 | A Lost Epic and Other Poems |  |
Grasp my hand!
Hold me fast!
For I stagger and reel
At the tumult and splendour of life rushing past
In a whirlwind of fire, dust, vapour, and thunder;
For above me and under,
Upon this side and that, all the sea and the land,
All the skies, and the gods' starry seats in the skies,
Spin and spin on the axle of time like a wheel!
Hold me fast!
For I stagger and reel
At the tumult and splendour of life rushing past
In a whirlwind of fire, dust, vapour, and thunder;
For above me and under,
Upon this side and that, all the sea and the land,
All the skies, and the gods' starry seats in the skies,
Spin and spin on the axle of time like a wheel!
Through the years, through the æons,
With laughter and cries,
With clangour of conflict and singing of pæans,
The great wheel goes spinning.
With laughter and cries,
With clangour of conflict and singing of pæans,
The great wheel goes spinning.
I see half the round, and I search the dim distance
To find the beginning—
The point where the vague subtle thought, nonexistence,
Is changed to the forms and the colours of being.
The great wheel goes spinning,
To find the beginning—
The point where the vague subtle thought, nonexistence,
Is changed to the forms and the colours of being.
The great wheel goes spinning,
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And baffles the brain
As it sweeps without pause through the awful, inane,
Inscrutable tracts of the vast uncreated,
Then bursts into sight
Inconceivably freighted
With pageants of substance, and colour, and motion.
As it sweeps without pause through the awful, inane,
Inscrutable tracts of the vast uncreated,
Then bursts into sight
Inconceivably freighted
With pageants of substance, and colour, and motion.
Oh, the wonders of sight and of sound
As the great wheel spins dizzily round!
Oh, the terror, amazement, delight!
Oh, the music and wailing, the laughter and cries!
Oh, the numberless faces and eyes
Full of beauty or dread! Oh, the shapes that arise
And abide but a moment, then vanish and change
Into features and forms more unspeakably strange!
For, behold! as I gaze, all the substance of life
With itself is at strife,
And for ever is fleeing,
And for ever pursued from disguise to disguise,
Still eludes and recoils, still survives and escapes
In the masks of divine, inexhaustible shapes—
Now a goddess's tear, now a pearl in the ocean,
Now a bird, now a worm, now a flower, now a flame—
An unknowable essence, incessantly ranging
Through dædal surprises, unchangeably changing
Yet single and permanent, effluent,
Refluent,
Ever and never the same!
As the great wheel spins dizzily round!
Oh, the terror, amazement, delight!
Oh, the music and wailing, the laughter and cries!
Oh, the numberless faces and eyes
Full of beauty or dread! Oh, the shapes that arise
And abide but a moment, then vanish and change
Into features and forms more unspeakably strange!
For, behold! as I gaze, all the substance of life
With itself is at strife,
And for ever is fleeing,
And for ever pursued from disguise to disguise,
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In the masks of divine, inexhaustible shapes—
Now a goddess's tear, now a pearl in the ocean,
Now a bird, now a worm, now a flower, now a flame—
An unknowable essence, incessantly ranging
Through dædal surprises, unchangeably changing
Yet single and permanent, effluent,
Refluent,
Ever and never the same!
Grasp my hand; hold me fast!
For the wheel takes my breath
As it whirls its ineffable pageantry past;
And I strain in fierce gaze into distance to see
The dark goal where existence begins not to be—
Where life lapses to death.
But the great wheel goes spinning
To an end as unknown as the mystic beginning—
Goes dizzily spinning, alive and full-freighted
To the void
Of the cancelled, abolished, destroyed,
From the void of the vast uncreated!
For the wheel takes my breath
As it whirls its ineffable pageantry past;
And I strain in fierce gaze into distance to see
The dark goal where existence begins not to be—
Where life lapses to death.
But the great wheel goes spinning
To an end as unknown as the mystic beginning—
Goes dizzily spinning, alive and full-freighted
To the void
Of the cancelled, abolished, destroyed,
From the void of the vast uncreated!
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O my soul, in what region unknown,
Far removed beyond thought, did I see
The vast shape of a beautiful Woman, who sat all alone
With the wheel at her knee!
And I saw that the wheel was rotation of time,
And the wool of her spinning
Was life—but the fleece
Was a secret withdrawn beyond winning.
Far removed beyond thought, did I see
The vast shape of a beautiful Woman, who sat all alone
With the wheel at her knee!
And I saw that the wheel was rotation of time,
And the wool of her spinning
Was life—but the fleece
Was a secret withdrawn beyond winning.
Alone in her beauty, she sat there and spun;
And she sang a sweet rhyme
Out of pleasure—or solace, perchance—for a task never done;
But the sound of the wheel in her ears was a low woolly drone
That disturbed not her peace;
And I cried, but she laboured unconscious, serene;
For desire nor appeal can attain to her there,
And I never shall know
If the task of her wheel be a joy or a woe,
And whether she sits as a slave or a queen,
In a region that lies beyond worship and prayer!
And she sang a sweet rhyme
Out of pleasure—or solace, perchance—for a task never done;
But the sound of the wheel in her ears was a low woolly drone
That disturbed not her peace;
And I cried, but she laboured unconscious, serene;
For desire nor appeal can attain to her there,
And I never shall know
If the task of her wheel be a joy or a woe,
And whether she sits as a slave or a queen,
In a region that lies beyond worship and prayer!
| A Lost Epic and Other Poems | |