Page:Songs before sunrise (IA beforesunrisongs00swinrich).pdf/182

 Are they children of these thy children indeed, who have sold, O golden goddess, the light of thy face for gold? Are they sons indeed of the sons of thy dayspring of hope, Whose lives are in fief of an emperor, whose souls of a Pope? Hide then thine head, O beloved; thy time is done; Thy kingdom is broken in heaven, and blind thy sun.

What sleep is upon you, to dream she indeed shall rise, When the hopes are dead in her heart as the tears in her eyes? If ye sing of her dead, will she stir? if ye weep for her, weep? Come away now, leave her; what hath she to do but sleep? But ye that mourn are alive, and have years to be; And life is good, and the world is wiser than we.

Yea, wise is the world and mighty, with years to give, And years to promise; but how long now shall it live? And foolish and poor is faith, and her ways are bare, Till she find the way of the sun, and the morning air. In that hour shall this dead face shine as the face of the sun, And the soul of man and her soul and the world’s be one.