[Ep. 9.The grim dim thrones of the east
Set for death's riotous feast
Round the bright board where darkling centuries wait,
And servile slaughter, mute,
Feeds power with fresh red fruit,
Glitter and groan with mortal food of fate;
And throne and cup and lamp's bright breath
360Bear witness to their lord of only night and death.
[Str. 10.Dead freedom by live empire lies defiled,
And murder at his feet
Plies lust with wine and meat,
With offering of an old man and a child,
With holy body and blood, inexpiable
Communion in the sacrament of hell,
Till, reeking from their monstrous eucharist,
The lips wax cold that murdered where they kissed,
And empire in mid feast
370Fall as a slaughtered beast
Headless, and ease men's hungering hearts of fear
Lest God were none in heaven, to see nor hear,
And purge his own pollution with the flood
Poured of his black base blood
So first found healing, poisonous as it poured;
And on the clouds the archangel cleanse his sword.
[Ant. 10.As at the word unutterable that made
Of day and night division,
379From vision on to vision,
From dream to dream, from darkness into shade,
From sunshine into sunlight, moves and lives
The steersman's eye, the helming hand that gives
Life to the wheels and wings that whirl along
The immeasurable impulse of the sphere of song
Through all the eternal years,
Beyond all stars and spheres,
Beyond the washing of the waves of time,
Beyond all heights where no thought else may climb,
Beyond the darkling dust of suns that were,
390Past height and depth of air;
And in the abyss whence all things move that are
Finds only living Love, the sovereign star.
[Ep. 10.Nor less the weight and worth
Found even of love on earth
To wash all stain of tears and sins away,
On dying lips alit
That living knew not it,
In the winged shape of song with death to play:
To warm young children with its wings,
400And try with fire the heart elect for godlike things.
[Str. 11.For all worst wants of all most miserable
With divine hands to deal
All balms and herbs that heal,
Among all woes whereunder poor men dwell
Our Master sent his servant Love, to be
On earth his witness; but the strange deep sea,
Mother of life and death inextricate,
What work should Love do there, to war with fate?
Yet there must Love too keep
410At heart of the eyeless deep
Watch, and wage war wide-eyed with all its wonders,
Lower than the lightnings of its waves, and thunders
Of seas less monstrous than the births they bred;
Keep high there heart and head,
And conquer: then for prize of all toils past
Feel the sea close them in again at last.
[Ant. 11.A day of direr doom arisen thereafter
With cloud and fire in strife
Lightens and darkens life
420Round one by man's hand masked with living laughter,
A man by men bemonstered, but by love,
Watched with blind eyes as of a wakeful dove,
And wooed by lust, that in her rosy den
As fire on flesh feeds on the souls of men,
To take the intense impure
Burnt-offering of her lure,
Divine and dark and bright and naked, strange
With ravenous thirst of life reversed and change,
As though the very heaven should shrivel and swell
430With hunger after hell,
Run mad for dear damnation, and desire
To feel its light thrilled through with stings of fire.
[Ep. 11.Above a windier sea,
The glory of Ninety-three
Fills heaven with blood-red and with rose-red beams
That earth beholding grows
Herself one burning rose
Flagrant and fragrant with strange deeds and dreams,
Dreams dyed as love's own flower, and deeds
440Stained as with love's own life-blood, that for love's sake bleeds.
[Str. 12.And deeper than all deeps of seas and skies
Wherein the shadows are
Called sun and moon and star
That rapt conjecture metes with mounting eyes,
Loud with strange waves and lustrous with new spheres,
Shines, masked at once and manifest of years,
Shakespeare, a heaven of heavenly eyes beholden;
And forward years as backward years grow golden
With light of deeds and words
450And flight of God's fleet birds,
Angels of wrath and love and truth and pity;
And higher on exiled eyes their natural city
Dawns down the depths of vision, more sublime
Than all truths born of time;
And eyes that wept above two dear sons dead
Grow saving stars to guard one hopeless head.
[Ant. 12.Bright round the brows of banished age had shone
In vision flushed with truth
459The rosy glory of youth
On streets and woodlands where in days long gone
Sweet love sang light and loud and deep and dear:
And far the trumpets of the dreadful year
Had pealed and wailed in darkness: last arose
The song of children, kindling as a rose
At breath of sunrise, born
Of the red flower of morn
Whose face perfumes deep heaven with odorous light
And thrills all through the wings of souls in flight
Close as the press of children at His knee
470Whom if the high priest see,
Dreaming, as homeless on dark earth he trod,
The lips that praise him shall not know for God.
[Ep. 12.O sovereign spirit, above
All offering but man's love,
All praise and prayer and incense undefiled!
The one thing stronger found
Than towers with iron bound;
The one thing lovelier than a little child,
479And deeper than the seas are deep,
And tenderer than such tears of love as angels weep.