To Victor Hugo

In the fair days when God     By man as godlike trod,     And each alike was Greek, alike was free,     Gods lightning spared, they said,     Alone the happier head     Whose laurels screened it; fruitless grace for thee,     To whom the high gods gave of right     Their thunders and their laurels and their light.     Sunbeams and bays before     Our masters servants wore,     For these Apollo left in all mens lands;     But far from these ere now     And watched with jealous brow     Lay the blind lightnings shut between Gods hands,     And only loosed on slaves and kings     The terror of the tempest of their wings.     Born in those younger years     That shone with storms of spears     And shook in the wind blown from a dead worlds pyre,     When by her back-blown hair     Napoleon caught the fair     And fierce Republic with her feet of fire,     And stayed with iron words and hands     Her flight, and freedom in a thousand lands:     Thou sawest the tides of things     Close over heads of kings,     And thine hand felt the thunder, and to thee     Laurels and lightnings were     As sunbeams and soft air     Mixed each in other, or as mist with sea     Mixed, or as memory with desire,     Or the lutes pulses with the louder lyre.     For thee mans spirit stood     Disrobed of flesh and blood,     And bare the heart of the most secret hours;     And to thine hand more tame     Than birds in winter came     High hopes and unknown flying forms of powers,     And from thy table fed, and sang     Till with the tune mens ears took fire and rang.     Even all mens eyes and ears     With fiery sound and tears     Waxed hot, and cheeks caught flame and eyelids light,     At those high songs of thine     That stung the sense like wine,     Or fell more soft than dew or snow by night,     Or wailed as in some flooded cave     Sobs the strong broken spirit of a wave.     But we, our master, we     Whose hearts, uplift to thee,     Ache with the pulse of thy remembered song,     We ask not nor await     From the clenched hands of fate,     As thou, remission of the worlds old wrong;     Respite we ask not, nor release;     Freedom a man may have, he shall not peace.     Though thy most fiery hope     Storm heaven, to set wide ope     The all-sought-for gate whence God or Chance debars     All feet of men, all eyes     The old night resumes her skies,     Her hollow hiding-place of clouds and stars,     Where nought save these is sure in sight;     And, paven with death, our days are roofed with night.     One thing we can; to be     Awhile, as men may, free;     But not by hope or pleasure the most stern     Goddess, most awful-eyed,     Sits, but on either side     Sit sorrow and the wrath of hearts that burn,     Sad faith that cannot hope or fear,     And memory grey with many a flowerless year.     Not that in strangers wise     I lift not loving eyes     To the fair foster-mother France, that gave     Beyond the pale fleet foam     Help to my sires and home,     Whose great sweet breast could shelter those and save     Whom from her nursing breasts and hands     Their land cast forth of old on gentler lands.     Not without thoughts that ache     For theirs and for thy sake,     I, born of exiles, hail thy banished head;     I whose young song took flight     Toward the great heat and light     On me a child from thy far splendour shed,     From thine high place of soul and song,     Which, fallen on eyes yet feeble, made them strong.     Ah, not with lessening love     For memories born hereof,     I look to that sweet mother-land, and see     The old fields and fair full streams,     And skies, but fled like dreams     The feet of freedom and the thought of thee;     And all between the skies and graves     The mirth of mockers and the shame of slaves.     She, killed with noisome air,     Even she! and still so fair,     Who said Let there be freedom, and there was     Freedom; and as a lance     The fiery eyes of France     Touched the worlds sleep and as a sleep made pass     Forth of mens heavier ears and eyes     Smitten with fire and thunder from new skies.     Are they mens friends indeed     Who watch them weep and bleed?     Because thou hast loved us, shall the gods love thee?     Thou, first of men and friend,     Seest thou, even thou, the end?     Thou knowest what hath been, knowest thou what shall be?     Evils may pass and hopes endure;     But fate is dim, and all the gods obscure.     O nursed in airs apart,     O poet highest of heart,     Hast thou seen time, who hast seen so many things?     Are not the years more wise,     More sad than keenest eyes,     The years with soundless feet and sounding wings?     Passing we hear them not, but past     The clamour of them thrills us, and their blast.     Thou art chief of us, and lord;     Thy song is as a sword     Keen-edged and scented in the blade from flowers;     Thou art lord and king; but we     Lift younger eyes, and see     Less of high hope, less light on wandering hours;     Hours that have borne men down so long,     Seen the right fail, and watched uplift the wrong.     But thine imperial soul,     As years and ruins roll     To the same end, and all things and all dreams     With the same wreck and roar     Drift on the dim same shore,     Still in the bitter foam and brackish streams     Tracks the fresh water-spring to be     And sudden sweeter fountains in the sea.     As once the high God bound     With many a rivet round     Mans saviour, and with iron nailed him through,     At the wild end of things,     Where even his own birds wings     Flagged, whence the sea shone like a drop of dew,     From Caucasus beheld below     Past fathoms of unfathomable snow;     So the strong God, the chance     Central of circumstance,     Still shows him exile who will not be slave;     All thy great fame and thee     Girt by the dim strait sea     With multitudinous walls of wandering wave;     Shows us our greatest from his throne     Fate-stricken, and rejected of his own.     Yea, he is strong, thou sayst,     A mystery many-faced,     The wild beasts know him and the wild birds flee;     The blind night sees him, death     Shrinks beaten at his breath,     And his right hand is heavy on the sea:     We know he hath made us, and is king;     We know not if he care for anything.     Thus much, no more, we know;     He bade what is be so,     Bade light be and bade night be, one by one;     Bade hope and fear, bade ill     And good redeem and kill,     Till all men be aweary of the sun     And his world burn in its own flame     And bear no witness longer of his name.     Yet though all this be thus,     Be those men praised of us     Who have loved and wrought and sorrowed and not sinned     For fame or fear or gold,     Nor waxed for winter cold,     Nor changed for changes of the worldly wind;     Praised above men of men be these,     Till this one world and work we know shall cease.     Yea, one thing more than this,     We know that one thing is,     The splendour of a spirit without blame,     That not the labouring years     Blind-born, nor any fears,     Nor men nor any gods can tire or tame;     But purer power with fiery breath     Fills, and exalts above the gulfs of death.     Praised above men be thou,     Whose laurel-laden brow,     Made for the morning, droops not in the night;     Praised and beloved, that none     Of all thy great things done     Flies higher than thy most equal spirits flight;     Praised, that nor doubt nor hope could bend     Earths loftiest head, found upright to the end.