Page:Songs before sunrise (IA beforesunrisongs00swinrich).pdf/287

 So for a season piloted It sailed the sunlight, and struck red With fire of dawn reverberate The wan face of incumbent fate That paused half pitying overhead And almost had foregone the freight Of those dark hours the next day bred For shame, and almost had forsworn Service of night for love of morn.

Then broke the whole night in one blow, Thundering; then all hell with one throe Heaved, and brought forth beneath the stroke Death; and all dead things moved and woke That the dawn's arrows had brought low, At the great sound of night that broke Thundering, and all the old world-wide woe; And under night's loud-sounding dome Men sought her, and she was not Rome.

Still with blind hands and robes blood-wet Night hangs on heaven, reluctant yet, With black blood dripping from her eyes On the soiled lintels of the skies, With brows and lips that thirst and threat, Heart-sick with fear lest the sun rise,