Page:Songs of the Springtides - Swinburne (1880).pdf/56

 More keen than lightning and more sweet than light? As all men's hearts grew godlike in one bird And all those hearts cried on thee, crying with might, Hear us, O mother Night.

Dumb is the mouth of darkness as of death: Light, sound and life are one In the eyes and lips of dawn that draw the sun To hear what first child's word with glimmering breath Their weak wan weanling child the twilight saith; But night makes answer none.

God, if thou be God,—bird, if bird thou be,— Do thou then answer me. For but one word, what wind soever blow, Is blown up usward ever from the sea. In fruitless years of youth dead long ago