Resurrection

Once more I hear the everlasting sea

     Breathing beneath the mountain's fragrant

    breast,

Come unto Me, come unto Me,

     And I will give you rest.

We have destroyed the Temple and in three days

   He hath rebuilt it — all things are made new:

 And hark what wild throats pour His praise

     Beneath the boundless blue.

We plucked down all His altars, cried aloud

  And gashed ourselves for little gods of clay!

Yon floating cloud was but a cloud,

  The May no more than May.

  We plucked down all His altars, left not one

     Save where, perchance (and ah, the joy was fleet),

  We laid our garlands in the sun

     At the white Sea-born's feet.

  We plucked down all His altars, not to make

     The small praise greater, but the great praise less,

      We sealed all fountains where the soul could slake

   Its thirst and weariness.

  "Love" was too small, too human to be found

     In that transcendent source whence love was

 born:

  We talked of "forces": heaven was crowned

     With philosophic thorn.

  "Your God is in your image," we cried, but O,

    'Twas only man's own deepest heart ye gave,

  Knowing that He transcended all ye know,

    While — we dug His grave.

  Denied Him even the crown on our own brow,

    E'en these poor symbols of His loftier reign,

  Levelled His Temple with the dust, and now

    He is risen, He is risen again,

  Risen, like this resurrection of the year,

    This grand ascension of the choral spring,

  Which those harp-crowded heavens bend to hear

    And meet upon the wing.

  "He is dead," we cried, and even amid that gloom

    The wintry veil was rent!  The new-born day

  Showed us the Angel seated in the tomb

    And the stone rolled away.

  It is the hour!  We challenge heaven above

    Now, to deny our slight ephemeral breath

  Joy, anguish, and that everlasting love

    Which triumphs over death.