ofODIN
CAVERNS mouthed with blackness more
than night!
Feverous jungle, deep in strangling briar,
Venom-breeding slime that loathest light!
Who has plumbed your secret? Who the blind
desire
Hissing from the viper’s lifted jaws,
Maddening the beast with scent of prey
Tracked through savage glooms on robber paws
Tillthe slaughtergluts himredand reeking? Nay,
Man, this breathing mystery, this intense
Body beautiful with thinking eyes,
Master of a spirit outsoaring sense,
Spirit of tears and laughter, who has measured all
Is he also the lair [the skies,
Of a lust, of a sting
That hides from the air
Yet is lurking to spring
From the nescient core
Of his fibre, alert
At the trumpet of war
And hungry to hurt,
When he hears from abysses of time
Aboriginal mutters replying
From something he knew not within him
To the Demon of Earth crying:
I am the will of the Fire
That bursts into boundless fury;
I am my own implacable desire.
I am the will of the Sea
That shoulders the ships and breaks them;
There is none other but me!
The dream insatiate still
Nursed its fierceness old
And violent will
Haunted by twilight where the Gods drink full
Ere they renew their revelry of slaying.
And warriors leap like the lion on the bull
And harsh horns in thenorthern mist are braying.
Tenebrous in them lay the dream
Like a fire that under ashes
Smoulders heavy-heaped and dim
Yet with spurts and stealthy flashes
Sends a goblin shadow floating
Crooked on the rafters—then
Sudden from its den
Springs in splendour: so should burst
Destiny from dream, from thirst
Rapture gloating
On a vision of earth afar
Stretched for a prize and a prey,
And the secular might of the Gods re-arisen
Savage and glorious, awaiting its day,
Should shatter its ancient prison
And leap like the panther to slay
Magnificent! Storm, then, and thunder
The haughty to crush with the tame,
For the world is the strong man’s plunder
Whose coming is swifter than flame;
And the nations unready, decayed,
Unworthy of fate and afraid
Shall be stricken and ploughed asunder
Or yield in shame.
I HE Dream is fulfilled.
I Is it this that you willed,
1 O patient ones?
For this that you gave
Young to the grave
Your valiant sons?
For this that you wore
Brave faces, and bore
The burden heart-breaking—
Sublimely deceived, .
You that bled and believed,—
For the Dream, or the Waking?
^EAVY forests bred them,
JL / The race that dreamed.
In the bones of savage earth
Their dreams had birth:
Darkness fed them.
And the full brain grossly teemed
With thoughts compressed, with rages
Obstinate, stark, obscure,
Thirsts that no time assuages
And centuries immure.
As the sap of trees, behind
Crumpled bark of bossy boles,
Presses up its juices blind,
Buried within their souls
LAURGNCe BINYON
H
CAVERNS mouthed with blackness more
than night!
Feverous jungle, deep in strangling briar,
Venom-breeding slime that loathest light!
Who has plumbed your secret? Who the blind
desire
Hissing from the viper’s lifted jaws,
Maddening the beast with scent of prey
Tracked through savage glooms on robber paws
Tillthe slaughtergluts himredand reeking? Nay,
Man, this breathing mystery, this intense
Body beautiful with thinking eyes,
Master of a spirit outsoaring sense,
Spirit of tears and laughter, who has measured all
Is he also the lair [the skies,
Of a lust, of a sting
That hides from the air
Yet is lurking to spring
From the nescient core
Of his fibre, alert
At the trumpet of war
And hungry to hurt,
When he hears from abysses of time
Aboriginal mutters replying
From something he knew not within him
To the Demon of Earth crying:
I am the will of the Fire
That bursts into boundless fury;
I am my own implacable desire.
I am the will of the Sea
That shoulders the ships and breaks them;
There is none other but me!
The dream insatiate still
Nursed its fierceness old
And violent will
Haunted by twilight where the Gods drink full
Ere they renew their revelry of slaying.
And warriors leap like the lion on the bull
And harsh horns in thenorthern mist are braying.
Tenebrous in them lay the dream
Like a fire that under ashes
Smoulders heavy-heaped and dim
Yet with spurts and stealthy flashes
Sends a goblin shadow floating
Crooked on the rafters—then
Sudden from its den
Springs in splendour: so should burst
Destiny from dream, from thirst
Rapture gloating
On a vision of earth afar
Stretched for a prize and a prey,
And the secular might of the Gods re-arisen
Savage and glorious, awaiting its day,
Should shatter its ancient prison
And leap like the panther to slay
Magnificent! Storm, then, and thunder
The haughty to crush with the tame,
For the world is the strong man’s plunder
Whose coming is swifter than flame;
And the nations unready, decayed,
Unworthy of fate and afraid
Shall be stricken and ploughed asunder
Or yield in shame.
I HE Dream is fulfilled.
I Is it this that you willed,
1 O patient ones?
For this that you gave
Young to the grave
Your valiant sons?
For this that you wore
Brave faces, and bore
The burden heart-breaking—
Sublimely deceived, .
You that bled and believed,—
For the Dream, or the Waking?
^EAVY forests bred them,
JL / The race that dreamed.
In the bones of savage earth
Their dreams had birth:
Darkness fed them.
And the full brain grossly teemed
With thoughts compressed, with rages
Obstinate, stark, obscure,
Thirsts that no time assuages
And centuries immure.
As the sap of trees, behind
Crumpled bark of bossy boles,
Presses up its juices blind,
Buried within their souls
LAURGNCe BINYON
H