Page:Poems and ballads (IA poemsballads00swinrich).pdf/185

 And shook in the wind blown from a dead world’s pyre, When by her back-blown hair Napoleon caught the fair And fierce Republic with her feet of fire, And stayed with iron words and hands Her flight, and freedom in a thousand lands:

Thou sawest the tides of things Close over heads of kings, And thine hand felt the thunder, and to thee Laurels and lightnings were As sunbeams and soft air Mixed each in other, or as mist with sea Mixed, or as memory with desire, Or the lute’s pulses with the louder lyre.

For thee man’s spirit stood Disrobed of flesh and blood, And bare the heart of the most secret hours; And to thine hand more tame Than birds in winter came High hopes and unknown flying forms of powers, And from thy table fed, and sang Till with the tune men’s ears took fire and rang.

Even all men’s eyes and ears With fiery sound and tears Waxed hot, and cheeks caught flame and eyelids light, At those high songs of thine