Epilogue to Songs Before Sunrise

Between the wave-ridge and the strand     I let you forth in sight of land,     Songs that with storm-crossed wings and eyes     Strain eastward till the darkness dies;     Let signs and beacons fall or stand,     And stars and balefires set and rise;     Ye, till some lordlier lyric hand     Weave the beloved brows their crown,     At the beloved feet lie down.     O, whatsoever of life or light     Love hath to give you, what of might     Or heart or hope is yours to live,     I charge you take in trust to give     For very loves sake, in whose sight,     Through poise of hours alternative     And seasons plumed with light or night,     Ye live and move and have your breath     To sing with on the ridge of death.     I charge you faint not all night through     For loves sake that was breathed on you     To be to you as wings and feet     For travel, and as blood to heat     And sense of spirit to renew     And bloom of fragrance to keep sweet     And fire of purpose to keep true     The life, if life in such things be,     That I would give you forth of me.     Out where the breath of war may bear,     Out in the rank moist reddened air     That sounds and smells of death, and hath     No light but deaths upon its path     Seen through the black winds tangled hair,     I send you past the wild times wrath     To find his face who bade you bear     Fruit of his seed to faith and love,     That he may take the heart thereof.     By day or night, by sea or street,     Fly till ye find and clasp his feet     And kiss as worshippers who bring     Too much love on their lips to sing,     But with hushed heads accept and greet     The presence of some heavenlier thing     In the near air; so may ye meet     His eyes, and droop not utterly     For shames sake at the light you see.     Not utterly struck spiritless     For shames sake and unworthiness     Of these poor forceless hands that come     Empty, these lips that should be dumb,     This love whose seal can but impress     These weak word-offerings wearisome     Whose blessings have not strength to bless     Nor lightnings fire to burn up aught     Nor smite with thunders of their thought.     One thought they have, even love; one light,     Truth, that keeps clear the sun by night;     One chord, of faith as of a lyre;     One heat, of hope as of a fire;     One heart, one music, and one might,     One flame, one altar, and one choir;     And one mans living head in sight     Who said, when all times sea was foam,     Let there be Rome and there was Rome.     As a star set in space for token     Like a live word of Gods mouth spoken,     Visible sound, light audible,     In the great darkness thick as hell     A stanchless flame of love unsloken,     A sign to conquer and compel,     A law to stand in heaven unbroken     Whereby the sun shines, and wherethrough     Times eldest empires are made new;     So rose up on our generations     That light of the most ancient nations,     Law, life, and light, on the worlds way,     The very God of very day,     The sun-god; from their star-like stations     Far down the night in disarray     Fled, crowned with fires of tribulations,     The suns of sunless years, whose light     And life and law were of the night.     The naked kingdoms quenched and stark     Drave with their dead things down the dark,     Helmless; their whole world, throne by throne,     Fell, and its whole heart turned to stone,     Hopeless; their hands that touched our ark     Withered; and lo, aloft, alone,     On times white waters mans one bark,     Where the red sundawns open eye     Lit the soft gulf of low green sky.     So for a season piloted     It sailed the sunlight, and struck red     With fire of dawn reverberate     The wan face of incumbent fate     That paused half pitying overhead     And almost had foregone the freight     Of those dark hours the next day bred     For shame, and almost had forsworn     Service of night for love of morn.     Then broke the whole night in one blow,     Thundering; then all hell with one throe     Heaved, and brought forth beneath the stroke     Death; and all dead things moved and woke     That the dawns arrows had brought low,     At the great sound of night that broke     Thundering, and all the old world-wide woe;     And under nights loud-sounding dome     Men sought her, and she was not Rome.     Still with blind hands and robes blood-wet     Night hangs on heaven, reluctant yet,     With black blood dripping from her eyes 1     On the soiled lintels of the skies,     With brows and lips that thirst and threat,     Heart-sick with fear lest the sun rise,     And aching with her fires that set,     And shuddering ere dawn bursts her bars,     Burns out with all her beaten stars.     In this black wind of war they fly     Now, ere that hour be in the sky     That brings back hope, and memory back,     And light and law to lands that lack;     That spiritual sweet hour whereby     The bloody-handed night and black     Shall be cast out of heaven to die;     Kingdom by kingdom, crown by crown,     The fires of darkness are blown down.     Yet heavy, grievous yet the weight     Sits on us of imperfect fate.     From wounds of other days and deeds     Still this days breathing body bleeds;     Still kings for fear and slaves for hate     Sow lives of men on earth like seeds     In the red soil they saturate;     And we, with faces eastward set,     Stand sightless of the morning yet.     And many for pure sorrows sake     Look back and stretch back hands to take     Gifts of nights giving, ease and sleep,     Flowers of nights grafting, strong to steep     The soul in dreams it will not break,     Songs of soft hours that sigh and sweep     Its lifted eyelids nigh to wake     With subtle plumes and lulling breath     That soothe its weariness to death.     And many, called of hope and pride,     Fall ere the sunrise from our side.     Fresh lights and rumours of fresh fames     That shift and veer by night like flames,     Shouts and blown trumpets, ghosts that glide     Calling, and hail them by dead names,     Fears, angers, memories, dreams divide     Spirit from spirit, and wear out     Strong hearts of men with hope and doubt.     Till time beget and sorrow bear     The soul-sick eyeless child despair,     That comes among us, mad and blind,     With counsels of a broken mind,     Tales of times dead and woes that were,     And, prophesying against mankind,     Shakes out the horror of her hair     To take the sunlight with its coils     And hold the living soul in toils.     By many ways of death and moods     Souls pass into their servitudes.     Their young wings weaken, plume by plume     Drops, and their eyelids gather gloom     And close against mans frauds and feuds,     And their tongues call they know not whom     To help in their vicissitudes;     For many slaveries are, but one     Liberty, single as the sun.     One light, one law, that burns up strife,     And one sufficiency of life.     Self-stablished, the sufficing soul     Hears the loud wheels of changes roll,     Sees against man man bare the knife,     Sees the world severed, and is whole;     Sees force take dowerless fraud to wife,     And fear from frauds incestuous bed     Crawl forth and smite his father dead:     Sees death made drunk with war, sees time     Weave many-coloured crime with crime,     State overthrown on ruining state,     And dares not be disconsolate.     Only the soul hath feet to climb,     Only the soul hath room to wait,     Hath brows and eyes to hold sublime     Above all evil and all good,     All strength and all decrepitude.     She only, she since earth began,     The many-minded soul of man,     From one incognizable root     That bears such divers-coloured fruit,     Hath ruled for blessing or for ban     The flight of seasons and pursuit;     She regent, she republican,     With wide and equal eyes and wings     Broods on things born and dying things.     Even now for love or doubt of us     The hour intense and hazardous     Hangs high with pinions vibrating     Whereto the light and darkness cling,     Dividing the dim season thus,     And shakes from one ambiguous wing     Shadow, and one is luminous,     And day falls from it; so the past     Torments the future to the last.     And we that cannot hear or see     The sounds and lights of liberty,     The witness of the naked God     That treads on burning hours unshod     With instant feet unwounded; we     That can trace only where he trod     By fire in heaven or storm at sea,     Not know the very present whole     And naked nature of the soul;     We that see wars and woes and kings,     And portents of enormous things,     Empires, and agonies, and slaves,     And whole flame of town-swallowing graves;     That hear the harsh hours clap sharp wings     Above the roar of ranks like waves,     From wreck to wreck as the world swings;     Know but that men there are who see     And hear things other far than we.     By the light sitting on their brows,     The fire wherewith their presence glows,     The music falling with their feet,     The sweet sense of a spirit sweet     That with their speech or motion grows     And breathes and burns mens hearts with heat;     By these signs there is none but knows     Men who have life and grace to give,     Men who have seen the soul and live.     By the strength sleeping in their eyes,     The lips whereon their sorrow lies     Smiling, the lines of tears unshed,     The large divine look of one dead     That speaks out of the breathless skies     In silence, when the light is shed     Upon mans soul of memories;     The supreme look that sets love free,     The look of stars and of the sea;     By the strong patient godhead seen     Implicit in their mortal mien,     The conscience of a God held still     And thunders ruled by their own will     And fast-bound fires that might burn clean     This worldly air that foul things fill,     And the afterglow of what has been,     That, passing, shows us without word     What they have seen, what they have heard,     By all these keen and burning signs     The spirit knows them and divines.     In bonds, in banishment, in grief,     Scoffed at and scourged with unbelief,     Foiled with false trusts and thwart designs,     Stripped of green days and hopes in leaf,     Their mere bare body of glory shines     Higher, and man gazing surelier sees     What light, what comfort is of these.     So I now gazing; till the sense     Being set on fire of confidence     Strains itself sunward, feels out far     Beyond the bright and morning star,     Beyond the extreme waves refluence,     To where the fierce first sunbeams are     Whose fire intolerant and intense     As birthpangs whence day burns to be     Parts breathless heaven from breathing sea.     I see not, know not, and am blest,     Master, who know that thou knowest,     Dear lord and leader, at whose hand     The first days and the last days stand,     With scars and crowns on head and breast,     That fought for love of the sweet land     Or shall fight in her latter quest;     All the days armed and girt and crowned     Whose glories ring thy glory round.     Thou sawest, when all the world was blind,     The light that should be of mankind,     The very day that was to be;     And how shalt thou not sometime see     Thy city perfect to thy mind     Stand face to living face with thee,     And no miscrowned mans head behind;     The hearth of man, the human home,     The central flame that shall be Rome?     As one that ere a June day rise     Makes seaward for the dawn, and tries     The water with delighted limbs     That taste the sweet dark sea, and swims     Right eastward under strengthening skies,     And sees the gradual rippling rims     Of waves whence day breaks blossom-wise     Take fire ere light peer well above,     And laughs from all his heart with love;     And softlier swimming with raised head     Feels the full flower of morning shed     And fluent sunrise round him rolled     That laps and laves his body bold     With fluctuant heaven in waters stead,     And urgent through the growing gold     Strikes, and sees all the spray flash red,     And his soul takes the sun, and yearns     For joy wherewith the seas heart burns;     So the soul seeking through the dark     Heavenward, a dove without an ark,     Transcends the unnavigable sea     Of years that wear out memory;     So calls, a sunward-singing lark,     In the ear of souls that should be free;     So points them toward the sun for mark     Who steer not for the stress of waves,     And seek strange helmsmen, and are slaves.     For if the swimmers eastward eye     Must see no sunrise, must put by     The hope that lifted him and led     Once, to have light about his head,     To see beneath the clear low sky     The green foam-whitened wave wax red     And all the mornings banner fly     Then, as earths helpless hopes go down,     Let earths self in the dark tides drown.     Yea, if no morning must behold     Man, other than were they now cold,     And other deeds than past deeds done,     Nor any near or far-off sun     Salute him risen and sunlike-souled,     Free, boundless, fearless, perfect, one,     Let mans world die like worlds of old,     And here in heavens sight only be     The sole sun on the worldless sea.