I
In flight eternally, the pendulum
Makes answer to a rhythm that no man knows,
As backward, forward, calling “Rise and come”,
Scythe-like in movement, counting time, it goes.
The lip of ocean moves along the shore;
The hand of man would harness up the tides;
The tide moves on, man falls and is no more;
Where earth once stood the wave above it rides.
Then dust on dust the cud of ocean fills;
The mountains that were eaten conquer her;
She, the invader, invaded by the hills,
Slips from the silt her moving waters stir.
Earth sweetens ocean, ocean sweetens earth.
So swings the pendulum of death and birth.
II
So swings the pendulum! The slayer shall
Be victim of the slain, the conqueror
Be beaten of the lifted manacle,
Slaves trample on thy head, Imperator;
Old Aesop, sitting by the road, shall write
A simple tale that shall outlast a king—
And yet on Aesop, too, must fall the night,
Lest in some dawn no newer voice should sing
The blade that thrust dies down before the ear,
The ear is eaten of the leaf that thrust;
Even as courage germines up from fear,
And fear itself is monitor to trust.
Change, change alone eternal is, which through
All else must plough, and, ploughing, life renew.
III
Yet is declared a greater thing than change!
For change is but a proving and a sign
Of that which lies above the moody range
Where every broken grape must yield its wine!
Change answers more than change, eke it had end,
And, ended, woke no more the shining dust,
Which, risen, turns and marks life’s wide extend,
And knows law governs all, and ever must.
The moon upon man’s path sheds down her ray,
White witness of the sun beyond our sight;
And does not change, in all its changing day,
Bear equal witness with the moon’s cold light?
Ah, if Leviathan must turn to dust,
Still o’er Leviathan His Hand keeps trust!
(Dame Mary Gilmore DBE)
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Based on Topics: Man Poems, Life Poems, Night Poems, Light Poems, Time Poems, Death & Dying Poems, Sense & Perception Poems, Fear Poems, Wine Poems, Change Poems, Birth PoemsBased on Keywords: silt, slayer, monitor, invader, pendulum, aesop, leviathan, outlast, sweetens, king-, manacle