Once more I hear the everlasting sea Breathing beneath the mountain's fragrant breast,
Come unto Me, come unto Me, And I will give you rest.
We have destroyed the Temple and in three days He hath rebuilt it — all things are made new: And hark what wild throats pour His praise Beneath the boundless blue.
We plucked down all His altars, cried aloud And gashed ourselves for little gods of clay!
Yon floating cloud was but a cloud, The May no more than May. We plucked down all His altars, left not one Save where, perchance (and ah, the joy was fleet), We laid our garlands in the sun At the white Sea-born's feet. We plucked down all His altars, not to make The small praise greater, but the great praise less, We sealed all fountains where the soul could slake Its thirst and weariness. "Love" was too small, too human to be found In that transcendent source whence love was born: We talked of "forces": heaven was crowned With philosophic thorn. "Your God is in your image," we cried, but O, 'Twas only man's own deepest heart ye gave, Knowing that He transcended all ye know, While — we dug His grave. Denied Him even the crown on our own brow, E'en these poor symbols of His loftier reign, Levelled His Temple with the dust, and now He is risen,
He is risen again, Risen, like this resurrection of the year, This grand ascension of the choral spring, Which those harp-crowded heavens bend to hear And meet upon the wing. "He is dead," we cried, and even amid that gloom The wintry veil was rent! The new-born day Showed us the Angel seated in the tomb And the stone rolled away. It is the hour! We challenge heaven above Now, to deny our slight ephemeral breath Joy, anguish, and that everlasting love Which triumphs over death.
