  A fire of fierce and laughing light That clove the shuddering heart of night Leapt earthward, and the thunder's might That pants and yearns Made fitful music round its flight: And earth saw Burns. The joyous lightning found its voice And bade the heart of wrath rejoice And scorn uplift a song to voice The imperial hate That smote the God of base men's choice At God's own gate. Before the shrine of dawn, wherethrough The lark rang rapture as she flew, It flashed and fired the darkling dew: And all that heard With love or loathing hailed anew A new day's word. As though their lord had blessed them, fell Foaming at mouth for fear, so well They knew the lie Wherewith they sought to scan and spell The unsounded sky. And Calvin, night's prophetic bird, Out of his home in hell was heard Shrieking; and all the fens were stirred Whence plague is bred; Can God endure the scoffer's word? But God was dead. The God they made them in despite Of man and woman, love and light, Strong sundawn and the starry night, The lie supreme, Shot through with song, stood forth to sight A devil's dream. And he that bent the lyric bow And laid the lord of darkness low And bade the fire of laughter glow Across his grave, And bade the tides above it flow, Wave hurtling wave, Shall he not win from latter days More than his own could yield of praise? Ay, could the sovereign singer's bays Forsake his brow, The warrior's, won on stormier ways, Still clasp it now. And bade the cup whereout he quaffed Shine as a planet, fore and aft, And left and right, And keen as shoots the sun's first shaft Against the night. But love and wine were moon and sun For many a fame long since undone, And sorrow and joy have lost and won By stormy turns As many a singer's soul, if none More bright than Burns. And sweeter far in grief or mirth Have songs as glad and sad of birth Found voice to speak of wealth or dearth In joy of life: But never song took fire from earth More strong for strife. The daisy by his ploughshare cleft, The lips of women loved and left, The griefs and joys that weave the weft Of human time, With craftsman's cunning, keen and deft, He carved in rhyme. But Chaucer's daisy shines a star Above his ploughshare's reach to mar, And mightier vision gave Dunbar More strenuous wing To hear around all sins that are Hell dance and sing. In song's high gift to arouse from dust Death, and transfigure love or lust Through smiles or tears In golden speech that takes no rust From cankering years, As never spake but once in one Strong star-crossed child of earth and sun, Villon, made music such as none May praise or blame, A crown of starrier flower was won Than Burns may claim. But never, since bright earth was born In rapture of the enkindling morn, Might godlike wrath and sunlike scorn That was and is And shall be while false weeds are worn Find word like his. Above the rude and radiant earth That heaves and glows from firth to firth In vale and mountain, bright in dearth And warm in wealth, Which gave his fiery glory birth By chance and stealth, Above the storms of praise and blame That blur with mist his lustrous name, His thunderous laughter went and came, And lives and flies; The roar that follows on the flame When lightning dies. And water winding soft and fair Through still sweet places, bright and bare, By bent and byre, Taught him what hearts within them were: But his was fire. |
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