Fragment for 'Jerusalem'

"I see, I see", the Mother said,
"My children shall die for lack of bread!
What more has the merciless tyrant said?"
The Monk sat down on her stony bed.

His eye was dry, no tears could flow,
A hollow groan bespoke his woe.

· · · · ·

"When God commanded this hand to write
In the shadowy hours of deep midnight,
He told me that all I wrote should prove
The bane of all that on earth I love.

"My brother starved between two walls;
Thy children's cry my soul appals.
I mock at the rack and the grinding chain;
My bent body mocks at their torturing pain.

"Thy father drew his sword in the North,
With his thousands strong he is marched forth.
Thy brother has armed himself in steel,
To avenge the wrongs thy children feel.

"But vain the sword and vain the bow,
They never can work war's overthrow.
The hermit's prayer and the widow's tear
Alone can free the world from fear."

The hand of vengeance sought the bed
To which the purple tyrant fled;
The iron hand crushed the tyrant's head,
And became a tyrant in his stead.

Until the tyrant himself relent,
The tyrant who the first black bow bent,
Slaughter shall heap the bloody plain;
Resistance and war is the tyrant's gain.

But the tear of love and forgiveness sweet,
And submission to death beneath his feet;
The tear shall melt the sword of steel,
And every wound it has made shall heal.

For the tear is an intellectual thing,
And a sigh is the sword of an Angel King;
And the bitter groan of a martyr's woe
Is an arrow from the Almighty's bow.