Songs Before Sunrise Part 2

First love and last love, light of lands, Shall we not touch thee full-blown with our lips and hands?

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O too much loved, what shall we say of thee?

What shall we make of our heart's burning fire, The pa.s.sion in our lives that fain would be Made each a brand to pile into the pyre That shall burn up thy foemen, and set free The flame whence thy sun-shadowing wings aspire?

Love of our life, what more than men are we, That this our breath for thy sake should expire, For whom to joyous death Glad G.o.ds might yield their breath, Great G.o.ds drop down from heaven to serve for hire?

We are but men, are we, And thou art Italy; What shall we do for thee with our desire?

What gift shall we deserve to give?

How shall we die to do thee service, or how live?

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The very thought in us how much we love thee Makes the throat sob with love and blinds the eyes.

How should love bear thee, to behold above thee His own light burning from reverberate skies?

They give thee light, but the light given them of thee Makes faint the wheeling fires that fall and rise.

What love, what life, what death of man's should move thee, What face that lingers or what foot that flies?

It is not heaven that lights Thee with such days and nights, But thou that heaven is lit from in such wise.

O thou her dearest birth, Turn thee to lighten earth, Earth too that bore thee and yearns to thee and cries; Stand up, s.h.i.+ne, lighten, become flame, Till as the sun's name through all nations be thy name.

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I take the trumpet from my lips and sing.

O life immeasurable and imminent love, And fear like winter leading hope like spring, Whose flower-bright brows the day-star sits above, Whose hand unweariable and untiring wing Strike music from a world that wailed and strove, Each bright soul born and every glorious thing, From very freedom to man's joy thereof, O time, O change and death, Whose now not hateful breath But gives the music swifter feet to move Through sharp remeasuring tones Of refluent antiphones More tender-tuned than heart or throat of dove, Soul into soul, song into song, Life changing into life, by laws that work not wrong;

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O natural force in spirit and sense, that art One thing in all things, fruit of thine own fruit, O thought illimitable and infinite heart Whose blood is life in limbs indissolute That still keeps hurtless thine invisible part And inextirpable thy viewless root Whence all sweet shafts of green and each thy dart Of sharpening leaf and bud resundering shoot; Hills that the day-star hails, Heights that the first beam scales, And heights that souls outs.h.i.+ning suns salute, Valleys for each mouth born Free now of plenteous corn, Waters and woodlands' musical or mute; Free winds that brighten brows as free, And thunder and laughter and lightning of the sovereign sea;

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Rivers and springs, and storms that seek your prey; With strong wings ravening through the skies by night; Spirits and stars that hold one choral way; O light of heaven, and thou the heavenlier light Aflame above the souls of men that sway All generations of all years with might; O sunrise of the repossessing day, And sunrise of all-renovating right; And thou, whose trackless foot Mocks hope's or fear's pursuit, Swift Revolution, changing depth with height; And thou, whose mouth makes one All songs that seek the sun, Serene Republic of a world made white; Thou, Freedom, whence the soul's springs ran; Praise earth for man's sake living, and for earth's sake man.

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Make yourselves wings, O tarrying feet of fate, And hidden hour that hast our hope to bear, A child-G.o.d, through the morning-coloured gate That lets love in upon the golden air, Dead on whose threshold lies heart-broken hate, Dead discord, dead injustice, dead despair; O love long looked for, wherefore wilt thou wait, And shew not yet the dawn on thy bright hair.

Not yet thine hand released Refres.h.i.+ng the faint east, Thine hand reconquering heaven, to seat man there?

Come forth, be born and live, Thou that hast help to give And light to make man's day of manhood fair: With flight outflying the sphered sun, Hasten thine hour and halt not, till thy work be done.

A WATCH IN THE NIGHT

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Watchman, what of the night? - Storm and thunder and rain, Lights that waver and wane, Leaving the watchfires unlit.

Only the balefires are bright, And the flash of the lamps now and then From a palace where spoilers sit, Trampling the children of men.

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Prophet, what of the night? - I stand by the verge of the sea, Banished, uncomforted, free, Hearing the noise of the waves And sudden flashes that smite Some man's tyrannous head, Thundering, heard among graves That hide the hosts of his dead.

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Mourners, what of the night? - All night through without sleep We weep, and we weep, and we weep.

Who shall give us our sons?

Beaks of raven and kite, Mouths of wolf and of hound, Give us them back whom the guns Shot for you dead on the ground.

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Dead men, what of the night? - Cannon and scaffold and sword, Horror of gibbet and cord, Mowed us as sheaves for the grave, Mowed us down for the right.

We do not grudge or repent.

Freely to freedom we gave Pledges, till life should be spent.

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Statesman, what of the night? - The night will last me my time.

The gold on a crown or a crime Looks well enough yet by the lamps.

Have we not fingers to write, Lips to swear at a need?

Then, when danger decamps, Bury the word with the deed.

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Warrior, what of the night? - Whether it be not or be Night, is as one thing to me.

I for one, at the least, Ask not of dews if they blight, Ask not of flames if they slay, Ask not of prince or of priest How long ere we put them away.

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Master, what of the night? - Child, night is not at all Anywhere, fallen or to fall, Save in our star-stricken eyes.

Forth of our eyes it takes flight, Look we but once nor before Nor behind us, but straight on the skies; Night is not then any more.

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Exile, what of the night? - The tides and the hours run out, The seasons of death and of doubt, The night-watches bitter and sore.

In the quicksands leftward and right My feet sink down under me; But I know the scents of the sh.o.r.e And the broad blown breaths of the sea.

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Captives, what of the night? - It rains outside overhead Always, a rain that is red, And our faces are soiled with the rain.

Here in the seasons' despite Day-time and night-time are one, Till the curse of the kings and the chain Break, and their toils be undone.

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Christian, what of the night? - I cannot tell; I am blind.

I halt and hearken behind If haply the hours will go back And return to the dear dead light, To the watchfires and stars that of old Shone where the sky now is black, Glowed where the earth now is cold.

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