Page:Songs of the Springtides - Swinburne (1880).pdf/55

 What voice of what strong God hath stormed and stirred The fortressed rock of silence, rent apart Even to the core Night's all-maternal heart? What voice of God grown heavenlier in a bird, Made keener of edge to smite Than lightening—yea, thou knowest, O mother Night, Keen as that cry from thy strange children sent Wherewith the Athenian judgment-shrine was rent, For wrath that all their wrath was vainly spent, Their wrath for wrong made right By justice in her own divine despite That bade pass forth unblamed The sinless matricide and unashamed? Yea, what new cry is this, what note more bright Than their song's wing of words was dark of flight, What word is this thou hast heard, Thine and not thine or theirs, O Night, what word