DEDICATION

Before a midnight breaks in storm,

Or herded sea in wrath,

Ye know what wavering gusts inform

The greater tempest's path;

Till the loosed wind

Drive all from mind,

Except Distress, which, so will prophets cry,

O'ercame them, houseless, from the unhinting sky.

Ere rivers league against the land

In piratry of flood,

Ye know what waters slip and stand
Where seldom water stood.

Yet who will note,

Till fields afloat,

And washen carcass and the returning well,

Trumpet what these poor heralds strove to tell?

Ye know who use the Crystal Ball
(To peer by stealth on Doom),
The Shade that, shaping first of all,
Prepares an empty room.
Then doth It pass

Like breath from glass,

But, on the extorted vision bowed intent,
No man considers why It came or went.

Before the years reborn behold

Themselves with stranger eye,

And the sport-making Gods of old,
Like Samson slaying, die,

Many shall hear

The all-pregnant sphere

Bow to the birth and sweat, but-speech deniedSit dumb or-dealt in part-fall weak and wide.

Yet instant to fore-shadowed need

The eternal balance swings;

That winged men the Fates may breed
So soon as Fate hath wings.

These shall possess
Our littleness,

And in the imperial task (as worthy) lay
Up our lives' all to piece one giant day.