Who hath known the ways and the wrath, The sleepless spirit, the root And blossom of evil will, The divine device of a god? Who shall behold it or hath? The twice-tongued prophets are mute, The many speakers are still; No foot has travelled or trod, No hand has meted, his path. Man's fate is a blood-red fruit, And the mighty gods have their fill And relax not the rein, or the rod. Ye were mighty in heart from of old, Ye slew with the spear, and are slain. Keen after heat is the cold, Sore after summer is rain, And melteth man to the bone. As water he weareth away, As a flower, as an hour in a day, Fallen from laughter to moan. But my spirit is shaken with fear Lest an evil thing begin, New-born, a spear for a spear, And one for another sin. Or ever our tears began, It was known from of old and said; One law for a living man, And another law for the dead. For these are fearful and sad, Vain, and things without breath; While he lives let a man be glad, For none hath joy of his death. II Who hath known the pain, the old pain of earth, Or all the travail of the sea, The many ways and waves, the birth Fruitless, the labour nothing worth? Who hath known, who knoweth, O gods? not we. There is none shall say he hath seen, There is none he hath known. Though he saith, Lo, a lord have I been, I have reaped and sown; I have seen the desire of mine eyes, The beginning of love, The season of kisses and sighs And the end thereof. I have known the ways of the sea, All the perilous ways, Strange winds have spoken with me, And the tongues of strange days. I have hewn the pine for ships; Where steeds run arow, I have seen from their bridled lips Foam blown as the snow. With snapping of chariot-poles And with straining of oars I have grazed in the race the goals, In the storm the shores; As a greave is cleft with an arrow At the joint of the knee, I have cleft through the sea-straits narrow To the heart of the sea. When air was smitten in sunder I have watched on high The ways of the stars and the thunder In the night of the sky; Where the dark brings forth light as a flower, As from lips that dissever; One abideth the space of an hour, One endureth for ever. Lo, what hath he seen or known, Of the way and the wave Unbeholden, unsailed on, unsown, From the breast to the grave? Or ever the stars were made, or skies, Grief was born, and the kinless night, Mother of gods without form or name. And light is born out of heaven and dies, And one day knows not another's light, But night is one, and her shape the same.