Eternal Vindicator, grant, O grant
Thy love remain not unto these a lie!
So at their coming move the nether realm
That from beyond the grave
The vast disorder
And far commotion in the unseen order
Shall overwhelm
Even death's dim sea-walls of adamant
(Whose ramparts looming since the primæval Act
Immure our days from Life's assaulting ocean tracts
And blot the stars from those wide-ranging cataracts)
And raise a wave
Shall roll back on the hearts of those that live
And rouse reverberations on the oceans of the day
And wake responding passions in the living far away.
Give, O give
To these whose futile cry
Found no reply,
Starving beneath a mocking sky,
To speak in trumpet tones by those who live,
Deep answering deep, and soul to distant soul,
As gong wakes gong, and when long echoes roll
From ocean, far abandoned belfries toll.
There is no ebb in nature without answering flow.
When summer's tide of green
Retreats to depths unseen
And earth is bare beneath the usurping snow,
None doubt that from its unplumbed levels deep
The tides of spring will creep
To submerge the world again in emerald seas.
So shall life's flood retire from its estuaries.
The satellites that from the unseen preside
Over the flux and reflux of the spirit's tide
May now withdraw
Its floods to depths beyond our curious awe,
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