[_Str._ 1.
Or seal up the fountains of his tears for shame?
Song nor prayer nor prophecy shall slacken tears nor hasten them,
Till grief be within him as a burnt-out flame;
Till the passion be broken in his breast
And the might thereof molten into rest,
And the rain of eyes that weep be dry, 760
And the breath be stilled of lips that sigh.
Death at last for all men is a harbour; yet they flee from
it, [_Ant._ 1.
Set sails to the storm-wind and again to sea;
Yet for all their labour no whit further shall they be from it,
Nor longer but wearier shall their life's work be.
And with anguish of travail until night
Shall they steer into shipwreck out of sight,
And with oars that break and shrouds that strain
Shall they drive whence no ship steers again.
Bitter and strange is the word of the God most high, [_Str._ 2. 770
And steep the strait of his way.
Through a pass rock-rimmed and narrow the light that gleams
On the faces of men falls faint as the dawn of dreams,
The dayspring of death as a star in an under sky
Where night is the dead men's day.
As darkness and storm is his will that on earth is done, [_Ant._ 2.
As a cloud is the face of his strength.
King of kings, holiest of holies, and mightiest of might,
Lord of the lords of thine heaven that are humble in thy sight,
Hast thou set not an end for the path of the fires of the sun, 780
To appoint him a rest at length?
Hast thou told not by measure the waves of the waste wide
sea, [_Str._ 3.
And the ways of the wind their master and thrall to thee?
Hast thou filled not the furrows with fruit for the
world's increase?
Has thine ear not heard from of old or thine eye not read
The thought and the deed of us living, the doom of us dead?
Hast thou made not war upon earth, and again made peace?
Therefore, O father, that seest us whose lives are a
breath, [_Ant._ 3.
Take off us thy burden, and give us not wholly to death.
For lovely is life, and the law wherein all things live, 790
And gracious the season of ea