The Litany of Nations

CHORUS     If with voice of words or prayers thy sons may reach thee,     We thy latter sons, the men thine after-birth,     We the children of thy grey-grown age, O Earth,     O our mother everlasting, we beseech thee,     By the sealed and secret ages of thy life;     By the darkness wherein grew thy sacred forces;     By the songs of stars thy sisters in their courses;     By thine own song hoarse and hollow and shrill with strife;     By thy voice distuned and marred of modulation;     By the discord of thy measures march with theirs;     By the beauties of thy bosom, and the cares;     By thy glory of growth, and splendour of thy station;     By the shame of men thy children, and the pride;     By the pale-cheeked hope that sleeps and weeps and passes,     As the grey dew from the morning mountain-grasses;     By the white-lipped sightless memories that abide;     By the silence and the sound of many sorrows;     By the joys that leapt up living and fell dead;     By the veil that hides thy hands and breasts and head,     Wrought of divers-coloured days and nights and morrows;     Isis, thou that knowest of God what worlds are worth,     Thou the ghost of God, the mother uncreated,     Soul for whom the floating forceless ages waited     As our forceless fancies wait on thee, O Earth;     Thou the body and soul, the father-God and mother,     If at all it move thee, knowing of all things done     Here where evil things and good things are not one,     But their faces are as fire against each other;     By thy morning and thine evening, night and day;     By the first white light that stirs and strives and hovers     As a bird above the brood her bosom covers,     By the sweet last star that takes the westward way;     By the night whose feet are shod with snow or thunder,     Fledged with plumes of storm, or soundless as the dew;     By the vesture bound of many-folded blue     Round her breathless breasts, and all the woven wonder;     By the golden-growing eastern stream of sea;     By the sounds of sunrise moving in the mountains;     By the forces of the floods and unsealed fountains;     Thou that badest man be born, bid man be free. GREECE     I am she that made thee lovely with my beauty     From north to south:     Mine, the fairest lips, took first the fire of duty     From thine own mouth.     Mine, the fairest eyes, sought first thy laws and knew them     Truths undefiled;     Mine, the fairest hands, took freedom first into them,     A weanling child.     By my light, now he lies sleeping, seen above him     Where none sees other;     By my dead that loved and living men that love him; (Cho.)     Hear us, O mother. ITALY     I am she that was the light of thee enkindled     When Greece grew dim;     She whose life grew up with mans free life, and dwindled     With wane of him.     She that once by sword and once by word imperial     Struck bright thy gloom;     And a third time, casting off these years funereal,     Shall burst thy tomb.     By that bond twixt thee and me whereat affrighted     Thy tyrants fear us;     By that hope and this remembrance reunited; (Cho.)     O mother, hear us. PAIN     I am she that set my seal upon the nameless     West worlds of seas;     And my sons as brides took unto them the tameless     Hesperides.     Till my sins and sons through sinless lands dispersed,     With red flame shod,     Made accurst the name of man, and thrice accursed     The name of God.     Lest for those past fires the fires of my repentance     Hells fume yet smother,     Now my blood would buy remission of my sentence; (Cho.)     O mother, hear us. FRANCE     I am she that was thy sign and standard-bearer,     Thy voice and cry;     She that washed thee with her blood and left thee fairer,     The same was I.     Were not these the hands that raised thee fallen and fed thee,     These hands defiled?     Was not I thy tongue that spake, thine eye that led thee,     Not I thy child?     By the darkness on our dreams, and the dead errors     Of dead times near us;     By the hopes that hang around thee, and the terrors; (Cho.)     O mother, hear us. RUSSIA     I am she whose hands are strong and her eyes blinded     And lips athirst     Till upon the night of nations many-minded     One bright day burst:     Till the myriad stars be molten into one light,     And that light thine;     Till the soul of man be parcel of the sunlight,     And thine of mine.     By the snows that blanch not him nor cleanse from slaughter     Who slays his brother;     By the stains and by the chains on me thy daughter; (Cho.)     O mother, hear us. SWITZERLAND     I am she that shews on mighty limbs and maiden     Nor chain nor stain;     For what blood can touch these hands with gold unladen,     These feet what chain?     By the surf of spears one shieldless bosom breasted     And was my shield,     Till the plume-plucked Austrian vulture-heads twin-crested     Twice drenched the field;     By the snows and souls untrampled and untroubled     That shine to cheer us,     Light of those to these responsive and redoubled; (Cho.)     O mother, hear us. GERMANY     I am she beside whose forest-hidden fountains     Slept freedom armed,     By the magic born to music in my mountains     Heart-chained and charmed.     By those days the very dream whereof delivers     My soul from wrong;     By the sounds that make of all my ringing rivers     None knows what song;     By the many tribes and names of my division     One from another;     By the single eye of sun-compelling vision; (Cho.)     O mother, hear us. ENGLAND     I am she that was and was not of thy chosen,     Free, and not free;     She that fed thy springs, till now her springs are frozen;     Yet I am she.     By the sea that clothed and sun that saw me splendid     And fame that crowned,     By the song-fires and the sword-fires mixed and blended     That robed me round;     By the star that Miltons soul for Shelleys lighted,     Whose rays insphere us;     By the beacon-bright Republic far-off sighted; (Cho.)     O mother, hear us. CHORUS     Turn away from us the cross-blown blasts of error,     That drown each other;     Turn away the fearful cry, the loud-tongued terror,     O Earth, O mother.     Turn away their eyes who track, their hearts who follow,     The pathless past;     Shew the soul of man, as summer shews the swallow,     The way at last.     By the sloth of men that all too long endure men     On man to tread;     By the cry of men, the bitter cry of poor men     That faint for bread;     By the blood-sweat of the people in the garden     Inwalled of kings;     By his passion interceding for their pardon     Who do these things;     By the sightless souls and fleshless limbs that labour     For not their fruit;     By the foodless mouth with foodless heart for neighbour,     That, mad, is mute;     By the child that famine eats as worms the blossom     Ah God, the child!     By the milkless lips that strain the bloodless bosom     Till woe runs wild;     By the pastures that give grass to feed the lamb in,     Where men lack meat;     By the cities clad with gold and shame and famine;     By field and street;     By the people, by the poor man, by the master     That men call slave;     By the cross-winds of defeat and of disaster,     By wreck, by wave;     By the helm that keeps us still to sunwards driving,     Still eastward bound,     Till, as night-watch ends, day burn on eyes reviving,     And land be found:     We thy children, that arraign not nor impeach thee     Though no star steer us,     By the waves that wash the morning we beseech thee,     O mother, hear us.