Of war's last flame-stricken field, In the godhead of man revealed. Round your people and over them Swim, sink, strike out for the dawn. Chains are here, and a prison, Kings, and subjects, and shame: God is buried and dead to us, The earth-god 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 god Man, which is God. But in weariest of years and obscurest Doth it live not at heart of all things The one God and one spirit, a purest Life, fed from unstañchable 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 labors, if slowlier, Than the metres of star or of sun; Slowlier than life unto breath, Surelier than time unto death, It moves till its labor 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 world that re joice; Till the voice of its heart's exultation 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 FROM MATER TRIUMPHALIS I am thine harp between thine hands, All my strong chords are strained with love of thee. We grapple in love and wrestle, as each with other Wrestle the wind and the unreluctant sea. I am no courtier of thee sober-suited, Nor molten crowns, nor thine own sins, dismay. Sinned hast thou sometime, therefore art thou sinless; Stained hast thou been, who art there fore without stain; Even as man's soul is kin to thee, but kinless Thou, in whose womb Time sows the all-various grain. I do not bid thee spare me, O dreadful mother! I pray thee that thou spare not, of thy grace. How were it with me then, if ever another Should come to stand before thee in this my place? |