Page:Poems and ballads (IA poemsballads00swinrich).pdf/89

 From prison, and from plunging prows of ships Through flamelike foam of the sea's closing lips— With thwartings of strange signs, and wind-blown hair Of comets, desolating the dim air, When darkness is made fast with seals and bars, And fierce reluctance of disastrous stars, Eclipse, and sound of shaken hills, and wings Darkening, and blind inexpiable things— With sorrow of labouring moons, and altering light And travail of the planets of the night, And weeping of the weary Pleiads seven, Feeds the mute melancholy lust of heaven? Is not his incense bitterness, his meat Murder? his hidden face and iron feet Hath not man known, and felt them on their way Threaten and trample all things and every day? Hath he not sent us hunger? who hath cursed Spirit and flesh with longing? filled with thirst Their lips who cried unto him? who bade exceed The fervid will, fall short the feeble deed, Bade sink the spirit and the flesh aspire, Pain animate the dust of dead desire, And life yield up her flower to violent fate? Him would I reach, him smite, him desecrate, Pierce the cold lips of God with human breath, And mix his immortality with death. Why hath he made us? what had all we done That we should live and loathe the sterile sun,