For us no splendid apparel of pageantry,
Burnished breast-plates, scarlet banners and trumpets
Sounding exultantly.
But the mean things of the earth hast thou chosen,
Decked them with suffering,
Made them beautiful with the passion for rightness,
Strong with the pride of love.
Yea, tho’ our praise of thee slayeth us,
Yet love shall exalt us beside thee triumphant,
Dying, that these live:
And the earth again be beautiful with orchards,
Yellow with wheatfields,
And the lips of others praise thee, tho’ our lips
Be stopped with earth, and songless.
But we shall have brought thee their praises,
Brought unto thee the perfect prayer:
For the lips of no man uttereth love,
Suffering even for love’s sake.
O God of sorrows,
Whose feet come softly thro’ the dews,
Stoop thou unto us,
For we die so thou livest,
Our hearts the cups of thy vintage:
And the lips of no man uttereth love,
Suffering even for love’s sake.
RELIEVED
For S. J. Kimm
We are weary and silent,
There is only the rhythm of marching feet;
Tho’ we move tranced, we keep it
As clock-work toys.
But each man is alone in this multitude;
We know not the world in which we move,
Seeing not the dawn, earth pale and shadowy,
Level lands of tenuous grays and greens;
For our eye-balls have been seared with fire.