Page:Songs before sunrise (IA beforesunrisongs00swinrich).pdf/235

Between her lips the breath was blown as fire,
And through her flushed veins leapt the liquid life,
And with sore passion and ambiguous strife
The new birth rent her and the new desire,
The will to live, the competence to be,
The sense to hearken and the soul to see.

And the third prophet standing by her grave
Stretched forth his hand and touched her, and her eyes
Opened as sudden suns in heaven might rise,
And her soul caught from his the faith to save;
Faith above creeds, faith beyond records, born
Of the pure, naked, fruitful, awful morn.

For in the daybreak now that night was dead
The light, the shadow, the delight, the pain,
The purpose and the passion of those twain,
Seemed gathered on that third prophetic head,
And all their crowns were as one crown, and one
His face with her face in the living sun.

For even with that communion of their eyes
His whole soul passed into her and made her strong;
And all the sounds and shows of shame and wrong,
The hand that slays, the lip that mocks and lies,
Temples and thrones that yet men seem to see—
Are these dead or art thou dead, Italy?