Out of time’s blind old eyes were shed Tears that were mortal, and left dead The heart and spirit of the years, And on mans fallen and helmless head Time’s disanointing tears Fell cold as fears.
Hope flowering had but strength to bear The fruitless fruitage of despair; Grief trod the grapes of joy for wine, Whereof love drinking unaware Died as one undivine And made no sign.
And soul and body dwelt apart; And weary wisdom without heart Stared on the dead round heaven and sighed, “Is death too hollow as thou art, Or as man’s living pride?” And saying so died.
And my soul heard the songs and groans That are about and under thrones, And felt through all time’s murmur thrill Fate’s old imperious semitones That made of good and ill One same tune still.
Then “Where is God? and where is aid? Or what good end of these?” she said; “Is there no God or end at all, Nor reason with unreason weighed, Nor force to disenthral Weak feet that fall?
“No light to lighten and no rod To chasten men? Is there no God?” So girt with anguish, iron-zoned, Went my soul weeping as she trod Between the men enthroned And men that groaned.
O fool, that for brute cries of wrong Heard not the grey glad mother’s song Ring response from the hills and waves, But heard harsh noises all day long Of spirits that were slaves And dwelt in graves.
The wise word of the secret earth Who knows what life and death are worth, And how no help and no control Can speed or stay things come to birth, Nor all worlds’ wheels that roll Crush one born soul.
With all her tongues of life and death, With all her bloom and blood and breath, From all years dead and all things done, In the ear of man the mother saith, “There is no God, O son, If thou be none.”
So my soul sick with watching heard That day the wonder of that word, And as one springs out of a dream Sprang, and the stagnant wells were stirred Whence flows through gloom and gleam Thought’s soundless stream.
Out of pale cliff and sunburnt health, Out of the low sea curled beneath In the land’s bending arm embayed, Out of all lives that thought hears breathe Life within life inlaid, Was answer made.
A multitudinous monotone Of dust and flower and seed and stone, In the deep sea-rock’s mid-sea sloth, In the live water’s trembling zone, In all men love and loathe, One God at growth.
