Earth is not theirs, that they should sleep.

On all these tombless crucified No lovers' eyes have time to weep.

So still, for all man's tears and creeds, The sacred body hangs and bleeds.

Through the left hand a nail is driven, Faith, and another through the right, Forged in the fires of h.e.l.l and heaven, Fear that puts out the eye of light: And the feet soiled and scarred and pale Are pierced with falsehood for a nail.

And priests against the mouth divine Push their sponge full of poison yet And bitter blood for myrrh and wine, And on the same reed is it set Wherewith before they buffeted The people's disanointed head.

O sacred head, O desecrate, O labour-wounded feet and hands, O blood poured forth in pledge to fate Of nameless lives in divers lands, O slain and spent and sacrificed People, the grey-grown speechless Christ!

Is there a gospel in the red Old witness of thy wide-mouthed wounds?

From thy blind stricken tongueless head What desolate evangel sounds A hopeless note of hope deferred?

What word, if there be any word?

O son of man, beneath man's feet Cast down, O common face of man Whereon all blows and buffets meet, O royal, O republican Face of the people bruised and dumb And longing till thy kingdom come!

The soldiers and the high priests part Thy vesture: all thy days are priced, And all the nights that eat thine heart.

And that one seamless coat of Christ, The freedom of the natural soul, They cast their lots for to keep whole.

No fragment of it save the name They leave thee for a crown of scorns Wherewith to mock thy naked shame And forehead bitten through with thorns And, marked with sanguine sweat and tears, The stripes of eighteen hundred years

And we seek yet if G.o.d or man Can loosen thee as Lazarus, Bid thee rise up republican And save thyself and all of us; But no disciple's tongue can say When thou shalt take our sins away.

And mouldering now and h.o.a.r with moss Between us and the sunlight swings The phantom of a Christless cross Shadowing the sheltered heads of kings And making with its moving shade The souls of harmless men afraid.

It creaks and rocks to left and right Consumed of rottenness and rust, Worm-eaten of the worms of night, Dead as their spirits who put trust, Round its base muttering as they sit, In the time-cankered name of it.