Page:Songs before sunrise (IA beforesunrisongs00swinrich).pdf/225

 I prophesy of life, who live with death; Of joy, being sad; of sunlight, who am blind; Of man, whose ways are alien from mankind And his lips are not parted with man's breath; I am a word out of the speechless years, The tongue of time, that no man sleeps who hears.

I stand a shadow across the door of doom, Athwart the lintel of death's house, and wait; Nor quick nor dead, nor flexible by fate, Nor quite of earth nor wholly of the tomb; A voice, a vision, light as fire or air, Driven between days that shall be and that were.

I prophesy, with feet upon a grave, Of death cast out and life devouring death As flame doth wood and stubble with a breath; Of freedom, though all manhood were one slave; Of truth, though all the world were liar; of love, That time nor hate can raze the witness of.

Life that was given for love's sake and his law's Their powers have no more power on; they divide Spoils wrung from lust or wrath of man or pride, And keen oblivion without pity or pause Sets them on fire and scatters them on air Like ashes shaken from a suppliant's hair.