VOCATION SONG.
‘La poésie est semblable à l'amandier: ses fleurs
sont parfumées et ses fruits sont amers.’
Louis Bertrand, Gaspard de la Nuit.
LORD, what unto Thy servants shall be given,
That have so long, in pain and doubt and strife,
For Thee with hand and heart and song hard striven,
What time Thou givest out the crowns of life?
What time the lances of the light are driven
Athwart the gloom that holds Life's holiest throne,
What time the curtains of the mist are riven,
What time the trumpets of the dawn are blown?
We, who to tunes of love and light, unknowing,
Have chastened all the jarring chords of life,—
We, who, with lips with milk and honey flowing,
Have fed on galls of bitterness and strife,—
We do not ask of Thee, as this our guerdon,
To live a shining life among Thy blest;
'Twould be for us but shifting of our burden,
Not the fulfilment of the longed-for rest.
We have no kin with those uplifted faces,
Those ordered minstrels that before Thee bow,
Set rank on rank upon the holy places,
With stiff sharp laurel fringing every brow.
For us, no balms of Heaven could stay our yearning,
No crown of woven lilies and pale palms,
No City with eternal glory burning,
Set in the golden stress of ceaseless psalms.
Our souls are weary with the stress of seeing,
Wasted with burning thoughts that throb and throng,
Worn with the straining ecstasy of Being,
That passes through our heart-strings into song.
Our lives are sick with seeing all things' sadness,
Sad earth beneath us and sad heaven above;
Life's sweets to us are but as herbs of madness,
Sweet poison of the bitter bliss of Love.
Our souls are weary of the changing courses,
The sick alternative of smiles and tears,
Are weary of the unrelenting forces,
Are weary of the burden of the years;
The burden of the winds in river-sedges,
The burden of the torrents and the sea,
The burden of the woodbirds in the hedges:
‘Time is, Time was and Time will cease to be!’
Is it as nothing that the same flame courses
Athwart Thy veins that riots in our own?
Is it as nothing that the selfsame sources
Of light and life to us as Thee are known?
Shall we 'scape smiting with the 'scape of breath?
Shall we aye rest from bitter song's fierce smarts?
Will not the song-stress thrill the brain of death?
Will not the song-pulse throb in our cold hearts?
Lord God, wilt Thou not help us, that have striven
To do Thy work so hardly and so long?
Wilt Thou not give us rest from Thy high heaven
And peace from bitter weaving of sweet song?
Save us, O Lord, before the fire consume us,
Ere the hot chrism shrivel body and soul!
Let the soft arms of some sweet death entomb us
And hold us fast from love and joy and dole!
