STROPHE 1

With songs and crying and sounds of acclamations,

Lo, the flame risen, the fire that falls in showers!

Hark; for the word is out among the nations:

Look; for the light is up upon the hours:

O fears, O shames, O many tribulations,

Yours were all yesterdays, but this day ours.

Strong were your bonds linked fast with lamentations,

With groans and tears built into walls and towers;

Strong were your works and wonders of high stations,

Your forts blood-based, and rampires of your powers:

Lo now the last of divers desolations,

The hand of time, that gathers hosts like flowers;

Time, that fills up and pours out generations;

Time, at whose breath confounded empire cowers.