98
BIRTHDAY ODE.
They that in day's despite
Would crown the imperial night,10
And in deep hate of insubmissive spring
Rethrone the royal winter for a king,
This day that casts the days of darkness down
Low as a broken crown,
We call thee from the gulf of deeds and days,
Deathless and dead, to hear us whom we praise.
A light of many lights about thine head, antistrophe. 1
Lights manifold and one,
Stars molten in a sun,
A sun of divers beams incorporated,20
Compact of confluent aureoles, each more fair
Than man, save only at highest of man, may wear,
So didst thou rise, when this our grey-grown age
Had trod two paces of his pilgrimage,
