Page:A channel passage and other poems (IA channelpassageot00swinrich).pdf/204



, and behind the breathless flight of fire Thunder that quickens fear and quells desire, Make bright and loud the terror of the night Wherein the soul sees only wrath for light. Wrath winged by love and sheathed by grief in steel Sets on the front of crime death's withering seal. The heaving horror of the storms of sin Brings forth in fear the lightning hid therein, And flashes back to darkness: truth, found pure And perfect, asks not heaven if shame endure. What life and death were his whose raging song Bore heaven such witness of the wild world's wrong, What hand was this that grasped such thunder, none Knows: night and storm seclude him from the sun. By daytime none discerns the fire of Mars: Deep darkness bares to sight the sterner stars,