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Songs Before Sunrise

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<h2>EPILOGUE</h2> Between the wave-ridge and the strand I let you forth in sight of land,    Songs that with storm-crossed wings and eyes    Strain eastward till the darkness dies; Let signs and beacons fall or stand,    And stars and balefires set and rise; Ye, till some lordlier lyric hand    Weave the beloved brows their crown,    At the beloved feet lie down. O, whatsoever of life or light Love hath to give you, what of might    Or heart or hope is yours to live,    I charge you take in trust to give For very love’s sake, in whose sight,    Through poise of hours alternative And seasons plumed with light or night,    Ye live and move and have your breath    To sing with on the ridge of death. I charge you faint not all night through For love’s sake that was breathed on you    To be to you as wings and feet    For travel, and as blood to heat And sense of spirit to renew    p. 227And bloom of fragrance to keep sweet And fire of purpose to keep true    The life, if life in such things be,    That I would give you forth of me. Out where the breath of war may bear, Out in the rank moist reddened air    That sounds and smells of death, and hath    No light but death’s upon its path Seen through the black wind’s tangled hair,    I send you past the wild time’s wrath To find his face who bade you bear    Fruit of his seed to faith and love,    That he may take the heart thereof. By day or night, by sea or street, Fly till ye find and clasp his feet    And kiss as worshippers who bring    Too much love on their lips to sing, But with hushed heads accept and greet    The presence of some heavenlier thing In the near air; so may ye meet    His eyes, and droop not utterly    For shame’s sake at the light you see. Not utterly struck spiritless For shame’s sake and unworthiness    Of these poor forceless hands that come    Empty, these lips that should be dumb, This love whose seal can but impress    These weak word-offerings wearisome Whose blessings have not strength to bless    Nor lightnings fire to burn up aught    Nor smite with thunders of their thought. p. 228One thought they have, even love; one light, Truth, that keeps clear the sun by night;    One chord, of faith as of a lyre;    One heat, of hope as of a fire; One heart, one music, and one might,    One flame, one altar, and one choir; And one man’s living head in sight    Who said, when all time’s sea was foam,    “Let there be Rome”—and there was Rome. As a star set in space for token Like a live word of God’s mouth spoken,    Visible sound, light audible,    In the great darkness thick as hell A stanchless flame of love unsloken,    A sign to conquer and compel, A law to stand in heaven unbroken    Whereby the sun shines, and wherethrough    Time’s eldest empires are made new; So rose up on our generations That light of the most ancient nations,    Law, life, and light, on the world’s way,    The very God of very day, The sun-god; from their star-like stations    Far down the night in disarray Fled, crowned with fires of tribulations,    The suns of sunless years, whose light    And life and law were of the night. The naked kingdoms quenched and stark Drave with their dead things down the dark,    Helmless; their whole world, throne by throne,    Fell, and its whole heart turned to stone, p. 229Hopeless; their hands that touched our ark    Withered; and lo, aloft, alone, On time’s white waters man’s one bark,    Where the red sundawn’s open eye    Lit the soft gulf of low green sky. So for a season piloted It sailed the sunlight, and struck red    With fire of dawn reverberate    The wan face of incumbent fate That paused half pitying overhead    And almost had foregone the freight Of those dark hours the next day bred    For shame, and almost had forsworn    Service of night for love of morn. Then broke the whole night in one blow, Thundering; then all hell with one throe    Heaved, and brought forth beneath the stroke    Death; and all dead things moved and woke That the dawn’s arrows had brought low,    At the great sound of night that broke Thundering, and all the old world-wide woe;    And under night’s loud-sounding dome    Men sought her, and she was not Rome. Still with blind hands and robes blood-wet Night hangs on heaven, reluctant yet,    With black blood dripping from her eyes    On the soiled lintels of the skies, With brows and lips that thirst and threat,    Heart-sick with fear lest the sun rise, And aching with her fires that set,    And shuddering ere dawn bursts her bars,    Burns out with all her beaten stars. p. 230In this black wind of war they fly Now, ere that hour be in the sky    That brings back hope, and memory back,    And light and law to lands that lack; That spiritual sweet hour whereby    The bloody-handed night and black Shall be cast out of heaven to die;    Kingdom by kingdom, crown by crown,    The fires of darkness are blown down. Yet heavy, grievous yet the weight Sits on us of imperfect fate.    From wounds of other days and deeds    Still this day’s breathing body bleeds; Still kings for fear and slaves for hate    Sow lives of men on earth like seeds In the red soil they saturate;    And we, with faces eastward set,    Stand sightless of the morning yet. And many for pure sorrow’s sake Look back and stretch back hands to take    Gifts of night’s giving, ease and sleep,    Flowers of night’s grafting, strong to steep The soul in dreams it will not break,    Songs of soft hours that sigh and sweep Its lifted eyelids nigh to wake    With subtle plumes and lulling breath    That soothe its weariness to death. And many, called of hope and pride, Fall ere the sunrise from our side.    Fresh lights and rumours of fresh fames    That shift and veer by night like flames, Shouts and blown trumpets, ghosts that glide    Calling, and hail them by dead names, Fears, angers, memories, dreams divide    Spirit from spirit, and wear out    Strong hearts of men with hope and doubt. Till time beget and sorrow bear The soul-sick eyeless child despair,    That comes among us, mad and blind,    With counsels of a broken mind, Tales of times dead and woes that were,    And, prophesying against mankind, Shakes out the horror of her hair    To take the sunlight with its coils    And hold the living soul in toils. By many ways of death and moods Souls pass into their servitudes.    Their young wings weaken, plume by plume    Drops, and their eyelids gather gloom And close against man’s frauds and feuds,    And their tongues call they know not whom To help in their vicissitudes;    For many slaveries are, but one    Liberty, single as the sun. One light, one law, that burns up strife, And one sufficiency of life.    Self-stablished, the sufficing soul    Hears the loud wheels of changes roll, Sees against man man bare the knife,    Sees the world severed, and is whole; Sees force take dowerless fraud to wife,    And fear from fraud’s incestuous bed    Crawl forth and smite his father dead: p. 232Sees death made drunk with war, sees time Weave many-coloured crime with crime,    State overthrown on ruining state,    And dares not be disconsolate. Only the soul hath feet to climb,    Only the soul hath room to wait, Hath brows and eyes to hold sublime    Above all evil and all good,    All strength and all decrepitude. She only, she since earth began, The many-minded soul of man,    From one incognizable root    That bears such divers-coloured fruit, Hath ruled for blessing or for ban    The flight of seasons and pursuit; She regent, she republican,    With wide and equal eyes and wings    Broods on things born and dying things. Even now for love or doubt of us The hour intense and hazardous    Hangs high with pinions vibrating    Whereto the light and darkness cling, Dividing the dim season thus,    And shakes from one ambiguous wing Shadow, and one is luminous,    And day falls from it; so the past    Torments the future to the last. And we that cannot hear or see The sounds and lights of liberty,    The witness of the naked God    That treads on burning hours unshod With instant feet unwounded; we    That can trace only where he trod By fire in heaven or storm at sea,    Not know the very present whole    And naked nature of the soul; We that see wars and woes and kings, And portents of enormous things,    Empires, and agonies, and slaves,    And whole flame of town-swallowing graves; That hear the harsh hours clap sharp wings    Above the roar of ranks like waves, From wreck to wreck as the world swings;    Know but that men there are who see    And hear things other far than we. By the light sitting on their brows, The fire wherewith their presence glows,    The music falling with their feet,    The sweet sense of a spirit sweet That with their speech or motion grows    And breathes and burns men’s hearts with heat; By these signs there is none but knows    Men who have life and grace to give,    Men who have seen the soul and live. By the strength sleeping in their eyes, The lips whereon their sorrow lies    Smiling, the lines of tears unshed,    The large divine look of one dead That speaks out of the breathless skies    In silence, when the light is shed Upon man’s soul of memories;    The supreme look that sets love free,    The look of stars and of the sea; p. 234By the strong patient godhead seen Implicit in their mortal mien,    The conscience of a God held still    And thunders ruled by their own will And fast-bound fires that might burn clean    This worldly air that foul things fill, And the afterglow of what has been,    That, passing, shows us without word    What they have seen, what they have heard, By all these keen and burning signs The spirit knows them and divines.    In bonds, in banishment, in grief,    Scoffed at and scourged with unbelief, Foiled with false trusts and thwart designs,    Stripped of green days and hopes in leaf, Their mere bare body of glory shines    Higher, and man gazing surelier sees    What light, what comfort is of these. So I now gazing; till the sense Being set on fire of confidence    Strains itself sunward, feels out far    Beyond the bright and morning star, Beyond the extreme wave’s refluence,    To where the fierce first sunbeams are Whose fire intolerant and intense    As birthpangs whence day burns to be    Parts breathless heaven from breathing sea. I see not, know not, and am blest, Master, who know that thou knowest,    Dear lord and leader, at whose hand    The first days and the last days stand, With scars and crowns on head and breast,    That fought for love of the sweet land Or shall fight in her latter quest;    All the days armed and girt and crowned    Whose glories ring thy glory round. Thou sawest, when all the world was blind, The light that should be of mankind,    The very day that was to be;    And how shalt thou not sometime see Thy city perfect to thy mind    Stand face to living face with thee, And no miscrowned man’s head behind;    The hearth of man, the human home,    The central flame that shall be Rome? As one that ere a June day rise Makes seaward for the dawn, and tries    The water with delighted limbs    That taste the sweet dark sea, and swims Right eastward under strengthening skies,    And sees the gradual rippling rims Of waves whence day breaks blossom-wise    Take fire ere light peer well above,    And laughs from all his heart with love; And softlier swimming with raised head Feels the full flower of morning shed    And fluent sunrise round him rolled    That laps and laves his body bold With fluctuant heaven in water’s stead,    And urgent through the growing gold Strikes, and sees all the spray flash red,    And his soul takes the sun, and yearns    For joy wherewith the sea’s heart burns; p. 236So the soul seeking through the dark Heavenward, a dove without an ark,    Transcends the unnavigable sea    Of years that wear out memory; So calls, a sunward-singing lark,    In the ear of souls that should be free; So points them toward the sun for mark    Who steer not for the stress of waves,    And seek strange helmsmen, and are slaves. For if the swimmer’s eastward eye Must see no sunrise—must put by    The hope that lifted him and led    Once, to have light about his head, To see beneath the clear low sky    The green foam-whitened wave wax red And all the morning’s banner fly—    Then, as earth’s helpless hopes go down,    Let earth’s self in the dark tides drown. Yea, if no morning must behold Man, other than were they now cold,    And other deeds than past deeds done,    Nor any near or far-off sun Salute him risen and sunlike-souled,    Free, boundless, fearless, perfect, one, Let man’s world die like worlds of old,    And here in heaven’s sight only be    The sole sun on the worldless sea. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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