Sinburne Stomp Swinburne Stomp
Swinburne Stomp
Nobody stomps like the Swinburne Stomp
The Swinburne Stomp
Before the beginning of years
There came to the making of man
Time with a gift of tears
Grief, with a glass than ran
Pleasure, with pain for leaven
Summer, with flowers that fell
Remembrance fallen from heaven
And madness risen from hell
Strength without hands to smite
Love that endures for a breath:
Night, the shadow of light
And life, the shadow of death
And the high gods took in hand
Fire, and the falling of tears
And a measure of sliding sand
From under the feet of the years
And froth and drift of the sea
And dust of the laboring earth
And bodies of things to be
In the houses of death and of birth;
And wrought with weeping and laughter
And fashioned with loathing and love
With life before and after
And death beneath and above,
For a day and a night and a morrow
That his strength might endure for a span
With travail and heavy sorrow
The holy spirit of man.
From the winds of the north and the south
They gathered as unto strife
They breathed upon his mouth
They filled his body with life
Eyesight and speech they wrought
For the veils of the souls within
A time for labor and thought
A time to serve and to sin;
They gave him light in his ways
And love and space for delight
And beauty and length of days
And night, and sleep in the night
His speech is a burning fire
With his lips he travaileth
In his heart is a blind desire
In his eyes foreknowledge of death
He weaves and is clothed in derision
He sows and she shall not reap
His life is a watch or a vision
Between a sleep and a sleep