STROPHE 6

Thou wast the light whereby men saw

Light, thou the trumpet of the law

Proclaiming manhood to mankind;

And what if all these years were blind

And shameful? Hath the sun a flaw

Because one hour hath power to draw

Mist round him wreathed as links to bind?

And what if now keen anguish drains

The very wellspring of thy veins

And very spirit of thy breath?

The life outlives them and disdains;

The sense which makes the soul remains,

And blood of thought which travaileth

To bring forth hope with procreant pains.

O thou that satest bound in chains

Between thine hills and pleasant plains

As whom his own soul vanquisheth,

Held in the bonds of his own thought,

Whence very death can take off nought,

Nor sleep, with bitterer dreams than death,

What though thy thousands at thy knees

Lie thick as grave-worms feed on these,

Though thy green fields and joyous places

Are populous with blood-blackening faces

And wan limbs eaten by the sun?

Better an end of all men's races,

Better the world's whole work were done,

And life wiped out of all our traces,

And there were left to time not one,

Than such as these that fill thy graves

Should sow in slaves the seed of slaves.