Page:Poems and ballads (IA poemsballads00swinrich).pdf/181

 Set a word in thy lips, to stand before God with a word in thy mouth; That “the rain shall return in the land, and the tender dew after drouth.”

But the arm of the elders is broken, their strength is unbound and undone: They wait for a sign of a token; they cry, and there cometh none.

Their moan is in every place, the cry of them filleth the land: There is shame in the sight of their face, there is fear in the thews of their hand.

They are girdled about the reins with a curse for the girdle thereon: For the noise of the rending of chains the face of their colour is gone.

For the sound of the shouting of men they are grievously stricken at heart: They are smitten asunder with pain, their bones are smitten apart.

There is none of them all that is whole; their lips gape open for breath; They are clothed with sickness of soul, and the shape of the shadow of death.