Analysis of Ode On The Insurrection In Candia

I laid my laurel-leaf
           At the white feet of grief,
  Seeing how with covered face and plumeless wings,
           With unreverted head
           Veiled, as who mourns his dead,
  Lay Freedom couched between the thrones of kings,
     A wearied lion without lair,
And bleeding from base wounds, and vexed with alien air.

Who was it, who, put poison to thy mouth,
  Who lulled with craft or chant thy vigilant eyes,
O light of all men, lamp to north and south,
  Eastward and westward, under all men's skies?
For if thou sleep, we perish, and thy name
  Dies with the dying of our ephemeral breath;
And if the dust of death o'ergrows thy flame,
  Heaven also is darkened with the dust of death.
If thou be mortal, if thou change or cease,
If thine hand fail, or thine eyes turn from Greece,
Thy firstborn, and the firstfruits of thy fame,
God is no God, and man is moulded out of shame.

Is there change in the secret skies,
  In the sacred places that see
     The divine beginning of things,
        The weft of the web of the world?
Is Freedom a worm that dies,
  And God no God of the free?
     Is heaven like as earth with her kings
        And time as a serpent curled
           Round life as a tree?

From the steel-bound snows of the north,
  From the mystic mother, the east,
     From the sands of the fiery south,
        From the low-lit clouds of the west,
A sound of a cry is gone forth;
  Arise, stand up from the feast,
     Let wine be far from the mouth,
        Let no man sleep or take rest,
           Till the plague hath ceased.

Let none rejoice or make mirth
  Till the evil thing be stayed,
     Nor grief be lulled in the lute,
        Nor hope be loud on the lyre;
Let none be glad upon earth.
  O music of young man and maid,
     O songs of the bride, be mute.
        For the light of her eyes, her desire,
           Is the soul dismayed.

It is not a land new-born
  That is scourged of a stranger's hand,
     That is rent and consumed with flame.
        We have known it of old, this face,
With the cheeks and the tresses torn,
  With shame on the brow as a brand.
     We have named it of old by name,
        The land of the royallest race,
           The most holy land.

Had I words of fire,
        Whose words are weak as snow;
     Were my heart a lyre
        Whence all its love might flow
In the mighty modulations of desire,
In the notes wherewith man's passion worships woe;

Could my song release
        The thought weak words confine,
     And my grief, O Greece,
        Prove how it worships thine;
It would move with pulse of war the limbs of peace,
Till she flushed and trembled and became divine.

(Once she held for true
        This truth of sacred strain;
     Though blood drip like dew
        And life run down like rain,
It is better that war spare but one or two
Than that many live, and liberty be slain.)

Then with fierce increase
        And bitter mother's mirth,
     From the womb of peace,
        A womb that yearns for birth,
As a man-child should deliverance come to Greece,
As a saviour should the child be born on earth.

O that these my days had been
Ere white peace and shame were wed
Without torch or dancers' din
Round the unsacred marriage-bed!
For of old the sweet-tongued law,
Freedom, clothed with all men's love,
Girt about with all men's awe,
With the wild war-eagle mated
The white breast of peace the dove,
And his ravenous heart abated
And his windy wings were furled
In an eyrie consecrated
Where the snakes of strife uncurled,
And her soul was soothed and sated
With the welfare of the world.

ANT.  1

But now, close-clad with peace,
  While war lays hand on Greece,
The kingdoms and their kings stand by to see;
  "Aha, we are strong," they say,
  "We are sure, we are well," even they;
"And if we serve, what ails ye to be free?
  We are warm, clothed round with peace and shame;
But ye lie dead and naked, dying for a name."

O kings and queens and nations miserable,
  O fools and blind, and full of sins and fears,
With these it is, with you it is not well;
  Ye have one hour, but these the immortal years.
These for a pang, a breath, a pulse of pain,
  Have honour, while that honour on earth shall be: