Studies in Song Part 10

Death, and change, and darkness everlasting, Deaf, that hears not what the daystar saith, Blind, past all remembrance and forecasting, Dead, past memory that it once drew breath; These, above the washing tides and wasting, Reign, and rule this land of utter death.

2.

Change of change, darkness of darkness, hidden, Very death of very death, begun When none knows,--the knowledge is forbidden-- Self-begotten, self-proceeding, one, Born, not made--abhorred, unchained, unchidden, Night stands here defiant of the sun.

3.

Change of change, and death of death begotten, Darkness born of darkness, one and three, Ghostly G.o.dhead of a world forgotten, Crowned with heaven, enthroned on land and sea, Here, where earth with dead men's bones is rotten, G.o.d of Time, thy likeness worships thee.

4.

Lo, thy likeness of thy desolation, Shape and figure of thy might, O Lord, Formless form, incarnate miscreation, Served of all things living and abhorred; Earth herself is here thine incarnation, Time, of all things born on earth adored.

5.

All that worship thee are fearful of thee; No man may not worship thee for fear: Prayers nor curses prove not nor disprove thee, Move nor change thee with our change of cheer: All at last, though all abhorred thee, love thee, G.o.d, the sceptre of whose throne is here.

6.

Here thy throne and sceptre of thy station, Here the palace paven for thy feet; Here thy sign from nation unto nation Pa.s.sed as watchword for thy guards to greet, Guards that go before thine exaltation, Ages, clothed with bitter years and sweet.

7.

Here, where sharp the sea-bird shrills his ditty, Flickering flame-wise through the clear live calm, Rose triumphal, crowning all a city, Roofs exalted once with prayer and psalm, Built of holy hands for holy pity, Frank and fruitful as a sheltering palm.

8.

Church and hospice wrought in faultless fashion, Hall and chancel bounteous and sublime, Wide and sweet and glorious as compa.s.sion, Filled and thrilled with force of choral chime, Filled with spirit of prayer and thrilled with pa.s.sion Hailed a G.o.d more merciful than Time.

9.

Ah, less mighty, less than Time prevailing, Shrunk, expelled, made nothing at his nod, Less than clouds across the sea-line sailing, Lies he, stricken by his master's rod.

'Where is man?' the cloister murmurs wailing; Back the mute shrine thunders--'Where is G.o.d?'

10.

Here is all the end of all his glory-- Dust, and gra.s.s, and barren silent stones.

Dead, like him, one hollow tower and h.o.a.ry Naked in the sea-wind stands and moans, Filled and thrilled with its perpetual story: Here, where earth is dense with dead men's bones.

11.

Low and loud and long, a voice for ever, Sounds the wind's clear story like a song.

Tomb from tomb the waves devouring sever, Dust from dust as years relapse along; Graves where men made sure to rest, and never Lie dismantled by the seasons' wrong.

12.

Now displaced, devoured and desecrated, Now by Time's hands darkly disinterred, These poor dead that sleeping here awaited Long the archangel's re-creating word, Closed about with roofs and walls high-gated Till the blast of judgment should be heard,

13.

Naked, shamed, cast out of consecration, Corpse and coffin, yea the very graves, Scoffed at, scattered, shaken from their station, Spurned and scourged of wind and sea like slaves, Desolate beyond man's desolation, Shrink and sink into the waste of waves.

14.

Tombs, with bare white piteous bones protruded, Shroudless, down the loose collapsing banks, Crumble, from their constant place detruded, That the sea devours and gives not thanks.

Graves where hope and prayer and sorrow brooded Gape and slide and perish, ranks on ranks.

15.

Rows on rows and line by line they crumble, They that thought for all time through to be.

Scarce a stone whereon a child might stumble Breaks the grim field paced alone of me.

Earth, and man, and all their G.o.ds wax humble Here, where Time brings pasture to the sea.

VII.

1.

But afar on the headland exalted, But beyond in the curl of the bay, From the depth of his dome deep-vaulted Our father is lord of the day.

Our father and lord that we follow, For deathless and ageless is he; And his robe is the whole sky's hollow, His sandal the sea.

2.

Where the horn of the headland is sharper, And her green floor glitters with fire, The sea has the sun for a harper, The sun has the sea for a lyre.

The waves are a pavement of amber, By the feet of the sea-winds trod To receive in a G.o.d's presence-chamber Our father, the G.o.d.

3.

Time, haggard and changeful and h.o.a.ry, Is master and G.o.d of the land: But the air is fulfilled of the glory That is shed from our lord's right hand.

O father of all of us ever, All glory be only to thee From heaven, that is void of thee never, And earth, and the sea.

4.

O Sun, whereof all is beholden, Behold now the shadow of this death, This place of the sepulchres, olden And emptied and vain as a breath.

The bloom of the bountiful heather Laughs broadly beyond in thy light As dawn, with her glories to gather, At darkness and night.

5.

Though the G.o.ds of the night lie rotten And their honour be taken away And the noise of their names forgotten, Thou, Lord, art G.o.d of the day.

Thou art father and saviour and spirit, O Sun, of the soul that is free And hath grace of thy grace to inherit Thine earth and thy sea.

6.

The hills and the sands and the beaches, The waters adrift and afar, The banks and the creeks and the reaches, How glad of thee all these are!

The flowers, overflowing, overcrowded, Are drunk with the mad wind's mirth: The delight of thy coming unclouded Makes music of earth.

7.