THE SONG OF THE SWORD

In the beginning,

Ere God inspired Himself

Into the clay thing

Thumbed to His image,

The vacant, the naked shell

Soon to be Man:

Thoughtful He pondered it,

Prone there and impotent,

Fragile, inviting

Attack and discomfiture:

Then, with a smile —

As He heard in the Thunder

That laughed over Eden

The voice of the Trumpet,

The iron Beneficence,

Calling His dooms

To the Winds of the world —

Stooping, He drew

On the sand with His finger

A shape for a sign

Of His way to the eyes

That in wonder should waken,

For a proof of His will

To the breaking intelligence:

That was the birth of me:

I am the Sword.

Hard and bleak, keen and cruel,

Short-hilted, long-shafted,

I froze into steel:

And the blood of my elder,

His hand on the hafts of me,

Sprang like a wave

In the wind, as the sense

Of his strength grew to ecstasy,

Glowed like a coal

At the throat of the furnace,

As he knew me and named me

The War-Thing, the Comrade,

Father of honour

And giver of kingship,

The fame-smith, the song-master,

Bringer of women

On fire at his hands

For the pride of fulfilment,

Priest ( saith the Lord )

Of his marriage with victory.

Ho! then, the Trumpet,

Handmaid of heroes,

Calling the peers

To the place of espousal!

Ho! then, the splendour

And sheen of my ministry,

Clothing the earth

With a livery of lightnings!

Ho! then, the music

Of battles in onset

And ruining armours,

And God's gift returning

In fury to God!

Glittering and keen

As the song of the winter stars,

Ho! then, the sound

Of my voice, the implacable

Angel of Destiny!—

I am the Sword.

Heroes, my children,

Follow, O follow me,

Follow, exulting

In the great light that breaks

From the sacred companionship:

Thrust through the fatuous,

Thrust through the fungous brood

Spawned in my shadow

And gross with my gift!

Thrust through, and hearken,

O hark, to the Trumpet,

The Virgin of Battles,

Calling, still calling you

Into the Presence,

Sons of the Judgment,

Pure wafts of the Will!

Edged to annihilate,

Hilted with government,

Follow, O follow me

Till the waste places

All the grey globe over

Ooze, as the honeycomb

Drips, with the sweetness

Distilled of my strength:

And, teeming in peace

Through the wrath of my coming,

They give back in beauty

The dread and the anguish

They had of me visitant!

Follow, O follow, then,

Heroes, my harvesters!

Where the tall grain is ripe

Thrust in your sickles:

Stripped and adust

In a stubble of empire,

Scything and binding

The full sheaves of sovranty:

Thus, O thus gloriously,

Shall you fulfil yourselves:

Thus, O thus mightily,

Show yourselves sons of mine —

Yea, and win grace of me:

I am the Sword.

I am the feast-maker:

Hark, through a noise

Of the screaming of eagles,

Hark how the Trumpet,

The mistress of mistresses,

Calls, silver-throated

And stern, where the tables

Are spread, and the work

Of the Lord is in hand!

Driving the darkness,

Even as the banners

And spears of the Morning;

Sifting the nations,

The slag from the metal,

The waste and the weak

From the fit and the strong;

Fighting the brute,

The abysmal Fecundity;

Checking the gross,

Multitudinous blunders,

The groping, the purblind

Excesses in service,

Of the Womb universal,

The absolute Drudge;

Changing the charactry

Carved on the World,

The miraculous gem

In the seal-ring that burns

On the hand of the Master —

Yea! and authority

Flames through the dim,

Unappeasable Grisliness

Prone down the nethermost

Chasms of the Void;

Clear singing, clean slicing;

Sweet spoken, soft finishing;

Making death beautiful,

Life but a coin

To be staked in the pastime

Whose playing is more

Than the transfer of being;

Arch-anarch, chief builder,

Prince and evangelist,

I am the Will of God:

I am the Sword.