Page:Songs before sunrise (IA beforesunrisongs00swinrich).pdf/188

 I am no courtier of thee sober-suited, Who loves a little for a little pay. Me not thy winds and storms nor thrones disrooted Nor molten crowns nor thine own sins dismay.

Sinned hast thou sometime, therefore art thou sinless; Stained hast thou been, who art therefore without stain; Even as man's soul is kin to thee, but kinless Thou, in whose womb Time sows the all-various grain.

I do not bid thee spare me, O dreadful mother! I pray thee that thou spare not, of thy grace. How were it with me then, if ever another Should come to stand before thee in this my place?

I am the trumpet at thy lips, thy clarion Full of thy cry, sonorous with thy breath; The graves of souls born worms and creeds grown carrion Thy blast of judgment fills with fires of death.

Thou art the player whose organ-keys are thunders, And I beneath thy foot the pedal prest; Thou art the ray whereat the rent night sunders, And I the cloudlet borne upon thy breast.