Hurl down, harsh hills, your bitterness, Guard ye with flail Of shattering wind and thong of sleet Your pride uplifting To the impaled stars; be pitiless Before this unquiet trail Of man-herds drifting Against your stone still feet.
Something moves in his dust, Flame sleeps beneath the crust; O whence had he those eyes Lit with celestial surprise? From what world blew that gust? Are we near to Paradise?
Gather a chaplet of five stars And the opalescent hue Of the aureole brightness cast-- Red, hardly red, and blue, scarce blue,-- Round th' immaculate frosty moon, Splintering light in glacial spars, When November's loudening blast Sweeps heaven's floor till burnished More crystal than at August noon, So we fit radiance may cast Before his feet, around his head.
How visits he an earthly place, Wanders among a mortal race? How were his footsteps led That still about his face Lingers a ghostly trace Of a secret influence shed By a Hand the world denies, In a land her most son flies, As a gift upon him thrust For an end he knoweth not, Yet will shine because he must, Shine and sing because he must Reap a wrong he soweth not Of contempt anger and distrust For a world which boweth not To the Flame which binds our dust.
Go net the moon, go snare the sun, Set them upon his either hand! Beneath his heels Leviathan Roll your thick coils! His head be spanned By rainbows tripled! Set a gem At the Cross-scabbard of his sword Whiter than lambwool or lilystem! Place on his brow the diadem Given the warrior of the Lord, The crown-turrets of Jerusalem!
I'll sing a song of kings and queens And falling leaves and flying rain, With Time to mow, and Fate who gleans Their good and evil, boon and bane.
I'll sing a song of leaves and rains And flying queens and falling kings. Yet doubt not reason still remains Snug hidden at the core of things.
For every year an autumn brings To round the root and fat the sheaves And haply garner queens and kings With falling rain and flying leaves.
The rain is salt with tears of queens The leaves are red with blood of kings; Unknowing what the mystery means We puzzle at these splendid things.
For why great kings and rains should fall, And wherefore leaves and queens should fly, Or such rare wonders be at all, You cannot tell; no more can I.