Page:Marlborough and other poems, Sorley, 1919.djvu/97

 XXXV

is such change in all those fields,

Such motion rhythmic, ordered, free,

Where ever-glancing summer yields

Birth, fragrance, sunlight, immanency,

To make us view our rights of birth.

What shall we do? How shall we die?

We, captives of a roaming earth,

'Mid shades that life and light deny.

Blank summer's surfeit heaves in mist;

Dumb earth basks dewy-washed; while still

We whom Intelligence has kissed

Do make us shackles of our will.

And yet I know in each loud brain,

Round-clamped with laws and learning so,

Is madness more and lust of strain

Than earth's jerked godlings e'er can know.

The false Delilah of our brain

Has set us round the millstone going.

O lust of roving! lust of pain!

Our hair will not be long in growing.

Like blinded Samson round we go.

We hear the grindstone groan and cry.

Yet we are kings, we know, we know.

What shall we do? How shall we die? 79