Still the rapt faces
Glow from the furnace: 
Breath of the smithy
  Scorches their brows.

Yea, and thou hear’st them? 
So shall the hammers
Fashion not vainly
  Verses of gold.

II

Lo, with the ancient
Roots of man’s nature,
Twines the eternal
  Passion of song.

Ever Love fans it,
Ever Life feeds it,
Time cannot age it;
  Death cannot slay.

Deep in the world-heart
Stand its foundations,
Tangled with all things,
  Twin-made with all.

Nay, what is Nature’s
Self, but an endless
Strife toward music,
  Euphony, rhyme?

Trees in their blooming,
Tides in their flowing,
Stars in their circling,
  Tremble with song.

God on His throne is
Eldest of poets: 
Unto His measures
  Moveth the Whole.

III

Therefore deride not
Speech of the muses,
England my mother,
  Maker of men.

Nations are mortal,
Fragile is greatness;
Fortune may fly thee,
  Song shall not fly.

Song the all-girdling,
Song cannot perish: 
Men shall make music,
  Man shall give ear.

Not while the choric
Chant of creation
Floweth from all things,
  Poured without pause,

Cease we to echo
Faintly the descant
Whereto for ever
  Dances the world.

IV

So let the songsmith
Proffer his rhyme-gift,
England my mother,
  Maker of men.

Gray grows thy count’nance,
Full of the ages;
Time on thy forehead
  Sits like a dream: 

Song is the potion
All things renewing,
Youth’s one elixir,
  Fountain of morn.

Thou, at the world-loom
Weaving thy future,
Fitly may’st temper
  Toil with delight.

Deemest thou, labour
Only is earnest? 
Grave is all beauty,
  Solemn is joy.

Song is no bauble—­
Slight not the songsmith,
England my mother,
  Maker of men.

NIGHT

In the night, in the night,
When thou liest alone,
Ah, the sounds that are blown
  In the freaks of the breeze,
By the spirit that sends
The voice of far friends
  With the sigh of the seas
    In the night!

In the night, in the night,
When thou liest alone,
Ah, the ghosts that make moan
  From the days that are sped: 
The old dreams, the old deeds,
The old wound that still bleeds,
  And the face of the dead
    In the night!

In the night, in the night,
When thou liest alone,
With the grass and the stone
  O’er thy chamber so deep,
Ah, the silence at last,
Life’s dissonance past,
  And only pure sleep
    In the night!