Of heavenly song sound in the wilds once forbidden, to teach the laborious ploughman And shepherd, delivered from clouds of war, from pestilence, from night-fear, from murder, From falling, from stifling, from hunger, from cold, from slander, discontent, and sloth, That walk in beasts and birds of night, driven back by the sandy desert, Like pestilent fogs round cities of men; and the happy earth sing in its course, The mild peaceable nations be opened to heaven, and men walk with their fathers in bliss.". Then hear the first voice of the morning: "Depart, O clouds of night, and no more Return; be withdrawn cloudy war, troops of warriors depart, nor around our peaceable city Breathe fires; but ten miles from Paris let all be peace, nor a soldier be seen!"' FROM A SONG OF LIBERTY The Eternal Female groaned! It was heard over all the earth. Albion's coast is sick, silent. The American meadows faint! Shadows of Prophecy shiver along by the lakes and the rivers, and mutter across the ocean. France, rend down thy dungeon! Look up! look up! O citizen of London, enlarge thy countenance! O Jew, leave counting gold! return to thy oil and wine. O African! black African! Go, wingèd thought, widen his forehead! With thunder and fire, leading his starry hosts through the waste wilderness, he promulgates his ten commands, glancing his beamy eyelids over the deep in dark dismay. Where the son of fire in his eastern cloud, while the morning plumes her golden breast, Spurning the clouds written with curses, stamps the stony law to dust, loosing the eternal horses from the dens of night, crying: Empire is no more! and now the lion and wolf shall cease. CHORUS Let the Priests of the Raven of dawn no longer, in deadly black, with hoarse note curse the sons of joy! Nor his accepted brethren-whom, tyrant, he calls free-lay the bound or build the roof! Nor pale Religion's lechery call that virginity that wishes but acts not! For everything that lives is holy! Am not I A fly like thee? For I dance, And drink, and sing, If thought is life Of thought is death; Then am I A happy fly, If I live THE TIGER Tiger! Tiger! burning bright In what distant deeps or skies And what shoulder, and what art, What the hammer? what the chain? When the stars threw down their spears, Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tiger! Tiger! burning bright In the forests of the night, HOLY THURSDAY Is this a holy thing to see Fed with cold and usurous hand? Is that trembling cry a song? And their sun does never shine, For where'er the sun THE GARDEN OF LOVE I went to the Garden of Love, And the gates of this chapel were shut, And I saw it was filled with graves, And tombstones where flowers should be; And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds, And binding with briars my joys and desires. A LITTLE BOY LOST 'Nought loves another as itself, 'And, Father, how can I love you That picks up crumbs around the door.' The Priest sat by and heard the child, And standing on the altar high, The weeping child could not be heard, And burned him in a holy place, THE SCHOOLBOY I love to rise in a summer morn O! what sweet company. But to go to school in a summer morn, Under a cruel eye outworn, Ah! then at times I drooping sit, Worn through with the dreary shower. |