Songs before sunrise Author:Algernon Charles Swinburne Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: HERTHA. I Am that which began; Out of me the years roll; Out of me God and man; I am equal and whole; God changes, and man, and the form of them bodily... more » ; I am the soul. Before ever land was, Before ever the sea, Or soft hair of the grass, Or fair limbs of the tree, Or the flesh-coloured fruit of my branches, I was, and thy soul was in me. First life on my sources First drifted and swam ; Out of me are the forces That save it or damn ; Out of me man and woman, and wild-beast and bird; be/ore God V.t.f, 1 am. Beside or above me Nought is there to go; Love or unlove me, Unknow me or know, I am that which unloves me and loves; I am stricken, and I am the blow. I the mark that is missed And the arrows that miss, I the mouth that is kissed And the breath in the kiss, The search, and the sought, and the seeker, the soul and the body that is. I am that thing which blesses My spirit elate; That which caresses With hands uncreate My limbs unbegotten that measure the length of the measure of fate. But what thing dost thoa now, Looking Godward, to cry " I am I, thou art thou, I am low, thou art high" ? I am thou, whom thou seekest to find him; find thou but thyself, thou art I. I the grain and the furrow, The plough-cloven clod And the ploughshare drawn thorough, The germ and the sod, The deed and the doer, the seed and the sower, the dust which is God. Hast thou known how I fashioned thee, Child, underground ? Fire that impassioned thee, Iron that bound, Dim changes of water, what thing of all these hast thou known of or found ? Canst thou say in thine heart Thou hast seen with thine eyes With what cunning of art Thou wast wrought in what wise, By what force of what stuff thou...« less