Page:Songs before sunrise (IA beforesunrisongs00swinrich).pdf/286

 Visible sound, light audible, In the great darkness thick as hell A stanchless flame of love unsloken, A sign to conquer and compel, A law to stand in heaven unbroken Whereby the sun shines, and wherethrough Time's eldest empires are made new;

So rose up on our generations That light of the most ancient nations, Law, life, and light, on the world's way, The very God of very day, The sun-god; from their star-like stations Far down the night in disarray Fled, crowned with fires of tribulations, The suns of sunless years, whose light And life and law were of the night.

The naked kingdoms quenched and stark Drave with their dead things down the dark, Helmless; their whole world, throne by throne, Fell, and its whole heart turned to stone, Hopeless; their hands that touched our ark Withered; and lo, aloft, alone, On time's white waters man's one bark, Where the red sundawn's open eye Lit the soft gulf of low green sky.