From dawn of man and woman twain and one [_Ant._ 9. When the earliest dews impearled The front of all the world Ringed with aurorean aureole of the sun, 340 To days that saw Christ's tears and hallowing breath Put life for love's sake in the lips of death, And years as waves whose brine was fire, whose foam Blood, and the ravage of Neronian Rome; And the eastern crescent's horn Mightier awhile than morn; And knights whose lives were flights of eagles' wings, And lives like snakes' lives of engendering kings; And all the ravin of all the swords that reap Lives cast as sheaves on heap 350 From all the billowing harvest-fields of fight; And sounds of love-songs lovelier than the light. The grim dim thrones of the east [_Ep._ 9. Set for death's riotous feast Round the bright board where darkling centuries wait, And servile slaughter, mute, Feeds power with fresh red fruit, Glitter and groan with mortal food of fate; And throne and cup and lamp's bright breath Bear witness to their lord of only night and death. 360 Dead freedom by live empire lies defiled, [_Str._ 10. And murder at his feet Plies lust with wine and meat, With offering of an old man and a child, With holy body and blood, inexpiable Communion in the sacrament of hell, Till, reeking from their monstrous eucharist, The lips wax cold that murdered where they kissed, And empire in mid feast Fall as a slaughtered beast 370 Headless, and ease men's hungering hearts of fear Lest God were none in heaven, to see nor hear, And purge his own pollution with the flood Poured of his black base blood So first found healing, poisonous as it poured; And on the clouds the archangel cleanse his sword. As at the word unutterable that made [_Ant._ 10. Of day and night division, From vision on to vision, 379 From dream to dream, from darkness into shade, From sunshine into sunlight, moves and lives The steersman's eye, the helming hand that gives Life to the wheels and wings that whirl along The immeasurable impulse of the sphere of song Through all the eternal years, Beyond all stars and spheres, Beyond the washing of the waves of time, Beyond all heights where no thought else may climb, Beyond the darkling dust of suns that were, Past height and depth of air; 390 And in the abyss whence all things move that are Finds only living Love, the sovereign star.