Peace, or a sword? and since her incoming Hath the land sat in quiet, and the men Seen rest but for one year? or came not in Behind her feet, right at her back, and shone

Above her crown'd head as a fierier crown,
Death, and about her as a raiment wrapt
Ruin? and where her foot was ever turn'd
Or her right hand was pointed, hath there
fallen

No fire, no cry burst forth of war, no sound
As of a blast blown of an host of men
For summons of destruction? Hath God
shown

For sign she had found grace in his sight, and we

For her sake favor, while she hath reign'd

To bring it in your mind if God ere now Have borne me witness; in that dreary day

When men's hearts fail'd them for pure grief and fear

To see the tyranny that was, and rule Of this queen's mother, where was no light left

But of the fires wherein his servants died, I bade those lords that clave in heart to God

And were perplex'd with trembling and with tears

Lift up their hearts, and fear not; and they heard

What some now hear no more, the word I spake

Who have been with them, as their own souls know,

In their most extreme danger; Cowper Moor,

Saint Johnston, and the Crags of Edinburgh,

Are recent in my heart; yea, let these know,

That dark and dolorous night wherein all they

With shame and fear were driven forth of

That for this woman's sake shall God cut off

The hand that spares her as the hand that shields,

And make their memory who take part with her

As theirs who stood for Baal against the Lord

With Ahab's daughter; for her reign and end

Shall be like Athaliah's, as her birth

Was from the womb of Jezebel, that slew The prophets, and made foul with blood and fire

The same land's face that now her seed makes foul

With whoredoms and with witchcrafts; yet they say

Peace, where is no peace, while the adul

above,

We have lov'd, prais'd, pitied, crown'd, and done thee wrong,

O thou past praise and pity; thou the sole
Utterly deathless, perfect only and whole
Immortal, body and soul.

For over all whom time hath overpast
The shadow of sleep inexorable is cast,
The implacable sweet shadow of perfect
sleep

That gives not back what life gives death to keep;

Yea, all that liv'd and lov'd and sang and sinn'd

Are all borne down death's cold, sweet, soundless wind

That blows all night and knows not whom its breath,

Darkling, may touch to death:

But one that wind hath touch'd and changed not, one

Whose body and soul are parcel of the

I that saw where ye trod

The dim paths of the night
Set the shadow call'd God

In your skies to give light;

But the morning of manhood is risen, and the shadowless soul is in sight.

The tree many-rooted
That swells to the sky
With frondage red-fruited,
The life-tree am I ;

In the buds of your lives is the sap of my leaves ye shall live and not die.

But the Gods of your fashion
That take and that give,
In their pity and passion

That scourge and forgive,

They are worms that are bred in the bark that falls off: they shall die and not live.

My own blood is what stanches
The wounds in my bark:
Stars caught in my branches

Make day of the dark,

And are worshipp'd as suns till the sunrise shall tread out their fires as a spark.

All forms of all faces,

All works of all hands
In unsearchable places

Of time-stricken lands,

All death and all life, and all reigns and all ruins, drop through me as sands.

Though sore be my burden
And more than ye know,
And my growth have no guerdon
But only to grow,

Yet I fail not of growing for lightnings above me or deathworms below.

These too have their part in me,

As I too in these ;

Such fire is at heart in me,

Such sap is this tree's,

Which hath in it all sounds and all secrets of infinite lands and of seas.

In the spring-color'd hours
When my mind was as May's,
There brake forth of me flowers
By centuries of days,

Strong blossoms with perfume of manhood, shot out from my spirit as