I | |
Who hath known the ways of time | |
Or trodden behind his feet? | |
There is no such man among men. | |
For chance overcomes him, or crime | |
Changes; for all things sweet | |
In time wax bitter again. | |
Who shall give sorrow enough, | |
Or who the abundance of tears? | |
Mine eyes are heavy with love | |
10 | And a sword gone thorough mine ears, |
A sound like a sword and fire, | |
For pity, for great desire; | |
Who shall ensure me thereof, | |
Lest I die, being full of my fears? | |
Who hath known the ways and the wrath, | |
The sleepless spirit, the root | |
And blossom of evil will, | |
The divine device of a god? | |
Who shall behold it or hath? | |
20 | The twice-tongued prophets are mute, |
The many speakers are still; | |
No foot has travelled or trod, | |
No hand has meted, his path. | |
Man’s fate is a blood-red fruit, | |
And the mighty gods have their fill | |
And relax not the rein, or the rod. | |
Ye were mighty in heart from of old, | |
Ye slew with the spear, and are slain. | |
Keen after heat is the cold, | |
30 | Sore after summer is rain, |
And melteth man to the bone. | |
As water he weareth away, | |
As a flower, as an hour in a day, | |
Fallen from laughter to moan. | |
But my spirit is shaken with fear | |
Lest an evil thing begin, | |
New-born, a spear for a spear, | |
And one for another sin. | |
Or ever our tears began, | |
40 | It was known from of old and said; |
One law for a living man, | |
And another law for the dead. | |
For these are fearful and sad, | |
Vain, and things without breath; | |
While he lives let a man be glad, | |
For none hath joy of his death. | |
II | |
Who hath known the pain, the old pain of earth, | |
Or all the travail of the sea, | |
The many ways and waves, the birth | |
50 | Fruitless, the labour nothing worth? |
Who hath known, who knoweth, O gods? not we. | |
There is none shall say he hath seen, | |
There is none he hath known. | |
Though he saith, Lo, a lord have I been, | |
I have reaped and sown; | |
I have seen the desire of mine eyes, | |
The beginning of love, | |
The season of kisses and sighs | |
And the end thereof. | |
60 | I have known the ways of the sea, |
All the perilous ways, | |
Strange winds have spoken with me, | |
And the tongues of strange days. | |
I have hewn the pine for ships; | |
Where steeds run arow, | |
I have seen from their bridled lips | |
Foam blown as the snow. | |
With snapping of chariot-poles | |
And with straining of oars | |
70 | I have grazed in the race the goals, |
In the storm the shores; | |
As a greave is cleft with an arrow | |
At the joint of the knee, | |
I have cleft through the sea-straits narrow | |
To the heart of the sea. | |
When air was smitten in sunder | |
I have watched on high | |
The ways of the stars and the thunder | |
In the night of the sky; | |
80 | Where the dark brings forth light as a flower, |
As from lips that dissever; | |
One abideth the space of an hour, | |
One endureth for ever. | |
Lo, what hath he seen or known, | |
Of the way and the wave | |
Unbeholden, unsailed on, unsown, | |
From the breast to the grave? | |
Or ever the stars were made, or skies, | |
Grief was born, and the kinless night, | |
90 | Mother of gods without form or name. |
And light is born out of heaven and dies, | |
And one day knows not another’s light, | |
But night is one, and her shape the same. | |
But dumb the goddesses underground | |
Wait, and we hear not on earth if their feet | |
Rise, and the night wax loud with their wings; | |
Dumb, without word or shadow of sound; | |
And sift in scales and winnow as wheat | |
Men’s souls, and sorrow of manifold things. | |
III | |
100 | Nor less of grief than ours |
The gods wrought long ago | |
To bruise men one by one; | |
But with the incessant hours | |
Fresh grief and greener woe | |
Spring, as the sudden sun | |
Year after year makes flowers; | |
And these die down and grow, | |
And the next year lacks none. | |
As these men sleep, have slept | |
110 | The old heroes in time fled, |
No dream-divided sleep; | |
And holier eyes have wept | |
Than ours, when on her dead | |
Gods have seen Thetis weep, | |
With heavenly hair far-swept | |
Back, heavenly hands outspread | |
Round what she could not keep, | |
Could not one day withhold, | |
One night; and like as these | |
120 | White ashes of no weight, |
Held not his urn the cold | |
Ashes of Heracles? | |
For all things born one gate | |
Opens, no gate of gold; | |
Opens; and no man sees | |
Beyond the gods and fate. |