Page:Poems and ballads (IA balladspoems00swinrich).pdf/105

The god that makes men's words too sweet and strong
For life or time or death to do them wrong,
Who sealed with his thy spirit for a sign
And filled it with his breath thy whole life long.

Who made thy moist lips fiery with new wine
Pressed from the grapes of song, the sovereign vine,
And with all love of all things loveliest
Gave thy soul power to make them more divine.

That thou might'st breathe upon the breathless rest
Of marble, till the brows and lips and breast
Felt fall from off them as a cancelled curse
That speechless sleep wherewith they lived opprest.

Who gave thee strength and heat of spirit to pierce
All clouds of form and colour that disperse,
And leave the spirit of beauty to remould
In types of clean chryselephantine verse.