Because there is but one truth; <br /> Because there is but one banner; <br /> Because there is but one light; <br />Because we have with us our youth <br /> Once, and one chance and one manner <br /> Of service, and then the night; <br /> <br />Because we have found not yet <br /> Any way for the world to follow <br /> Save only that ancient way; <br />Whosoever forsake or forget, <br /> Whose faith soever be hollow, <br /> Whose hope soever grow grey; <br /> <br />Because of the watchwords of kings <br /> That are many and strange and unwritten, <br /> Diverse, and our watchword is one; <br />Therefore, though seven be the strings, <br /> One string, if the harp be smitten, <br /> Sole sounds, till the tune be done; <br /> <br />Sounds without cadence or change <br /> In a weary monotonous burden, <br /> Be the keynote of mourning or mirth; <br />Free, but free not to range; <br /> Taking for crown and for guerdon <br /> No man's praise upon earth; <br /> <br />Saying one sole word evermore, <br /> In the ears of the charmed world saying, <br /> Charmed by spells to its death; <br />One that chanted of yore <br /> To a tune of the sword-sweep's playing <br /> In the lips of the dead blew breath; <br /> <br />Therefore I set not mine hand <br /> To the shifting of changed modulations, <br /> To the smiting of manifold strings; <br />While the thrones of the throned men stand, <br /> One song for the morning of nations, <br /> One for the twilight of kings. <br /> <br />One chord, one word, and one way, <br /> One hope as our law, one heaven, <br /> Till slain be the great one wrong; <br />Till the people it could not slay, <br /> Risen up, have for one star seven, <br /> For a single, a sevenfold song.<br /><br />Algernon Charles Swinburne<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/monotones/
