Hertha (Swinburne)


 * I am that which began;
 * Out of me the years roll;
 * Out of me God and man;
 * I am equal and whole;

God changes, and man, and the form of them bodily; I am the soul.


 * Before ever land was,
 * Before ever the sea,
 * Or soft hair of the grass,
 * Or fair limbs of the tree,

Or by the flesh-coloured fruit of my branches, I was, and thy soul was in me.


 * First life on my sources
 * First drifted and swam;
 * Out of me are the forces
 * That save it or damn;

Out of me man and woman, and wild-beast and bird; before God was, I am.


 * Beside or above me
 * Nought is there to go;
 * Love or unlove me,
 * Unknow me or know,

I am that which unloves me and loves; I am stricken, and I am the blow.


 * I the mark that is missed
 * And the arrows that miss,
 * I the mouth that is kissed
 * And the breath in the kiss,

The search, and the sought, and the seeker, the soul and the body that is.


 * I am the thing which blesses
 * My spirit elate;
 * That which caresses
 * With hands uncreate

My limbs unbegotten that measure the length of the measure of fate.


 * But what thing dost thou now,
 * Looking Godward, to cry
 * 'I am I, thou art thou,
 * I am low, thou art high'?

I am thou, whom thou seekest to find him; find thou but thyself, thou art I.


 * I the grain and the furrow,
 * The plough-cloven clod
 * And the ploughshare drawn thorough,
 * The germ and the sod,

The deed and the doer, the seed and the sower, the dust which is God.


 * Hast thou known how I fashioned thee,
 * Child, underground?
 * Fire that impassioned thee,
 * Iron that bound,

Dim changes of water, what thing of all these hast thou known of or found?


 * Canst thous say in thine heart
 * Thou hast seen with thine eyes
 * With what cunning of art
 * Thou wast wrought in what wise,

By what force of what stuff thou wast shapen, and shown on my breast to the skies?


 * Who hath given, who hath sold it thee,
 * Knowledge of me?
 * Hath the wilderness told it thee?
 * Hast thou learnt of the sea?

Hast thou communed in spirit with night? have the winds taken counsel with thee?


 * Have I set such a star
 * To show light on thy brow
 * That thou sawest from afar
 * What I show to thee now?

Have ye spoken as brethren together, the sun and the mountains and thou?


 * What is here, dost thou know it?
 * What was, has thou known?
 * Prophet nor poet
 * Nor tripod nor throne

Nor spirit nor flesh can make answer, but only thy mother alone.


 * Mother, not maker,
 * Born, and not made;
 * Though her children forsake her,
 * Allured or afraid,

Praying prayers to the God of their fashion, who stirs not for all that have prayed.


 * A creed is a rod,
 * And a crown is of night;
 * But this thing is God,
 * To be man with thy might,

To grow straight in the strength of thy spirit, and live out of thy life as the light.


 * I am in thee to save thee,
 * As my sould in thee saith;
 * Give thou as I gave thee,
 * Thy life-blood and breath,

Green leaves of thy labour, white flowers of thy thought, and red fruit of thy death.


 * Be the ways of thy giving
 * As mine were to thee;
 * The free life of thy living,
 * Be the gift of it free;

Not as servant to lord, nor as master to slave, shalt thou give thee to me.


 * O children of banishment,
 * Souls overcast,
 * Were the lights ye see vanish meant
 * Always to last,

Ye would know not the sun overshining the shadows and stars overpast.


 * I that saw where ye trod
 * The dim paths of the night
 * Set the shadow called God
 * In your skies to give light;

But the morning of manhood is risen, and the shadowless soul is in sight.


 * The tree many-rooted
 * That swells to the sky
 * With frondage red-fruited,
 * The life-tree am I;

In the buds of your lives is the sap of my leaves: ye shall live and not die.


 * But the Gods of your fashion
 * That take and that give,
 * In their pity and passion
 * That scourge and forgive,

They are worms that are bred in the bark that falls off; they shall die and not live.


 * My own blood is what stanches
 * The wounds in my bark;
 * Stars caught in my branches
 * Make day of the dark,

And are worshipped as suns till the sunrise shall tread out their fires as a spark.


 * Where dead ages hide under
 * The live roots of the tree,
 * In my darkness the thunder
 * Makes utterance of me;

In the clash of my boughs with each other ye hear the waves sound of the sea.


 * That noise is of Time,
 * As his feathers are spread
 * And his feet set to climb
 * Through the boughs overhead,

And my foliage rings round him and rustles, and branches are bent with his tread.


 * The storm-winds of ages
 * Blow through me and cease,
 * The war-wind that rages,
 * The spring-wind of peace,

Ere the breath of them roughen my tresses, ere one of my blossoms increase.


 * All sounds of all changes,
 * All shadows and lights
 * On the world's mountain-ranges
 * And stream-riven heights,

Whose tongue is the wind's tongue and language of storm-clouds on earth-shaking nights;


 * All forms of all faces,
 * All works of all hands
 * In unsearchable places
 * Of time-stricken lands,

All death and all life, and all reigns and all ruins, drop through me as sands.


 * Though sore be my burden
 * And more than ye know,
 * And my growth have no guerdon
 * But only to grow,

Yet I fail not of growing for lightnings above me or death-worms below.


 * These too have their part in me,
 * As I too in these;
 * Such fire is at heart in me,
 * Such sap is this tree's,

Which hath in it all sounds and all secrets of infinite lands and of seas.


 * In the spring-coloured hours
 * When my mind was as May's,
 * There brake forth of me flowers
 * By centuries of days,

Strong blossoms with perfume of manhood, shot out from my spirit as rays.


 * And the sound of them springing
 * And smell of their shoots
 * Were as warmth and sweet singing
 * And strength to my roots;

And the lives of my children made perfect with freedom of soul were my fruits.


 * I bid you but be;
 * I have need not of prayer;
 * I have need of you free
 * As your mouths of mine air;

That my heart may be greater within me, beholding the fruits of me fair.


 * More fair than strange fruit is
 * Of faiths ye espouse;
 * In me only the root is
 * That blooms in your boughs;

Behold now your God that ye made you, to feed him with faith of your vows.


 * In the darkening and whitening
 * Abysses adored,
 * With dayspring and lightning
 * For lamp and for sword,

God thunders in heaven, and his angels are red with the wrath of the Lord.


 * O my sons, O too dutiful
 * Toward Gods not of me,
 * Was not I enough beautiful?
 * Was it hard to be free?

For behold, I am with you, am in you and of you; look forth now and see.


 * Lo, winged with world's wonders,
 * With miracles shod,
 * With the fires of his thunders
 * For raiment and rod,

God trembles in heaven, and his angels are white with the terror of God.


 * For his twilight is come on him,
 * His anguish is here;
 * And his spirits gaze dumb on him,
 * Grown grey from his fear;

And his hour taketh hold on him stricken, the last of his infinite year.


 * Thought made him and breaks him,
 * Truth slays and forgives;
 * But to you, as time takes him,
 * This new thing it gives,

Even love, the beloved Republic, that feeds upon freedom and lives.


 * For truth only is living,
 * Truth only is whole,
 * And the love of his giving
 * Man's polestar and pole;

Man, pulse of my centre, and fruit of my body, and seed of my soul.


 * One birth of my bosom;
 * One beam of mine eye;
 * One topmost blossom
 * That scales the sky;

Man, equal and one with me, man that is made of me, man that is I.