The Choice

THE KINGS go by with jewelled crowns;

Their horses gleam, their banners shake, their spears are many.

The sack of many-peopled towns

Is all their dream:

The way they take

Leaves but a ruin in the brake,

And, in the furrow that the ploughmen make,

A stampless penny; a tale, a dream.

The Merchants reckon up their gold,

Their letters come, their ships arrive, their freights are glories:

The profits of their treasures sold

They tell and sum;

Their foremen drive

Their servants, starved to half-alive,

Whose labours do but make the earth a hive

Of stinking glories; a tale, a dream.

The Priests are singing in their stalls,

Their singing lifts, their incense burns, their praying clamours;

Yet God is as the sparrow falls,

The ivy drifts;

The votive urns

Are all left void when Fortune turns,

The god is but a marble for the kerns

To break with hammers; a tale, a dream.

O Beauty, let me know again

The green earth cold, the April rain, the quiet waters figuring sky,

The one star risen.

So shall I pass into the feast

Not touched by King, Merchant, or Priest;

Know the red spirit of the beast,

Be the green grain;

Escape from prison.