IV

I cannot syllable that unworded praise—­
An ashen sapling bending in Thy wind,
Uplifting in Thy light new-budded leaves;
Nor for myself nor any other raise
My boughs in music, though the woodland heaves—­
O with what ease of pain at length resigned,
What hope to the old inheritance restored! 
Thy praise it is that men at last are glad. 
Long unaccustomed brightness in their eyes
Needs must seem beautiful in thine, bright Lord,
And to forget the part that sorrow had
In every shadowed breast, where still it lies,
Is there not praise in such forgetfulness? 
For to grieve less means not that love is less.

V

—­Nor for myself nor any other.  Yet
I cannot but remember all that passed
Since justice shook these bosoms, and the fret
Of indignation stirred them and they cast
Forgot aside all lesser wrongs, and rose
Against the spiritual evil of that threat
That made them of dishonour slaves or foes. 
And who may but with pride remember how
Not by ten righteous justice might be saved,
But by unsaintly millions moving all
As the tide moves when myriad tossed waves flow
One way, and on the crumbling bastions fall;
Then sinking backwards unopposed and slow
Over the ruined towers where those vain angers raved.

VI

Creep tarnished gilded figures to their holes Who once walked like great men upon the earth Flickering their false shadows.  Fear, like a hound, Hunts them, and there’s a death in every sound; And had they souls sorrow would prick their souls At every heavy sigh the wind waved forth. ...  Into their holes they’ve crept, and they will die.  Of them no more and never any more.  Their leper-gilt is gone, and they will lie Poisoning a little earth and nothing more.

VII

—­That justice has been saved and wrong been slain,
That the slow fever-darkness ends in day,
Nor madness shakes the pillared world again
With the same blind proud fury; that in vain
Whispers the Tempter now, “So pass away
Strength, honesty and hope, and nothing left but pain!”
That the many-voiced confusion of the night
Clears in the winging of a spirit bright
With new-recovered joy;—­for this, O Light,
Light Giver, Night Dispeller, praise should be. 
But praise is dumb from burning hearts to Thee.

VIII

But as a forest bending in the wind
Murmurs in all its boughs after the wind,
Sounds uninterpreted and untaught airs;
So now when Thy wind over England stirs,
The proud and untranslating sounds of praise
Mingle tumultuous over our human ways;
And magnifying echoes of Thy wind
Rouse in the profoundest forests of the mind.