 | Poems and dramas of George Cabot Lodge |  |
THE SONG
When the vortex of Heaven was blind
The sword
Was framed from a primal desire
That shook thro' the void like a wind;
Then it rose as a shivering fire
And crimsoned God's vision of peace;
Then sank, like the trail of a star,
Down the frail twilight of space
And stood over hell like a scar
Furrowed deep in the forehead of night,
Till the universe called, “There is light,
And life and the promise of war.”
The sword
Was framed from a primal desire
That shook thro' the void like a wind;
Then it rose as a shivering fire
And crimsoned God's vision of peace;
Then sank, like the trail of a star,
Down the frail twilight of space
And stood over hell like a scar
Furrowed deep in the forehead of night,
Till the universe called, “There is light,
And life and the promise of war.”
Lamping the limitless gloom,
The sword
Glowed in the saffron of Hell,
As might in a tenanted tomb
Some strenuous memory swell
Over death and illume the dead eyes.
Then—O wonder!—ere ever it fell,
A hand gat the sword in its grasp,
And while earth and sea uttered their spawn,
Far-flung on the ocean of skies,
It lay like the welter of dawn
In the giant immutable clasp.
The sword
Glowed in the saffron of Hell,
As might in a tenanted tomb
Some strenuous memory swell
20
Then—O wonder!—ere ever it fell,
A hand gat the sword in its grasp,
And while earth and sea uttered their spawn,
Far-flung on the ocean of skies,
It lay like the welter of dawn
In the giant immutable clasp.
Then white as the darkness of death
The sword
Sang like a boreal breath
Blown thro' the idyll of dawn,
Cadenced as steel that is drawn
Tense thro' the crest of a storm,
It exalted the choir of earth,
Singing deep where the heart-blood is warm,
And pervaded the resonant sky
Like the solemn and sorrowful mirth
Of life that is living to die.
The sword
Sang like a boreal breath
Blown thro' the idyll of dawn,
Cadenced as steel that is drawn
Tense thro' the crest of a storm,
It exalted the choir of earth,
Singing deep where the heart-blood is warm,
And pervaded the resonant sky
Like the solemn and sorrowful mirth
Of life that is living to die.
And down thro' the legended years
The sword,
Sonorous with laughter and tears,
Has sung its old epic to man;
And the earlier glory awakes
As when life in its anguish began,
Till, whenever the noon-brilliance shakes
Down the scabbardless steel, joy and woe,
All is blended to passion that has
Neither laughter, nor weeping, nor name,
But love and the lusting for fame,
Even death in its agony, grow
Into life that is, shall be and was—
Life the ichor of earth, the spring-throe,
Ever manifold, ever the same.
The sword,
Sonorous with laughter and tears,
Has sung its old epic to man;
And the earlier glory awakes
As when life in its anguish began,
Till, whenever the noon-brilliance shakes
Down the scabbardless steel, joy and woe,
21
Neither laughter, nor weeping, nor name,
But love and the lusting for fame,
Even death in its agony, grow
Into life that is, shall be and was—
Life the ichor of earth, the spring-throe,
Ever manifold, ever the same.
| Poems and dramas of George Cabot Lodge | |