Since in Athens God stood plain for adoration,Since the sun beheld his likeness reared in stone,Since the bronze or gold of human consecrationGave to Greece her guardian's form and feature shown,Never hand of sculptor, never heart of nation,Found so glorious aim in all these ages flownAs is theirs who rear for all time's acclamationHere the likeness of our mightiest and their own.
2
Theirs and ours and all men's living who behold himCrowned with garlands multiform and manifold;Praise and thanksgiving of all mankind enfold himWho for all men casts abroad his gifts of gold.With the gods of song have all men's tongues enrolled him,With the helpful gods have all men's hearts
enrolled:Ours he is who love him, ours whose hearts' hearts hold himFast as his the trust that hearts like his may hold.
3
He, the heart most high, the spirit on earth most blameless,Takes in charge all spirits, holds all hearts in
trust:As the sea-wind's on the sea his ways are tameless,As the laws that steer the world his works are just.All most noble feel him nobler, all most shamelessFeel his wrath and scorn make pale their pride and
lust:All most poor and lowliest, all whose wrongs were nameless,Feel his word of comfort raise them from the dust.
4
Pride of place and lust of empire bloody-fruitedKnew the blasting of his breath on leaf and fruit:Now the hand that smote the death-tree now disrootedPlants the refuge-tree that has man's hope for root.Ah, but we by whom his darkness was saluted,How shall now all we that see his day salute?How should love not seem by love's own speech confuted,Song before the sovereign singer not be mute?
5
With what worship, by what blessing, in what measure,May we sing of him, salute him, or adore,With what hymn for praise, what thanksgiving for pleasure,Who had given us more than heaven, and gives us
more?Heaven's whole treasury, filled up full with night's whole treasure,Holds not so divine or deep a starry storeAs the soul supreme that deals forth worlds at leisureClothed with light and darkness, dense with flower and
ore.
6
Song had touched the bourn: fresh verses overflow it,Loud and radiant, waves on waves on waves that
throng;Still the tide grows, and the sea-mark still below itSinks and shifts and rises, changed and swept along.Rose it like a rock? the waters overthrow it,And another stands beyond them sheer and strong:Goal by goal pays down its prize, and yields its poetTribute claimed of triumph, palm achieved of song.
7
Since his hand that holds the keys of fear and wonderOpened on the high priest's dreaming eyes a doorWhence the lights of heaven and hell above and underShone, and smote the face that men bow down before,Thrice again one singer's note had cloven in sunderNight, who blows again not one blast now but four,And the fourfold heaven is kindled with his thunder,And the stars about his forehead are fourscore.
8
From the deep soul's depths where alway love aboundedFirst had risen a song with healing on its wingsWhence the dews of mercy raining balms unboundedShed their last compassion even on sceptred things.1Even on heads that like a curse the crown surroundedFell his crowning pity, soft as cleansing springs;And the sweet last note his wrath relenting soundedBade men's hearts be melted not for slaves but
kings.
9
Next, that faith might strengthen fear and love embolden,On the creeds of priests a scourge of sunbeams fell:And its flash made bare the deeps of heaven, beholdenNot of men that cry, Lord, Lord, from church or
cell.2Hope as young as dawn from night obscure and oldenRose again, such power abides in truth's one spell:Night, if dawn it be that touches her, grows golden;Tears, if such as angels weep, extinguish hell.
10
Through the blind loud mills of barren blear-eyed learningWhere in dust and darkness children's foreheads bow,While men's labour, vain as wind or water turningWheels and sails of dreams, makes life a leafless
bough,
Note
(editor)
1La
Pitié Suprême. 1879.
Note
(editor)
2Religions et Religion.
1880.
Fell the light of scorn and pity touched with yearning,Next, from words that shone as heaven's own kindling
brow.1Stars were these as watch-fires on the world's waste burning,Stars that fade not in the fourfold sunrise now. 2
11
Now the voice that faints not till all wrongs be wrokenSounds as might the sun's song from the morning's
breast,All the seals of silence sealed of night are broken,All the winds that bear the fourfold word are blest.All the keen fierce east flames forth one fiery token;All the north is loud with life that knows not rest,All the south with song as though the stars had spoken;All the judgment-fire of sunset scathes the west.
12
Sound of paean, roll of
chanted panegyric,Though by Pindar's mouth song's trumpet spake forth
praise,March of warrior songs in Pythian mood or Pyrrhic,Though the blast were blown by lips of ancient days,
Note
(editor)
1L'Ane. 1880.
Note
(editor)
2Les Quatre Vents de l'Esprit. I. Le Livre
satirique. II. Le Livre dramatique. III. Le
Livre lyrique. IV. Le Livre épique. 1881.
Ring not clearer than the clarion of satiricSong whose breath sweeps bare the plague-infected
waysTill the world be pure as heaven is for the lyricSun to rise up clothed with radiant sounds as rays.
13
Clear across the cloud-rack fluctuant and erraticAs the strong star smiles that lets no mourner
mourn,Hymned alike from lips of Lesbian choirs or AtticOnce at evensong and morning newly born,Clear and sure above the changes of dramaticTide and current, soft with love and keen with
scorn,Smiles the strong sweet soul of maidenhood, ecstaticAnd inviolate as the red glad mouth of morn.
14
Pure and passionate as dawn, whose apparitionThrills with fire from heaven the wheels of hours that
whirl,Rose and passed her radiance in serene transitionFrom his eyes who sought a grain and found a pearl.But the food by cunning hope for vain fruitionLightly stolen away from keeping of a churlLeft the bitterness of death and hope's perditionOn the lip that scorn was wont for shame to curl.1
Note
(editor)
1Les Deux Trouvailles de Gallus. I. Margarita,
comédie. II. Esca, drame.
15
Over waves that darken round the wave-worn roverRang his clarion higher than winds cried round the
ship,Rose a pageant of set suns and storms blown over,Hands that held life's guerdons fast or let them
slip.But no tongue may tell, no thanksgiving discover,Half the heaven of blessing, soft with clouds that
drip,Keen with beams that kindle, dear as love to lover,Opening by the spell's strength on his lyric lip.
16
By that spell the soul transfigured and dilatedPuts forth wings that widen, breathes a brightening
air,Feeds on light and drinks of music, whence elatedAll her sense grows godlike, seeing all depths made
bare,All the mists wherein before she sat belatedShrink, till now the sunlight knows not if they
were;All this earth transformed is Eden recreated,With the breath of heaven remurmuring in her hair.
17
Sweeter far than aught of sweet that April nursesDeep in dew-dropt woodland folded fast and furledBreathes the fragrant song whose burning dawn dispersesDarkness, like the surge of armies backward hurled,Even as though the touch of spring's own hand, that piercesEarth with life's delight, had hidden in the
impearledGolden bells and buds and petals of his versesAll the breath of all the flowers in all the world.
18
But the soul therein, the light that our souls follow,Fires and fills the song with more of prophet's
pride,More of life than all the gulfs of death may swallow,More of flame than all the might of night may hide.Though the whole dark age were loud and void and hollow,Strength of trust were here, and help for all souls
tried,And a token from the flight of that strange swallow1Whose migration still is toward the wintry side
19
Never came such token for divine solutionFrom the oraculous live darkness whence of yoreAncient faith sought word of help and retribution,Truth to lighten doubt, a sign to go before.Never so baptismal waters of ablutionBathed the brows of exile on so stern a shore,Where the lightnings of the sea of revolutionFlashed across them ere its thunders yet might
roar.
Note
(editor)
1Je suis une hirondelle étrange, car j'émigreDu côté de l'hiver.Le Livre Lyrique, liii.
20
By the lightning's light of present revelationShown, with epic thunder as from skies that frown,Clothed in darkness as of darkling expiation,Rose a vision of dead stars and suns gone down,Whence of old fierce fire devoured the star-struck nation,Till its wrath and woe lit red the raging town,Now made glorious with his statue's crowning station,Where may never gleam again a viler crown.
21
King, with time for throne and all the years for pages,He shall reign though all thrones else be
overhurled,Served of souls that have his living words for wages,Crowned of heaven each dawn that leaves his brows
impearled;Girt about with robes unrent of storm that rages,Robes not wrought with hands, from no loom's weft
unfurled;All the praise of all earth's tongues in all earth's ages,All the love of all men's hearts in all the world.
22
Yet what hand shall carve the soul or cast the spirit,Mould the face of fame, bid glory's feature glow?Who bequeath for eyes of ages hence to inheritHim, the Master, whom love knows not if it know?Scarcely perfect praise of men man's work might merit,Scarcely bid such aim to perfect stature grow,Were his hand the hand of Phidias who shall rear it,And his soul the very soul of Angelo.
23
Michael, awful angel of the world's last session,Once on earth, like him, with fire of suffering
tried,Thine it were, if man's it were, without transgression,Thine alone, to take this toil upon thy pride.Thine, whose heart was great against the world's oppression,Even as his whose word is lamp and staff and guide:Advocate for man, untired of intercession,Pleads his voice for slaves whose lords his voice
defied.
24
Earth, with all the kings and thralls on earth, below it,Heaven alone, with all the worlds in heaven, above,Let his likeness rise for suns and stars to know it,High for men to worship, plain for men to love:Brow that braved the tides which fain would overflow it,Lip that gave the challenge, hand that flung the
glove;Comforter and prophet, Paraclete and poet,Soul whose emblems are an eagle and a dove.
25
Sun, that hast not seen a loftier head wax hoary,Earth, which hast not shown the sun a nobler birth,Time, that hast not on thy scroll defiled and goryOne man's name writ brighter in its whole wide
girth,Witness, till the final years fulfil their story,Till the stars break off the music of their mirth,What among the sons of men was this man's glory,What the vesture of his soul revealed on earth.