Oh, in the wakening thunders of the heart,
— The small lost Eden, troubled through the night,
Sounds there not now,— forboded and apart,
Some voice and sword of light?
Some voice and portent of a dawn to break?—
Searching like God, the ruinous human shard
Of that lost Brother-man Himself did make,
And Man himself hath marred?
It sounds!— And may the anguish of that birth
Seize on the world; and may all shelters fail,
Till we behold new Heaven and new Earth
Through the rent Temple-vail!
When the high-tides that threaten near and far
To sweep away our guilt before the sky,—
Flooding the waste of this dishonored Star,
Cleanse, and o'erwhelm, and cry!—
Cry, from the deep of world-accusing waves,
With longing more than all since Light began,
Above the nations,— underneath the graves,—
‘ Give back the Singing Man!’