But up in heaven the high gods one by one
    Lay hands upon the draught that quickeneth,
  Fulfilled with all tears shed and all things done,
    And stir with soft imperishable breath
    The bubbling bitterness of life and death,
  And hold it to our lips and laugh; but they
  Preserve their lips from tasting night or day,
    Lest they too change and sleep, the fates that spun,
  The lips that made us and the hands that slay;
    Lest all these change, and heaven bow down to none,
  Change and be subject to the secular sway
    And terrene revolution of the sun. 
  Therefore they thrust it from them, putting time away.

  I would the wine of time, made sharp and sweet
    With multitudinous days and nights and tears
    And many mixing savours of strange years,
  Were no more trodden of them under feet,
    Cast out and spilt about their holy places: 
  That life were given them as a fruit to eat
  And death to drink as water; that the light
  Might ebb, drawn backward from their eyes, and night
    Hide for one hour the imperishable faces. 
  That they might rise up sad in heaven, and know
  Sorrow and sleep, one paler than young snow,
    One cold as blight of dew and ruinous rain,
  Rise up and rest and suffer a little, and be
  Awhile as all things born with us and we,
    And grieve as men, and like slain men be slain.

  For now we know not of them; but one saith
    The gods are gracious, praising God; and one,
  When hast thou seen? or hast thou felt his breath
    Touch, nor consume thine eyelids as the sun,
  Nor fill thee to the lips with fiery death? 
    None hath beheld him, none
  Seen above other gods and shapes of things,
  Swift without feet and flying without wings,
  Intolerable, not clad with death or life,
    Insatiable, not known of night or day,
  The lord of love and loathing and of strife
    Who gives a star and takes a sun away;
  Who shapes the soul, and makes her a barren wife
    To the earthly body and grievous growth of clay;
  Who turns the large limbs to a little flame
    And binds the great sea with a little sand;
  Who makes desire, and slays desire with shame;
    Who shakes the heaven as ashes in his hand;
  Who, seeing the light and shadow for the same,
    Bids day waste night as fire devours a brand,
  Smites without sword, and scourges without rod;
    The supreme evil, God.

  Yea, with thine hate, O God, thou hast covered us,
    One saith, and hidden our eyes away from sight,
  And made us transitory and hazardous,
    Light things and slight;
  Yet have men praised thee, saying, He hath made man thus,
    And he doeth right. 
  Thou hast kissed us, and hast smitten; thou hast laid
  Upon us with thy left hand life, and said,
  Live:  and again thou hast said, Yield