VIII + 

Ode for New Year’s Day + 

Woe unto you, ye sons of pain that are this day in earth, + 

Now cry for all your torment: now curse your hour of birth + 

And the fathers who begat your to a portion nothing worth. + 

And Thou, my own belovèd, for as brave as ere thou art, + 

Bow down thine head, Despoina, clasp thy pale arms over it, + 

Lie low with fast-closed eyelids, clenched teeth, enduring heart, + 

For sorrow on sorrow is coming wherein all flesh has part. + 

The sky above is sickening, the clouds of God’s hate cover it, + 

Body and soul shall suffer beyond all word or thought, + 

Till the pain and noisy terror that these first years have wrought + 

Seem but the soft arising and prelude of the storm + 

That fiercer still and heavier with sharper lightnings fraught + 

Shall pour red wrath upon us over a world deform. + 

Thrice happy, O Despoina, were the men who were alive + 

In the great age and the golden age when still the cycle ran + 

On upward curve and easily, for then both maid and man + 

And beast and tree and spirit in the green earth could thrive. + 

But now one age is ending, and God calls home the stars + 

And looses the wheel of the ages and sends it spinning back + 

Amid the death of nations, and points a downward track, + 

And madness is come over us and great and little wars. + 

He has not left one valley, one isle of fresh and green + 

Where old friends could forgather amid the howling wreck. + 

It’s vainly we are praying. We cannot, cannot check + 

The Power who slays and puts aside the beauty that has been. + 

It’s truth they tell, Despoina, none hears the eart’s complaining + 

For Nature will not pity, nor the red God lend an ear. + 

Yet I too have been mad in the hour of bitter paining + 

And lifted up my voice to God, thinking that he could hear + 

The curse wherewith I cursed Him because the Good was dead. + 

But lo! I am grown wiser, knowing that our own hearts + 

Have made a phantom called the Good, while a few years have sped + 

Over a little planet. And what should the great Lord know of it + 

Who tosses the dust of chaos and gives the suns their parts? + 

Hither and thither he moves them; for an hour we see the show of it: + 

Only a little hour, and the life of the race is done. + 

And here he builds a nebula, and there he slays a sun + 

And works his own fierce pleasure. All things he shall fulfill, + 

And O, my poor Despoina, do you think he ever hears + 

The wail of hearts he has broken, the sounds of human ill? + 

He cares not for our virtues, our little hopes and fears, + 

And how could it all go on, love, if he knew of laughter and tears? + 

Ah, sweet, if a man could cheat him! If you could flee away + 

Into some other country beyond the rosy West, + 

To hide in the deep forests and be for ever at rest + 

From the rankling hate of God and the outworn world’s decay! + 