PART I: Now what have you done, son of Albion? Wrought since first begun, still hard-fought or -won. Bathed in Precious Blood, now call forth the flood. Ripened and fecund, born yet still undone. And every sin in tow, with justice yet to sow. I will not let you go. Spring forth from the darkness, Rise with the morning, Your bonds are loose, your soul is chained no more. Thus, the angel wept while his trumpet swept 'Cross the ocean's depth, and his silence kept. And every sin in tow, with justice yet to sow. I will not let you go. Spring forth from the darkness, Rise with the morning, Your bonds are loose, your soul is chained no more. PART II: And somewhere else the bees fly lazy 'round the clover. And voices swell of children 'til the summer's over. And no one noticed the fire that swirled, And no one noticed the gyre that whirled, And no one noticed the sky that unfurled, And no one would say it's the end of the world. And even still the fishermen cast their nets into the sea, And cheery trills of thrushes' songs sweetly tumble from the trees, And those who believed in thundering storms, And those who believed in trumpets and horns, And those who believed in Almighty scorn would never believe It's the end of the world. And there will be no other end. Does the curse abate only just too late? Laid in mean estate: barren and ornate. And no one noticed the fire that swirled, And no one noticed the gyre that whirled, And no one noticed the sky that unfurled, And no one would say it's the end of the world. PART III: Now the heavens melt—every idol built Without guile or guilt, fiends of hell exult!

PART I: Awake, for morning in the bowl of night Has flung the stone which puts the stars to flight, And lo! The hunter of the east has caught The Sultan's turret in a noose of light. Dreaming, when dawn's left hand was in the sky, I heard a voice within the tavern cry: Awake, my little ones, and fill the cup, Before life's liquor in its cup be dry. Now the new year reviving old desires, The thoughtful soul to solitude retires, And the white hand of Moses on the bough Puts out and Jesus from the ground suspires. Come, fill the cup, and in the fire of spring The winter garment of repentance fling, The bird of time has but a little way to fly, And lo! The bird is on the wing. Look! A thousand blossoms with the day Woke—and still a thousand scattered into clay, And this first summer month that brings the rose Shall take Jamshyyd and Kaikobad away. With me along some strip of herbage strown That just divides the desert from the sown; Where name of slave and Sultan scarce is known, And pity Sultan Mahmoud on his throne. Here with a loaf of bread beneath the bough, A flask of wine, a book of verse, and thou Beside me singing in the wilderness, And wilderness is paradise enow. PART II: How sweet is mortal sovereignty, think some; Others, how blest the paradise to come. Ah, take the cash in hand and waive the rest, Oh the brave music of a distant drum! The worldly hope men set their hearts upon Turns ashes, or it prospers—and anon, Like snow upon the desert's dusty face Lighting a little hour or two, is gone. Ah, my beloved, fill the cup that clears Today of past regrets and future fears. Tomorrow? Why, tomorrow I may be Myself with yesterday's seven thousand years. Why, all the saints and sages who discussed Of the two worlds so learnedly are thrust Like foolish prophets forth, their words to scorn, Are scattered, and their mouths are stopped with dust. PART III: There was a door to which I found no key, There was a veil through which I could not see: Some little talk awhile of thee and me There seemed—and then no more of thee and me. Then to the rolling heaven itself I cried, Asking—What lamp has destiny to guide Her little children stumbling in the dark? And—A blind understanding, heaven replied. Then to this earth bowl did I adjourn My lip, the secret well of life to learn. And, lip to lip, it murmured: While you live, Drink, for once dead, you never shall return. For in the marketplace on dusk of day, I watched the potter thumping his wet clay. And with its all obliterated tongue, It murmured: Gently, brother, gently, pray. Ah, fill the cup, what boots it to repeat, How time is slipping underneath our feet— Unborn tomorrow and dead yesterday, Why fret about them if today be sweet? One moment in annihilation's waste, One moment of the well of life to taste. The stars are setting and the caravan Starts for the dawn of nothing—oh, make haste! But the wise to wrangle—and with me The quarrel of the universe let be. And in the corner of the hubbub coucht, Make game of that which makes as much of thee. For in and out, above, about, below, 'Tis nothing but a magic shadow show Played in a box whose candle is the sun, Round which we phantom figures come and go. And if the wine you drink, the lip you press End in the nothing all things end in—yes— Then fancy while thou art, thou art but what Thou shalt be—Nothing; thou shalt not be less. PART IV: The moving finger writes, and having writ Moves on; nor all thy piety nor wit Shall it lure it back to cancel half a line, Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it. With earth's first clay they did the last man's knead, And then of the last harvest sow the seed. Yea, the first morning of creation wrote What the last dawn of reckoning shall read. Oh thou, who man of baser earth didst make, And who, with Eden, didst devise the snake: For all the sin wherewith the face of man Is blackened—man's forgiveness give—and take. Alas that spring should vanish with the rose, That youth's sweet manuscript should close. The nightingale that in the branches sang— Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows?