Songs Before Sunrise Part 12

In the outer world that was before this earth, That was before all shape or s.p.a.ce was born, Before the blind first hour of time had birth, Before night knew the moonlight or the morn;

Yea, before any world had any light, Or anything called G.o.d or man drew breath, Slowly the strong sides of the heaving night Moved, and brought forth the strength of life and death.

And the sad shapeless horror increate That was all things and one thing, without fruit, Limit, or law; where love was none, nor hate, Where no leaf came to blossom from no root;

The very darkness that time knew not of, Nor G.o.d laid hand on, nor was man found there, Ceased, and was cloven in several shapes; above Light, and night under, and fire, earth, water, and air.

Sunbeams and starbeams, and all coloured things, All forms and all similitudes began; And death, the shadow cast by life's wide wings, And G.o.d, the shade cast by the soul of man.

Then between shadow and substance, night and light, Then between birth and death, and deeds and days, The illimitable embrace and the amorous fight That of itself begets, bears, rears, and slays,

The immortal war of mortal things that is Labour and life and growth and good and ill, The mild antiphonies that melt and kiss, The violent symphonies that meet and kill,

All nature of all things began to be.

But chiefliest in the spirit (beast or man, Planet of heaven or blossom of earth or sea) The divine contraries of life began.

For the great labour of growth, being many, is one; One thing the white death and the ruddy birth; The invisible air and the all-beholden sun, And barren water and many-childed earth.

And these things are made manifest in men From the beginning forth unto this day: Time writes and life records them, and again Death seals them lest the record pa.s.s away.

For if death were not, then should growth not be, Change, nor the life of good nor evil things; Nor were there night at all nor light to see, Nor water of sweet nor water of bitter springs.

For in each man and each year that is born Are sown the twin seeds of the strong twin powers; The white seed of the fruitful helpful morn, The black seed of the barren hurtful hours.

And he that of the black seed eateth fruit, To him the savour as honey shall be sweet; And he in whom the white seed hath struck root, He shall have sorrow and trouble and tears for meat.

And him whose lips the sweet fruit hath made red In the end men loathe and make his name a rod; And him whose mouth on the unsweet fruit hath fed In the end men follow and know for very G.o.d.

And of these twain, the black seed and the white, All things come forth, endured of men and done; And still the day is great with child of night, And still the black night labours with the sun.

And each man and each year that lives on earth Turns. .h.i.ther or thither, and hence or thence is fed; And as a man before was from his birth, So shall a man be after among the dead.

TO WALT WHITMAN IN AMERICA

Send but a song oversea for us, Heart of their hearts who are free, Heart of their singer, to be for us More than our singing can be; Ours, in the tempest at error, With no light but the twilight of terror; Send us a song oversea!

Sweet-smelling of pine-leaves and gra.s.ses, And blown as a tree through and through With the winds of the keen mountain-pa.s.ses, And tender as sun-smitten dew; Sharp-tongued as the winter that shakes The wastes of your limitless lakes, Wide-eyed as the sea-line's blue.

O strong-winged soul with prophetic Lips hot with the bloodheats of song, With tremor of heartstrings magnetic, With thoughts as thunders in throng, With consonant ardours of chords That pierce men's souls as with swords And hale them hearing along,

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 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.

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, With the world-wide wind, with the breath That breaks s.h.i.+ps driven upon death, With the pa.s.sion of all things free,

With the sea-steeds footless and frantic, White myriads for death to bestride In the charge of the ruining Atlantic Where deaths by regiments ride, With clouds and clamours of waters, With a long note shriller than slaughter's On the furrowless fields world-wide,

With terror, with ardour and wonder, With the soul of the season that wakes When the weight of a whole year's thunder In the tidestream of autumn breaks, Let the flight of the wide-winged word Come over, come in and be heard, Take form and fire for our sakes.

For a continent bloodless with travail Here toils and brawls as it can, And the web of it who shall unravel Of all that peer on the plan; Would fain grow men, but they grow not, And fain be free, but they know not One name for freedom and man?

One name, not twain for division; One thing, not twain, from the birth; Spirit and substance and vision, Worth more than wors.h.i.+p is worth; Unbeheld, unadored, undivined, The cause, the centre, the mind, The secret and sense of the earth.

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 stands; And the man-child naked and dear, Democracy, turns on us here Eyes trembling with tremulous hands

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 forehears The noises of imminent years, Earthquake, and thunder, and fire:

When crowned and weaponed and curbless It shall walk without helm or s.h.i.+eld The bare burnt furrows and herbless Of war's last flame-stricken field, Till G.o.dlike, equal with time, It stand in the sun sublime, In the G.o.dhead 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 G.o.d 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?

G.o.d 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 G.o.d without eyes, without ears, Who shall sing of him, dead in the birth?

The earth-G.o.d 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 G.o.d Man, which is G.o.d.

But in weariest of years and obscurest Doth it live not at heart of all things, The one G.o.d 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 labours if slowlier, Than the metres of star or of sun; Slowlier than life into breath, Surelier than time into death, It moves till its labour be done.

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, A soul disembodied, it rise From the body transfigured of time.

Till it rise and remain and take station With the stars of the worlds that rejoice; 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 G.o.d.

CHRISTMAS ANTIPHONES

I--IN CHURCH

Thou whose birth on earth Angels sang to men, While thy stars made mirth, Saviour, at thy birth, This day born again;

As this night was bright With thy cradle-ray, Very light of light, Turn the wild world's night To thy perfect day.

G.o.d whose feet made sweet Those wild ways they trod, From thy fragrant feet Staining field and street With the blood of G.o.d;

G.o.d whose breast is rest In the time of strife, In thy secret breast Sheltering souls opprest From the heat of life;