Iii

Who cries! The night is black As death and not as night; The world is fallen back To nothing; sound and light

And moon and stars and skies, Thunder and lightning—all Gone, gone! Not even cries The cricket in the hall,

The dog without. At last The end of all the hours. Was that a Spirit pass’d Between the slamming doors?

We slept not yet we wake! Was it a voice that cried, ‘Awake, ye sleepless; wake, Ye deathless who have died’?

No voice. No light, no sound. It was the fancy that At midnight makes rebound Of thoughts we labour at

At mid-day. Let us sleep. The night is very black, The heat a madness—sleep Before the day comes back.

Who cries!—The voice again! It is the storm that breaks! The tempest and the rain! The quivering crash that shakes!

The thunder and the flash, The brand that rips and roars, The winds of God that dash And split a thousand doors!

The chariots of God That gallop on the plain And shake the solid sod! Awake!—The rain, the rain!

Thunder and burst, O Sky; Thunder and boil, O Deep; Let the thick thunder cry; Let the live lightning leap!

Smite white light like the sword Of Heav’n from heav’n’s height; Consume the thing abhor’d And quell the dreadful night!

Smite white light like the brand Of God from heav’n to earth; And purge the desolate land Of this destroying dearth!