| |
| What is it you buy with so much blood | |
| And so much sorrow? | |
| A thing but darkly understood— | |
| We buy Tomorrow. | |
| |
| Why is it you sow with blasting flame | 5 |
| To reap with passion? | |
| When was it then that a good thing came | |
| In an easy fashion? | |
| |
| Have you not also fallen and sinned? | |
| You are sin to the marrow! | 10 |
| We are but as straws that show the wind, | |
| As blades to the harrow. | |
| |
| Iniquity, iniquity, | |
| Though much befriended, | |
| Yet it shall perish utterly; | 15 |
| It shall be ended! | |
| |
| Do you see then an end of wars, | |
| An end of weeping? | |
| We see the reticent ranks of stars | |
| Shine on our sleeping. | 20 |
| |
| We hear the great earth sigh and turn, | |
| And the seas sighing; | |
| And the angry sunsets flame and burn | |
| With old dreams dying. | |
| |
| But earlier than the early dawn, | 25 |
| So chill, so grayly, | |
| Comes that which never is withdrawn, | |
| Comes to us daily, | |
| |
| Comes to us, after every mood | |
| Of pain or passion— | 30 |
| The certitude, the certitude | |
| Of what we fashion! | |
| |
| Are you so devout, who never trod | |
| ’Neath spire or steeple? | |
| But we have spoken with our God, | 35 |
| The God of the People. | |
| |
| Our blood the dye, his robe the sod | |
| That we lie under; | |
| We have heard the still voice of our God | |
| Through flame and thunder. | 40 |
| |
| What are these wild words of some change | |
| You bring to being? | |
| We only know it shall be strange | |
| Beyond foreseeing! | |
| |
| We have lain down, we have stood up | 45 |
| (Past all dissembling!) | |
| With Death, with Death. We have quaffed the cup, | |
| The cup of trembling … | |
| |
| So we but whisper brokenly, | |
| As dead men do, | 50 |
| The great strange things that are to be, | |
| That shall come true. | |
| |
| For we are blinded, and we see; | |
| Deaf, and have ears; | |
| Despoiled, and co-heirs perfectly | 55 |
| Of coming years. | |
| |
| Life higher than we ever thought, | |
| Deeper than death— | |
| This with our life-blood we have bought, | |
| With our vain breath. | 60 |
| |
| Over fire-curtained slime of the fen, | |
| Through insensate clamor, | |
| We have heard the building thoughts of men | |
| Hammer and hammer. | |
| |
| We have heard the splitting of codes apart, | 65 |
| The ripping of glamour | |
| Like colored curtains, and Man’s strong heart | |
| Hammer and hammer. | |
| |
| We have heard the sledges of a state | |
| Beyond our hoping | 70 |
| Thunder and thunder. We are great | |
| Who once were groping. | |
| |
| Out of the slag and fume of the pit | |
| We have seen uprearing | |
| A blinding witness; because of it | 75 |
| We are done with fearing. | |
| |
| Out of the bowels of Hell-on-earth | |
| We have seen upstraining | |
| A winged archangel of rebirth | |
| Too strong for chaining. | 80 |
| |
| Now ours is the strength, ours is the might— | |
| Yea, by these powers, | |
| Ours is the earth for light and right, | |
| And the future ours, | |
| |
| Who have rent our hearts, our blood outpoured, | 85 |
| Who have drunk all sorrow, | |
| Who have found our strength, walked with our Lord, | |
| And bought Tomorrow! | |
| |
