Hence, swift hour! and quench thy Which, like flowers, will burst from them. As the fruit is to the tree

Sad was his life who bore thee in his Who from yon thrones pinnacled on the

breast,

Wild bird for that weak nest. Till Love even from fierce Desire it bought,

And from the very wound of tender thought

Drew solace, and the pity of sweet eyes Gave strength to bear those gentle agonies,

past

Sway the reluctant present, ye who sit
Pavilioned on the radiance or the gloom
Of mortal thought, which like an exhala-
tion

Steaming from earth, conceals the of
heaven
Which gave it birth,
here

assemble

Surmount the loss, the terror, and the Before your Father's throne; the swift

Less in the beauty of its tender light
Than in an atmosphere of living spirit
Which interpenetrating all the

it rolls from realm to realm And age to age, and in its ebb and flow

Impels the generations

When, as summer lures the swallow,
Pleasure lures the heart to follow-To their appointed place,

O weak heart of little wit!
The fair hand that wounded it,
Seeking, like a panting hare,
Refuge in the lynx's lair,
Love, Desire, Hope, and Fear,
Ever will be near.

PROLOGUE TO HELLAS

Herald of Eternity. It is the day
when all the sons of God
Wait in the roofless senate-house, whose
floor

Is Chaos, and the immovable abyss
Frozen by his steadfast word to hyaline

The shadow of God, and delegate
Of that before whose breath the universe
Is as a print of dew.

Whilst the high Arbiter

Beholds the strife, and at the appointed

time

Sends his decrees veiled in eternal. . .

Within the circuit of this pendant orb There lies an antique region, on which fell

The dews of thought in the world's golden dawn

Earliest and most benign, and from it
sprung

Temples and cities and immortal forms
And harmonies of wisdom and of song,
And thoughts, and deeds worthy of
thoughts so fair.

And when the sun of its dominion failed,
And when the winter of its glory came,
The winds that stript it bare blew on
and swept

Hierarchs and kings | That dew into the utmost wildernesses

In wandering clouds of sunny rain that Low-kneeling at the feet of Destiny

A fourth now waits: assemble, sons of Fiercest and mightiest, mingled both,

Upon the name of Freedom; from the Of Him who sends thee forth, whate'er

Of faction, which like earthquake shakes Speed, spare not to accomplish, and be

And as the Heavens and the Earth To swallow all delight, all life, all hope. Go, thou Vicegerent of my will, no

arrayed

Their presence in the beauty and the light

Of thy first smile, O Father, as they gather

The spirit of thy love which paves for

them

Their path o'er the abyss, till every
sphere

Shall be one living Spirit, so
Greece-

shall

less

Than of the Father's; but lest thou shouldst faint,

The winged hounds, Famine and Pestilence,

Shall wait on thee, the hundred-forkèd snake

...

Insatiate Superstition still shall
The earth behind thy steps, and War
shall hover

Satan. Be as all things beneath the Above, and Fraud shall gape below, and

empyrean,

Change

Mine! Art thou eyeless like old Des- Shall flit before thee on her dragon

tiny,

Thou mockery-king, crowned with a

wreath of thorns?

Whose sceptre is a reed, the broken reed

Which pierces thee! whose throne a chair of scorn;

wings,

Convulsing and consuming, and I add Three vials of the tears which demons weep

When virtuous spirits through the gate of Death

Pass triumphing over the thorns of life,

For seest thou not beneath this crystal Sceptres and crowns, mitres and swords

floor

The innumerable worlds of golden light Which are my empire, and the least of them

which thou would'st redeem
from me?

Know'st thou not them my portion?
Or wouldst rekindle the

strife

and snares,

Trampling in scorn, like Him and
Socrates.

The first is Anarchy; when Power and
Pleasure,

Glory and science and security,
On Freedom hang like fruit on the green
tree,

Which our great Father then did arbi- Then pour it forth, and men shall gather

Thou who art mailed in the omnipotence | Pride is thy error and thy punishment.

Boast not thine empire, dream not that thy worlds

Or could the morning shafts of purest light

Are more than furnace-sparks or rain- Again into the quivers of the Sun

bow-drops

fill the waning crescent

Be gathered-could one thought from
its wild flight

Return into the temple of the brain
Without
a change, without a
stain,-
Could aught that is, ever again
Be what it once has ceased to be,
Greece might again be free!

III

A star has fallen upon the earth

With beams as keen as those which 'Mid the benighted nations,

pierced the shadow

Of Christian night rolled back upon the
West

When the orient moon of Islam rode in
triumph

From Tmolus to the Acroceraunian snow.

Wake, thou Word Of God, and from the throne of Destiny Even to the utmost limit of thy way May Triumph

Be thou a curse on them whose creed

In a form of mortal birth,

Till, as a spirit half arisen
Shatters its charnel, it has rent,
In the rapture of its mirth,

Divides and multiplies the most high The thin and painted garment of the

God.

FRAGMENTS WRITTEN FOR