That love, we know her more fair

than any thing."

O my sons, O too dutiful

Toward Gods not of me,
Was not I enough beautiful ?

Was it hard to be free?
For behold, I am with you, am in you

and of you ; look forth now and see.
Lo, wing'd with world's wonders,

With miracles shod,
With the fires of his thunders

For raiment and rod,
God trembles in heaven, and his angels

are white with the terror of God.
For his twilight is come on him,

His anguish is here ;
And his spirits gaze dumb on him,

Grown gray from his fear ; And his hour taketh hold on bim

stricken, the last of his infinite year.
Thought made him and breaks

him,
Truth slays and forgives ;
But to you, as time takes him,

This new thing it gives,
Even love, the beloved Republic, that

feeds upon freedom and lives.
For truth only is living,

Truth only is whole,
And the love of his giving

Man's polestar and pole;
Man, pulse of my centre, and fruit of

my body, and seed of my soul.
One birth of my bosom ;

One beam of mine eye;
One topmost blossom

That scales the sky :
Man, equal and one with me, man that

is made of me, man that is I. 1871.

—“Is she a queen, having great gifts to

give ?" -“ Yea, these : that whoso hath seen

her shall not live Except he serve her sorrowing, with

strange pain, Travail and bloodshedding and bit

terer tears ; And when she bids die he shall surely

die. And he shall leave all things under the

sky, And go forth naked under sun and

rain, And work and wait and watch out

all his years." —“ Hath she on earth no place of habi

tation ?” Age to age calling, nation answer

ing nation, Cries out, Where is she? and there is

none to sav; For if she be not in the spirit of men. For if in the inward soul she hath no

place, In vain they cry unto her, seeking her

face, In vain their mouths make much of

her; for they (ry with vain tongues, till the heart

lives again.

-"ye that follow, and have ye no

repentance ? For on your brows is written a mortal

sentence, An liieroglyph of sorrow, a fiery siga. That in your lives ye shall not pause

or rest,

or have the sure sweet common love,

nor keep riends and safe days, nor joy of life

nor sleep." —“ These have we not, who have one

thing, the divine Face and clear eyes of faith and

fruitful breast.

--" Is this worth life, is this, to win for

wages? Lo, the dead mouths of the awful gray

grown ages, The venerable, in the past that is their

prison, In the outer darkness, in the un

opening grave, Laugh, knowing how many as ye. now

say have said, How many, and all are fallen, are fallen

and dead : Shall ye dead rise, and these dead have

not risen?”
“ Not we but she, who is tender,

and swift to save." -"Are ye not weary and faint not by Seeing night by night devoured of day

by day, Seeing hour by hour consumed in sleep

less fire ? Sleepless; and ye too, when shall ye

too sleep?” -“ We are weary in heart and head, in

hands and feet, And surely more than all things sleep

were sweet,Than all things save the inexorable

desire Which whoso knoweth shall neither

faint nor weep.”

the way,

-“ And ye shall die before your thrones

be won." -“ Yea, and the changed world and the

liberal sun: Shall move and shine without us, and

we lie Dead ; but if she too move on earth,

and live, But if the old world with all the old

irons rent augh and give thanks, shall we be not

content? Nay, we shall rather live, we shall not

die, Life being so little, and death so

good to give." _" And these men shall forget you.”

Yea. but we Shall be a part of the earth and the an

cient sea, And heaven-high air august, and aw

ful fire, And all things good; and no man's

heart shall beat But somewhat in it of our blood once

shed Shall quiver and quicken, as now in us

the dead Blood of men slain and the old same

life's desire Plants in their fiery footprints our

fresh feet."

9

- Is this so sweet that one were fain

to follow? Is this so sure where all men's hopes are

hollow, Even this your dream, that by much

tribulation Ye shall make whole flawed hearts,

and bowed necks straight?” -“ Nay, though our life were blind, our

death were fruitless, Not therefore were the whole world's

high bope rootless; But man to man, nation would turn to

nation, And the old life live, and the old

great word be great."

-“ Pass on, then, and pass by us, and

let us be, For what light think ye after life to

see? And if the world fare better will ye

know? And if man triumph who shall seek

you and say?"

Make us, too, music, to be with us

As a word from a world's heart warm, To sail the dark as a sea with us,

Full-sailed, outsinging the storm,
A song to put fire in our ears
Whose burning shall burn up tears,

Whose sign bid battle reform ;

A note in the ranks of a clarion,

a A word in the wind of cheer, To consume as with lightning the carrion

That makes time foul for us here ; In the air that our dead things infest A blast of the breath of the west,

Till east way as west way is clear.

Here as a weakling in irons,

Here as a weanling in bands As a prey that the stake-net environs,

Our life that we looked for stanus : And the man-child naked and dear. Democracy, turns on us here

Eyes trembling, with tremulous hanks, It sees not what season shall bring to it

Sweet fruit of its bitter desire ; Few voices it hears yet sing to it,

Few pulses of hearts reaspire: Foresees not time, nor foreliears The noises of imminent years,

Earthquake, and thunder, and fire : When crowned and weaponed and curb

less It shall walk without helm or shield The bare burnt furrows and herbless

Out of the sun beyond sunset,
From the evening whence morning

shall be, With the rollers in measureless onset,

With the van of the storming sea,

A soul disembodied, it rise

From the body transfigured of time. Till it rise and remain and take station With the stars of the world that re

joice; Till the voice of its heart's exultation

Be as theirs an invariable voice, By no discord of evil estranged, By no pause, by no breach in it changed,

By no clash in the chord of its choice. It is one with the world's generations,

With the spirit, the star, and the sod : With the kingless and king-stricken

nations, With the cross, and the chain, and

the rod : The most high, the most secret, most

lonely, The earth-soul Freedom, that only

Lives, and that only is God. 1871.

FROM MATER TRIUMPHALIS

Of war's last flame-stricken field,
Till godlike, equal with time,
It stand in the sun sublime,

In the godhead of man revealed.
Round your people and over them

Light like raiment is drawn, Close as a garment to cover them

Wrought not of mail nor of lawn: Here, with hope hardly to wear, Naked nations and bare

Swim, sink, strike out for the dawn. Chains are here, and a prison,

Kings, and subjects, and shame : If the God upon you be arisen,

How should our songs be the same ? How in confusion of change, How shall we sing, in a strange

Land songs praising his name? God is buried and dead to us,

Even the spirit of earth, Freedom: so have they said to us,

Some with mocking and mirth, Some with heartbreak and tears : And a God without eyes, without ears. Who shall sing of him, dead in the

birth? The earth-god Freedom, the lonely

Face lightening, the footprint unshod. Not as one man crucified only

Nor scourged with but one life's rod : The soul that is substance of nations, Reincarnate with fresh generations ;

The great god Man, which is God. But in weariest of years and obscurest

Doth it live not at heart of all things The one God and one spirit, a purest

Life, fed from unstanchable springs? Within love, within hatred it is, And its seed in the stripe as the kiss, And in slaves is the germ, and in

kings. Freedom we call it, for holier

Name of the soul's there is none; Surelier it labors, if slowlier,

Than the metres of star or of sun; Slowlier than life unto breath, Surelier than time unto death,

It moves till its labor be done.

a

[TO LIBERTY] I am thine harp between thine hands,

O mother ! All my strong chords are strained

with love of thee. We grapple in love and wrestle, as each

with other Wrestle the wind and the unreluctant

sea.

I am no courtier of thee sober-suited,

Who loves a little for a little pay. Me not thy winds and storms, nor

thrones disrooted, Nor molten crowns, nor thine own

sins, dismay. Sinned hast thou sometime, therefore

art thou sinless ; Stained hast thou been, who art there

fore without stain ; Even as man's soul is kin to thee, but

kinless Thou, in whose womb Time sows the

all-various grain.

Till the motion be done and the measure

Circling through season and clime, Slumber and sorrow and pleasure,

Vision of virtue and crime ; Till consummate with conquering eyes,

I do not bid thee spare me, 0 dreadful

mother! I pray thee that thou spare not, of thy

grace. How were it with me then, if ever

another Should come to stand before thee in

this my place?

[SHELLEY) O HEART of hearts, the chalice of lore's

fire, Hid round with flowers and all the

bounty of bloom ; O wonderful and perfect heart, for why The lyrist liberty made life a lyre ; O heavenly heart, at whose must deal

desire Dead love, living and singing, cleft :

tomb,