How should I pay for one poor graven steeple Whereon you shattered what you shall not know? How should I pay you, miserable people, How should I pay you everything you owe?
Unhappy, can I give you back your honour? Though I forgave, would any man forget? While all the great green land has trampled on her The treason and terror of the night we met.
Not any more in vengeance or in pardon, One old wife bargains for a bean that's hers. You have no word to break: no heart to harden. Ride on and prosper. You have lost your spurs.
And now, while the dark vast earth shakes and rocks In this wild dreamlike snare of mortal shocks, How look (I muse) those cold and solitary stars On these magnificent, cruel wars?-- Venus, that brushes with her shining lips (Surely!) the wakeful edge of the world and mocks With hers its all ungentle wantonness?-- Or the large moon (pricked by the spars of ships Creeping and creeping in their restlessness), The moon pouring strange light on things more strange, Looks she unheedfully on seas and lands Trembling with change and fear of counterchange?
O, not earth trembles, but the stars, the stars! The sky is shaken and the cool air is quivering. I cannot look up to the crowded height And see the fair stars trembling in their light, For thinking of the starlike spirits of men Crowding the earth and with great passion quivering:-- Stars quenched in anger and hate, stars sick with pity. I cannot look up to the naked skies Because a sorrow on dark midnight lies, Death, on the living world of sense; Because on my own land a shadow lies That may not rise; Because from bare grey hillside and rich city Streams of uncomprehending sadness pour, Thwarting the eager spirit's pure intelligence.... How look (I muse) those cold and solitary stars On these magnificent, cruel wars?
Stars trembled in broad heaven, faint with pity. An hour to dawn I looked. Beside the trees Wet mist shaped other trees that branching rose, Covering the woods and putting out the stars. There was no murmur on the seas, No wind blew--only the wandering air that grows With dawn, then murmurs, sighs, And dies. The mist climbed slowly, putting out the stars, And the earth trembled when the stars were gone; And moving strangely everywhere upon The trembling earth, thickened the watery mist.