And the eastern crescent’s horn
  Mightier awhile than morn;
  And knights whose lives were flights of eagles’ wings,
  And lives like snakes’ lives of engendering kings;
  And all the ravin of all the swords that reap
  Lives cast as sheaves on heap 350
  From all the billowing harvest-fields of fight;
  And sounds of love-songs lovelier than the light.

        The grim dim thrones of the east [Ep. 9. 
        Set for death’s riotous feast
    Round the bright board where darkling centuries wait,
        And servile slaughter, mute,
        Feeds power with fresh red fruit,
    Glitter and groan with mortal food of fate;
      And throne and cup and lamp’s bright breath
Bear witness to their lord of only night and death. 360

  Dead freedom by live empire lies defiled, [Str. 10. 
  And murder at his feet
  Plies lust with wine and meat,
  With offering of an old man and a child,
  With holy body and blood, inexpiable
  Communion in the sacrament of hell,
  Till, reeking from their monstrous eucharist,
  The lips wax cold that murdered where they kissed,
  And empire in mid feast
  Fall as a slaughtered beast 370
  Headless, and ease men’s hungering hearts of fear
  Lest God were none in heaven, to see nor hear,
  And purge his own pollution with the flood
  Poured of his black base blood
  So first found healing, poisonous as it poured;
  And on the clouds the archangel cleanse his sword.

  As at the word unutterable that made [Ant. 10. 
  Of day and night division,
  From vision on to vision, 379
  From dream to dream, from darkness into shade,
  From sunshine into sunlight, moves and lives
  The steersman’s eye, the helming hand that gives
  Life to the wheels and wings that whirl along
  The immeasurable impulse of the sphere of song
  Through all the eternal years,
  Beyond all stars and spheres,
  Beyond the washing of the waves of time,
  Beyond all heights where no thought else may climb,
  Beyond the darkling dust of suns that were,
  Past height and depth of air; 390
  And in the abyss whence all things move that are
  Finds only living Love, the sovereign star.

        Nor less the weight and worth [Ep. 10. 
        Found even of love on earth
    To wash all stain of tears and sins away,
        On dying lips alit
        That living knew not it,
    In the winged shape of song with death to play: 
      To warm young children with its wings,
And try with fire the heart elect for godlike things. 400