A MARCHING SONG.
181
Whose face on prison-bars
And mountain-heads is one,
Our march is everlasting till time’s march be done.
Whither we know, and whence,
And dare not care wherethrough.
Desires that urge the sense,
Fears changing old with new,
Perils and pains beset the ways we press into;
Earth gives us thorns to tread,
And all her thorns are trod;
Through lands burnt black and red
We pass with feet unshod;
Whence we would be man shall not keep us, nor man’s God.
Through the great desert beasts
Howl at our backs by night,
And thunder-forging priests
Blow their dead bale-fires bright,
And on their broken anvils beat out bolts for fight.
Inside their sacred smithies
Though hot the hammer rings,
