Dedication The Five Nations (1903)

BEFORE a midnight breaks in storm, Or herded sea in wrath, Ye know what wavering gusts inform The greater tempest's path; Till the loosed wind Drive all from mind, Except Distress, which, so will prophets cry, O'ercame them, houseless, from the unhinting sky. Ere rivers league against the land In piratry of flood, Ye know what waters steal and stand Where seldom water stood. Yet who will note, Till fields afloat, And washen carcass and the returning well, Trumpet what these poor heralds strove to tell? Ye know who use the Crystal Ball (To peer by stealth on Doom), The Shade that, shaping first of all, Prepares an empty room. Then doth It pass Like breath from glass, But, on the extorted Vision bowed intent, No man considers why It came or went. Before the years reborn behold hemselves with stranger eye, And the sport-making Gods of old, Like Samson slaying, die, Many shall hear The all-pregnant sphere, Bow to the birth and sweat, butspeech denied Sit dumb ordealt in partfall weak and wide. Yet instant to fore-shadowed need The eternal balance swings; That winged men, the Fates may breed So soon as Fate hath wings. These shall possess Our littleness, And in the imperial task (as worthy) lay Up our lives' all to piece one giant Day.