Songs of Two Nations/Introductory stanzas

by Algernon Charles Swinburne

I saw the double-featured statue stand
Of Memnon or of Janus, half with night
Veiled, and fast bound with iron; half with light
Crowned, holding all men's future in his hand.

And all the old westward face of time grown grey
Was writ with cursing and inscribed for death;
But on the face that met the morning's breath
Fear died of hope as darkness dies of day.