Let there be scenes of blood and pain,
Some Slav beneath the Cossack knout,
Some mother ripped, some baby slain,
Let lust move silently about :—
Soft laughter hid in all, song whispering out!
Then let these things of form decay,
Some subtler dream dissolve their form,
As I have seen a cloudlet lay
Its forehead on the sea, and pray
Some idle prayer to sunset, or the storm !
Yea! as a cloud in worship-trance
Swoons in invisible delight,
Let slave and king, let death and dance
Shake off their forms, and clothe their light
In shrouds of sepulchre, the starless night !
Let song and cry leave tune and tone,
Perish uncried and die unsung!
Nature, the monotonic moan
Roared by the river, thunder alone:—
The Hoang-Ho, its note, the monstrous Kung!
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