Page:Songs before sunrise (IA beforesunrisongs00swinrich).pdf/159

 It stand in the sun sublime, In the godhead of man revealed.

Round your people and over them Light like raiment is drawn, Close as a garment to cover them Wrought not of mail nor of lawn; Here, with hope hardly to wear, Naked nations and bare Swim, sink, strike out for the dawn.

Chains are here, and a prison, Kings, and subjects, and shame; If the God upon you be arisen, How should our songs be the same? How, in confusion of change, How shall we sing, in a strange Land, songs praising his name?

God is buried and dead to us, Even the spirit of earth, Freedom; so have they said to us, Some with mocking and mirth, Some with heartbreak and tears; And a God without eyes, without ears, Who shall sing of him, dead in the birth?