Antiphonal
If, in space of mind, heaven’s locus lies,
And bread be daily, which the hungry fear,
For these contingent days a love should rise,
Nor beauty sing more than the earth we hear.
When lascivious spring through April strays,
When the pulse is pleasing and love begun:
Nor dawns forever, cry the finite days,
And, this my morning’s mercy, cries the sun.
The tunes in Sophocles evolved refrains,
Old vowels wrung from the tongue would seize when sung;
All carnal mingling of the furies’ pains,
There’s no truth better than true bitter dung.
Sing in an ecstasy of flight,
Drum every canker and the blight,
Sing man mortal in a song
(No man mortal when singing strong)
Wince but mince on the edge of space,
Blaspheme once for the human race.
And if I sing, a voice with finite days,
And loving woo until the strains are one:
Nor dawns forever, cry my roundelays,
And, this my morning’s mercy, cries the sun.