Before The Aeons Came

Before the beginning of years 

there came to the making of man 

Time, with a gift of tears 

Grief, with a glass that ran 



Pleasure, with pain for leaven 

Summer, with flowers that fell 

Rememberance 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