A vision strode before me toward the west,
What time the day let drop its golden shield —
A giant form with sun-illumined face:
His hue was like the last dull bar that falls
At eve athwart the hill-tops. From his brow,
A plume of many colours 'gainst the sky
Blazed like a torch-flame. In his tawny hand
A mighty bow he bore — so tall, its top
Flamed in the sun-down, while the low extreme
Trailed the dusk dews, unseen, along the vale.
His eyes were deep, cavernous, unsubdued —
So deep, a curse seemed crouching in their depth —

If from this oaten pipe —
Plucked from the shadow of primeval woods,
And waked to changeful numbers by strange airs,
Born by my native stream, in leafy depths
Of unfrequented glades — somewhat of song
Pour through its simple stops, and wake again
In other hearts what I have felt in mine,
Then not in vain I hold it to my lips,
And breathe the fulness of my soul away.
My theme, the country — worthier theme is not
In all the tomes which star the centuries,
From blind Maeonides to Milton blind!

I sing the battle of the soul:

At moon-wane, in furious foam-flecked seas, eddies and spouts and spirals,
The dreaming soul, a wave of flesh, whipped, wandering, tossing on hilly waters,
Becomes aware of itself ...

The bellbuoys clang longings for freedom,
And the sea like innumerable bells takes up the song, and goes pealing with it,
And the waking soul rolls like a bell clanging for liberation ...

" I am a child, " sings the soul,
" I am a child and a slave ... "
" I am a child of two mothers ... "

CHAPTER XIX.

Avaunt, destroyer, with thy hungry jaws,
Thy thirsty heart, thy longing ashy bones!
The righteous live, they be not in thy laws,
Nor subjects to thy deep-oppressing moans:
Let it suffice that we have seen thy show,
And tasted but the shadow of thy woe.

Yet stay, and bring thy empty car again,
More ashy vessels do attend thy pace;
More passengers expect thy coming wain,

CHAPTER XVIII.

You know the eagle by her soaring wings,
And how the swallow takes a lower pitch;
Ye know the day is clear and clearness brings,
And how the night is poor, though gloomy-rich:
This eagle virtue is, which mounts on high;
The other sin, which hates the heaven's eye.

This day is wisdom, being bright and clear;
This night is mischief, being black and foul;
The brightest day doth wisdom's glory wear,

CHAPTER XVII.

O, fly the bed of vice, the lodge of sin!
Sleep not too long in your destruction's pleasures;
Amend your wicked lives, and new begin
A more new perfect way to heaven's treasures!
O, rather wake and weep than sleep and joy!
Waking is truth, sleep is a flattering toy.

O, take the morning of your instant good!
Be not benighted with oblivion's eye;
Behold the sun, which kisseth Neptune's flood,

CHAPTER XVI

O, call that word again! they are your friends,
Your life's associates and your love's content;
That which begins in them, your folly ends;
Then how can vice with vice be discontent?
Behold, deformity sits on your heads,
Not horns, but scorns, not visage, but whole beds.

Behold a heap of sins your bodies pale,
A mountain-overwhelming villany;
Then tell me, are you clad in beauty's veil,

CHAPTER XV.

But God will never dye his hands with blood,
His heart with hate, his throne with cruelty,
His face with fury's map, his brow with cloud,
His reign with rage, his crown with tyranny;
Gracious is he, long-suffering, and true,
Which ruleth all things with his mercy's view:

Gracious; for where is grace but where he is?
The fountain-head, the ever-boundless stream:
Patient; for where is patience in amiss,

CHAPTER XIV

As doth one little spark make a great flame,
Kindled from forth the bosom of the flint;
As doth one plague infect with it self name,
With watery humours making bodies' dint;
So, even so, this idol-worshipper
Doth make another idol-practiser.

The shipman cannot team dame Tethys' waves
Within a wind-taught capering anchorage,
Before he prostrate lies, and suffrage craves,

CHAPTER XIII.

The branch must needs be weak, if root be so,
The root must needs be weak, if branches fall;
Nature is vain, man cannot be her foe,
Because from nature and at nature's call:
Nature is vain, and we proceed from nature,
Vain therefore is our birth, and vain our feature.

One body may have two diseases sore,
Not being two, it may be join'd to two;
Nature is one itself, yet two and more,