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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=341914" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>A Marching Song</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">We mix from many lands,<br> We march for very far;<br> In hearts and lips and hands<br> Our staffs and weapons are;<br>The light we walk in darkens sun and moon and star.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> It doth not flame and wane<br> With years and spheres that roll,<br> Storm cannot shake nor stain<br> The strength that makes it whole,<br>The fire that moulds and moves it of the sovereign soul.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> We are they that have to cope<br> With time till time retire;<br> We live on hopeless hope,<br> We feed on tears and fire;<br>Time, foot by foot, gives back before our sheer desire.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> From the edge of harsh derision,<br> From discord and defeat,<br> From doubt and lame division,<br> We pluck the fruit and eat;<br>And the mouth finds it bitter, and the spirit sweet.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> We strive with time at wrestling<br> Till time be on our side<br> And hope, our plumeless nestling,<br> A full-fledged eaglet ride<br>Down the loud length of storm its windward wings divide.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> We are girt with our belief,<br> Clothed with our will and crowned;<br> Hope, fear, delight, and grief,<br> Before our will give ground;<br>Their calls are in our ears as shadows of dead sound.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> All but the heart forsakes us,<br> All fails us but the will;<br> Keen treason tracks and takes us<br> In pits for blood to fill;<br>Friend falls from friend, and faith for faith lays wait to kill.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Out under moon and stars<br> And shafts of the urgent sun<br> Whose face on prison-bars<br> And mountain-heads is one,<br>Our march is everlasting till time's march be done.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Whither we know, and whence,<br> And dare not care wherethrough.<br> Desires that urge the sense,<br> Fears changing old with new,<br>Perils and pains beset the ways we press into;</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Earth gives us thorns to tread,<br> And all her thorns are trod;<br> Through lands burnt black and red<br> We pass with feet unshod;<br>Whence we would be man shall not keep us, nor man's God.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Through the great desert beasts<br> Howl at our backs by night,<br> And thunder-forging priests<br> Blow their dead bale-fires bright,<br>And on their broken anvils beat out bolts for fight.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Inside their sacred smithies<br> Though hot the hammer rings,<br> Their steel links snap like withies,<br> Their chains like twisted strings,<br>Their surest fetters are as plighted words of kings.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> O nations undivided,<br> O single people and free,<br> We dreamers, we derided,<br> We mad blind men that see,<br>We bear you witness ere ye come that ye shall be.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Ye sitting among tombs,<br> Ye standing round the gate,<br> Whom fire-mouthed war consumes,<br> Or cold-lipped peace bids wait,<br>All tombs and bars shall open, every grave and grate.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> The locks shall burst in sunder,<br> The hinges shrieking spin,<br> When time, whose hand is thunder,<br> Lays hand upon the pin,<br>And shoots the bolts reluctant, bidding all men in.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> These eyeless times and earless,<br> Shall these not see and hear,<br> And all their hearts burn fearless<br> That were afrost for fear?<br>Is day not hard upon us, yea, not our day near?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> France! from its grey dejection<br> Make manifest the red<br> Tempestuous resurrection<br> Of thy most sacred head!<br>Break thou the covering cerecloths; rise up from the dead.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> And thou, whom sea-walls sever<br> From lands unwalled with seas,<br> Wilt thou endure for ever,<br> O Milton's England, these?<br>Thou that wast his Republic, wilt thou clasp their knees?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> These royalties rust-eaten,<br> These worm-corroded lies,<br> That keep thine head storm-beaten<br> And sunlike strength of eyes<br>From the open heaven and air of intercepted skies;</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> These princelings with gauze winglets<br> That buzz in the air unfurled,<br> These summer-swarming kinglets,<br> These thin worms crowned and curled,<br>That bask and blink and warm themselves about the world;</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> These fanged meridian vermin,<br> Shrill gnats that crowd the dusk,<br> Night-moths whose nestling ermine<br> Smells foul of mould and musk,<br>Blind flesh-flies hatched by dark and hampered in their husk;</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> These honours without honour,<br> These ghost-like gods of gold,<br> This earth that wears upon her<br> To keep her heart from cold<br>No memory more of men that brought it fire of old;</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> These limbs, supine, unbuckled,<br> In rottenness of rest,<br> These sleepy lips blood-suckled<br> And satiate of thy breast,<br>These dull wide mouths that drain thee dry and call thee blest;</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> These masters of thee mindless<br> That wear thee out of mind,<br> These children of thee kindless<br> That use thee out of kind,<br>Whose hands strew gold before thee and contempt behind;</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Who have turned thy name to laughter,<br> Thy sea-like sounded name<br> That now none hearkens after<br> For faith in its free fame,<br>Who have robbed thee of thy trust and given thee of their shame;</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> These hours that mock each other,<br> These years that kill and die,<br> Are these thy gains, our mother,<br> For all thy gains thrown by?<br>Is this that end whose promise made thine heart so high?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> With empire and with treason<br> The first right hand made fast,<br> But in man's nobler season<br> To put forth help the last,<br>Love turns from thee, and memory disavows thy past.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Lest thine own sea disclaim thee,<br> Lest thine own sons despise,<br> Lest lips shoot out that name thee<br> And seeing thee men shut eyes,<br>Take thought with all thy people, turn thine head and rise.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Turn thee, lift up thy face;<br> What ails thee to be dead?<br> Ask of thyself for grace,<br> Seek of thyself for bread,<br>And who shall starve or shame thee, blind or bruise thine head?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> The same sun in thy sight,<br> The same sea in thine ears,<br> That saw thine hour at height,<br> That sang thy song of years,<br>Behold and hearken for thee, knowing thy hopes and fears.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> O people, O perfect nation,<br> O England that shall be,<br> How long till thou take station?<br> How long till thralls live free?<br>How long till all thy soul be one with all thy sea?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Ye that from south to north,<br> Ye that from east to west,<br> Stretch hands of longing forth<br> And keep your eyes from rest,<br>Lo, when ye will, we bring you gifts of what is best.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> From the awful northland pines<br> That skirt their wan dim seas<br> To the ardent Apennines<br> And sun-struck Pyrenees,<br>One frost on all their frondage bites the blossoming trees.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> The leaves look up for light,<br> For heat of helpful air;<br> The trees of oldest height<br> And thin storm-shaken hair<br>Seek with gaunt hands up heavenward if the sun be there.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> The woods where souls walk lonely,<br> The forests girt with night,<br> Desire the day-star only<br> And firstlings of the light<br>Not seen of slaves nor shining in their masters' sight.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> We have the morning star,<br> O foolish people, O kings!<br> With us the day-springs are,<br> Even all the fresh day-springs;<br>For us, and with us, all the multitudes of things.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> O sorrowing hearts of slaves,<br> We heard you beat from far!<br> We bring the light that saves,<br> We bring the morning star;<br>Freedom's good things we bring you, whence all good things are.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> With us the winds and fountains<br> And lightnings live in tune;<br> The morning-coloured mountains<br> That burn into the noon,<br>The mist's mild veil on valleys muffled from the moon:</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> The thunder-darkened highlands<br> And lowlands hot with fruit,<br> Sea-bays and shoals and islands,<br> And cliffs that foil man's foot,<br>And all the flower of large-limbed life and all the root:</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> The clangour of sea-eagles<br> That teach the morning mirth<br> With baying of heaven's beagles<br> That seek their prey on earth,<br>By sounding strait and channel, gulf and reach and firth.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> With us the fields and rivers,<br> The grass that summer thrills,<br> The haze where morning quivers,<br> The peace at heart of hills,<br>The sense that kindles nature, and the soul that fills.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> With us all natural sights,<br> All notes of natural scale;<br> With us the starry lights;<br> With us the nightingale;<br>With us the heart and secret of the worldly tale.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> The strife of things and beauty,<br> The fire and light adored,<br> Truth, and life-lightening duty,<br> Love without crown or sword,<br>That by his might and godhead makes man god and lord.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> These have we, these are ours,<br> That no priests give nor kings;<br> The honey of all these flowers,<br> The heart of all these springs;<br>Ours, for where freedom lives not, there live no good things.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Rise, ere the dawn be risen;<br> Come, and be all souls fed;<br> From field and street and prison<br> Come, for the feast is spread;<br>Live, for the truth is living; wake, for night is dead.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Algernon+Charles+Swinburne">Algernon Charles Swinburne</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=341914" data-title="A Marching Song de Algernon Charles Swinburne" data-description="We mix from many lands,
 We march for very far;
 In hearts and lips and hands
 Our staffs and weapons are;
The light we walk in darkens sun and moon and star.

 It doth not flame and wane
 With years and spheres that roll,
 Storm cannot shake nor ..."></div>
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