Page:Songs before sunrise (IA beforesunrisongs00swinrich).pdf/221

 Yet though her marriage-garment, seeming fair, Was dyed in sin and woven of jealousy To turn their seed to poison, time shall see The gods reissue from them, and repair Their broken stamp of godhead, and again Thought and wise love sing words of law to men.

I, Tiresias the prophet, seeing in Thebes Much evil, and the misery of men’s hands Who sow with fruitless wheat the stones and sands, With fruitful thorns the fallows and warm glebes, Bade their hands hold lest worse hap came to pass; But which of you had heed of Tiresias?

I am as Time’s self in mine own wearied mind, Whom the strong heavy-footed years have led From night to night and dead men unto dead, And from the blind hope to the memory blind; For each man’s life is woven, as Time’s life is, Of blind young hopes and old blind memories.

I am a soul outside of death and birth. I see before me and afterward I see, O child, O corpse, the live dead face of thee, Whose life and death are one thing upon earth