Song of Pain and Beauty

O MAY these days of pain,These wasted-seeming days,Somewhere reflower againWith scent and savour of praise.Draw out of memory all bitternessOf night with Thy sun’s rays.

And strengthen Thou in meThe love of men here found,And eager charity,That, out of difficult ground,Spring like flowers in barren deserts, orLike light, or a lovely sound.

A simpler heart than mineMight have seen beauty clearWhere I could see no signOf Thee, but only fear.Strengthen me, make me to see Thy beauty alwaysIn every happening here.

I AM dumb, I am dumb!And here’s a Norman orchard and here’s SpringGoading the sullen words that will not come.Romance, beating his distant magical drum,Calls to a soldier bearing alien arms,“Throw off your yoke and hear my darlings sing,Blackbirds” (by red-roofed farms)“More drunk than any poet with May’s delight,Green alive to the eye, and pink and white.”

Joy’s there, but not for me;And song, but shall I singThat live as in a dream of some bad night,Whose memories are of such ecstasyAnd height of passionate joy, that pain aloneIs born of beauty in cloud and flower and tree;Yes, and the great Cathedral’s towering stone.

To me these are but shadowsOf orchards and old meadowsTrodden before the dawn,Trodden after the dusk....All loveliness of France is as a husk,The inner living spirit of beauty gone,To that familiar beauty now withdrawnFrom exiles hungering ever for the sightOf her day-face;England’s;Or in some orchard spaceBreathless to drink peace from her calm night.

How shall I sing, since she sings not to meSongs any more?High rule she holds for ever on the seaThat’s hers, but dreams too might guard the shoreOf France, that’s French and set apart for ever.A Spirit of Love our link of song does sever.Had it been hate(The weakest of all sworn enemies of Love)We should have broken through or passed aboveIts foolish barriers;Here we must bow as to established Fate,And reverently; for, comrades and high peers,Sisters in blood,Our mothers brook no rival in their stateOf motherhood.

But not for ever shall our travail last,And not for ever weBe held by iron Duty over sea.The image of evil shall be overcast,And all his willing slaves and priests of evilScattered like dust, shall lie upon the plain;That image, ground to dust utterly levelWith unregarded weeds and all as vain.The oppressed shall lift their hearts up once again,And we return....Not to scarred lands and homes laid in the dust,Not with hard hearts to sights that sear and burn,But with assured longing and certain trust,To England’s royal grace and dignity,To England’s changing skies, rich greenery,High strength controlled, queenly serenity,Inviolate kept by her confederate seaAnd hearts resolved to every sacrifice.We shall come home,We shall come home again,Living and dead, one huge victorious host--The dead that would not leave their comrades tillThe last steep were topped of the difficult hill,The last farthing paid of the Great Cost,The last thrill suffered of the Great Pain.Living and dead, we shall come home at lastTo her sweet breast,England’s; by one touch be paid in fullFor all things grey and long and terribleOf that dread night which seemed eternity.

O Mother, shall thy kisses not restoreBody and life-sick soul? Yes, and set freeSongs and great floods of lovelier melodyThan thou didst giveWhen we those days of half-awake did live.And joy must surely flower again more fairTo us, who dwelt in shadows and foul air.We’ll breathe and drink in song.

Spring shall blot out all traces of old care;Her clouds of green and waves of gold amongWe shall grow free of heart, and great, and young--Be made anew in that Great Resurrection,Perfect as is the violet’s perfection.Perfect as sheWho sanctifies our memory with sorrow,Hugs, as a mother hugs, the thoughts that harrow,Watching for dawn, hungering for the morrowLone oversea....

I am dumb now, dumb,But in that time what music shall not come?Mother of Beauty, Mistress of the Sea.