SWINBURNE
Reading edition
Children and lovers and the cloud-robed sea Shall mourn him first; and then the motherland, Weeping in silence by his empty hand And fallen sword, that flashed for Liberty. Song-bringer of a glad new minstrelsy, He came and found joy sleeping and swift fanned Old pagan fires, then snatched an altar brand And wrote, “The fearless only shall be free!” Oh, by the flame that made thine heart a home, By the wild surges of thy silver song, Seer before the sunrise, may there come Spirits of dawn to light this aching wrong Called Earth! Thou saw’st them in the foregrow roam; But we still wait and watch, still thirst and long.