Under what withering leprous light The very grass as hair is grey, Grass in the cracks of the paven courts Of gods we graved but yesterday. The ever-behind and out of sight. We turned our backs and our blind flesh felt it Growing and growing, a tower in height. And she grows young as the world grows old. Down on a world that worms devour.
New things grow hoary with the light.
On the new image in our sight. But light are the feet on the hills of the morning Of the lambs that leap up to the Bride of the Sun, And swift are the birds as the butterflies flashing And sudden as laughter the rivulets run And sudden for ever as summer lightning the light is bright on the world begun. Thou wilt not break as we have broken The towers we reared to rival Thee. More true to England than the English More just to freedom than the free. O trumpet of the intolerant truth Thou art more full of grace and ruth For the hopes of th world than the world that made them, The world that murdered the loves of our youth.