I
Ye that a thousand earth-spins
hence shall read these lines
And marvel that they gave me bitter bread,
Ye that a thousand years of dreamers dead
Have thrown between you and this time of mine
And dare to marvel that they let me starve,
Take mine own truth that to your teeth I tell
That they that speak the truth get your disdeign
And stones and die about your gates
even as we
That bore truth’s lamp did from your forebears fare.
Earth casts out truth and did and will
Until that all-consuming flame,
our God of Truth,
Shall slay the earth y-drowned
in ‘ts molten gold.
II
O ye my brothers of the flame that after fare,
Count not your dying bitter guerdon,
But as ye keep the flame and die thereon
Cry out your triumph to th’encircling stars.
We die and live because our truth goes on.
They die and rot nor do their tombs remain.
Be glad your chançon, tho your
tongues grow faint
And give thy cloak to beauty, tho the cold
Of all the world that seeks to slay
Beauty, shall bitter be
To bear thy life away.
Triumph, and Triumph
for the arts fail not
While yet our blood
shall bid the arts withstay
Hate and the cold and wrath
wherewith the world would slay
Beauty, that being Truth doth all
the world
Accuse of all world’s shame and
worldly littleness.
Io Triumphe, till the sun with us
Shall die for one last time
entombed in gold.
(Simon’s soldiers stop his mouth with a spear.)