Then,—­while the plague-sore grew [Ep. 6. 
        Two darkling decades through,
    And rankled in the festering flesh of time,—­
        Where darkness binds and frees
        The wildest of wild seas
    In fierce mutations of the unslumbering clime,
      There, sleepless too, o’er shuddering wrong
One hand appointed shook the reddening scourge of song. 240

  And through the lightnings of the apparent word
  Dividing shame’s dense night [Str. 7. 
  Sounds lovelier than the light
  And light more sweet than song from night’s own bird
  Mixed each their hearts with other, till the gloom
  Was glorious as with all the stars in bloom,
  Sonorous as with all the spheres in chime
  Heard far through flowering heaven:  the sea, sublime
  Once only with its own
  Old winds’ and waters’ tone, 250
  Sad only or glad with its own glory, and crowned
  With its own light, and thrilled with its own sound,
  Learnt now their song, more sweet than heaven’s may be,
  Who pass away by sea;
  The song that takes of old love’s land farewell,
  With pulse of plangent water like a knell.

  And louder ever and louder and yet more loud
  Till night be shamed of morn [Ant. 7. 
  Rings the Black Huntsman’s horn
  Through darkening deeps beneath the covering cloud, 260
  Till all the wild beasts of the darkness hear;
  Till the Czar quake, till Austria cower for fear,
  Till the king breathe not, till the priest wax pale,
  Till spies and slayers on seats of judgment quail,
  Till mitre and cowl bow down
  And crumble as a crown,
  Till Caesar driven to lair and hounded Pope
  Reel breathless and drop heartless out of hope,
  And one the uncleanest kinless beast of all
  Lower than his fortune fall; 270
  The wolfish waif of casual empire, born
  To turn all hate and horror cold with scorn.

        Yea, even at night’s full noon [Ep. 7. 
        Light’s birth-song brake in tune,
    Spake, witnessing that with us one must be,
        God; naming so by name
        That priests have brought to shame
    The strength whose scourge sounds on the smitten sea;
      The mystery manifold of might
Which bids the wind give back to night the things of night. 280

  Even God, the unknown of all time; force or thought, [Str. 8. 
  Nature or fate or will,
  Clothed round with good and ill,
  Veiled and revealed of all things and of nought,
  Hooded and helmed with mystery, girt and shod
  With light and darkness, unapparent God. 
  Him the high prophet o’er his wild work bent
  Found indivisible ever and immanent