 | Carol and Cadence |  |
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SONGS OF THE MORROW.
INVOCATION.
Hither, thy nets bring hither, Memory!
From Time's obscure, illimitable sea
Draw thou the days that are no more for me!
From Time's obscure, illimitable sea
Draw thou the days that are no more for me!
Call up the loves, the hates of heretofore,
The hopes, the fears, the smiles, the tears of yore,
The thoughts, the things that were and are no more!
The hopes, the fears, the smiles, the tears of yore,
The thoughts, the things that were and are no more!
Forth from the floods of darkness, where they drown,
Raise up the roofs and towers of Dreamland's town,
The storied walls that Time hath smitten down!
Raise up the roofs and towers of Dreamland's town,
The storied walls that Time hath smitten down!
And Fancy, thou, upon the ruins, stilled
In death and haunted of the goblin guild,
The new days' castle and cathedral build!
In death and haunted of the goblin guild,
The new days' castle and cathedral build!
With all the sweetness of the piteous Past
And all the bitter Present's lore, forecast
For fitter faith upon the Future vast,
And all the bitter Present's lore, forecast
For fitter faith upon the Future vast,
In the sheer bed of Time's resurgent sea,
Buttressed 'gainst Him with all whereunto He
Hath lessoned us, by dint of misery,
Build up the City of the Yet-to-be!
Buttressed 'gainst Him with all whereunto He
Hath lessoned us, by dint of misery,
Build up the City of the Yet-to-be!
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VOX CLAMANTIS.
A voice from out Thought's deserts, like a cloud
That compass Life's horizon-line of grey,
In the mirk midnight, in the morrowing day,
Blue noon, red eve, insistent, if unloud,
Still crying goes, “Prepare ye the Lord's way!”
That compass Life's horizon-line of grey,
In the mirk midnight, in the morrowing day,
Blue noon, red eve, insistent, if unloud,
Still crying goes, “Prepare ye the Lord's way!”
Too loud the world with traffic is and strife
To mark that message of the Eternal Will,
Which, through the clamour of the conflict shrill,
O'erfaint to pierce the battle-din of Life,
Goes murmuring like the ripple of a rill.
To mark that message of the Eternal Will,
Which, through the clamour of the conflict shrill,
O'erfaint to pierce the battle-din of Life,
Goes murmuring like the ripple of a rill.
Yet, still, persistent through the ages' hum,
A knell of Fate it beats upon Life's door:
Beside the pipes of peace, the drums of war,
Beneath Life's organ-music never dumb,
Its dull ground-bass goes droning evermore.
A knell of Fate it beats upon Life's door:
Beside the pipes of peace, the drums of war,
Beneath Life's organ-music never dumb,
Its dull ground-bass goes droning evermore.
Thus hath it murmured through the centuries past
Nor thus shall cease to murmur, year by year,
For ever waxing for the hearkening ear,
Though the doomed folk o'erhear it, till, at last,
Whenas the fulness of the times is come,
Nor thus shall cease to murmur, year by year,
For ever waxing for the hearkening ear,
Though the doomed folk o'erhear it, till, at last,
Whenas the fulness of the times is come,
That voice, when faded from the worldly air
Are din of strife and clash of spear and sword,
When hushed are sound of song and clang of chord,
Shall thunder, with the judgment-trumpet's blare,
“The way prepare, prepare ye of the Lord!”
Are din of strife and clash of spear and sword,
When hushed are sound of song and clang of chord,
Shall thunder, with the judgment-trumpet's blare,
“The way prepare, prepare ye of the Lord!”
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THE SETTING SUN.
The sun into the graves
Of the dead Past sinks down below the waves.
Thou, too, o sun,
As we or any other of Fate's slaves,
Thy fixed and foreappointed course must run
Nor hope for rest until thy Titan task be done.
Of the dead Past sinks down below the waves.
Thou, too, o sun,
As we or any other of Fate's slaves,
Thy fixed and foreappointed course must run
Nor hope for rest until thy Titan task be done.
One day, triumphant star,
Thou yet shalt cease to fill thy flaming car;
Thy fiery face
Grown pale and old, in fragments burst, afar
Strewn shalt thou be upon the fields of Space,
And some new sun arise belike to fill thy place.
Thou yet shalt cease to fill thy flaming car;
Thy fiery face
Grown pale and old, in fragments burst, afar
Strewn shalt thou be upon the fields of Space,
And some new sun arise belike to fill thy place.
Yet shalt thou have, at least,
Sleep following due on the funereal feast
And (Time's behest
Grown void for thee,) no longer shalt from East
Thy daily round of drudgery run to West,
But sleep, in darkness drowned and unremembering rest.
Sleep following due on the funereal feast
And (Time's behest
Grown void for thee,) no longer shalt from East
Thy daily round of drudgery run to West,
But sleep, in darkness drowned and unremembering rest.
But we, alas! but we,
Whose brain it was that bore the world and thee,
For us, no sleep,
No cease from being is. The Will-To-be
Still drives us on from life to life, like sheep;
Still, though worlds wane, our thought the weapon-watch must keep.
Whose brain it was that bore the world and thee,
For us, no sleep,
No cease from being is. The Will-To-be
Still drives us on from life to life, like sheep;
Still, though worlds wane, our thought the weapon-watch must keep.
Still, though suns wax and wane,
Of the creator in our restless brain
Born and reborn,
Done by our thought to death and raised again,
We 'neath the burden of the worlds forlorn
Must toil nor ever sleep the sleep that knows no morn.
Of the creator in our restless brain
Born and reborn,
Done by our thought to death and raised again,
We 'neath the burden of the worlds forlorn
Must toil nor ever sleep the sleep that knows no morn.
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IN VAIN.
I call unto the night for thee, my dear,
And it for thee replies;
Thy voice upon its wandering winds I hear;
Its soft stars are thine eyes.
And it for thee replies;
Thy voice upon its wandering winds I hear;
Its soft stars are thine eyes.
I call unto the dawn for thee; and dawn
Me with the tender glow
Answers, that flushed thy cheek in days bygone,
When we met, long ago.
Me with the tender glow
Answers, that flushed thy cheek in days bygone,
When we met, long ago.
I call unto the noon for thee, and it
Stoops o'er me with thy smile,
The smile of softened splendour infinite,
That greeted me erewhile.
Stoops o'er me with thy smile,
The smile of softened splendour infinite,
That greeted me erewhile.
What profits all? If I were moon or sun,
Thy kiss might quicken me;
If I were dawn or breeze, belovéd one,
I might clasp hands with thee.
Thy kiss might quicken me;
If I were dawn or breeze, belovéd one,
I might clasp hands with thee.
But since thou art returned to Nature back
And body hast put by,
I know not how to win to thee, alack!
Excepting if I die.
And body hast put by,
I know not how to win to thee, alack!
Excepting if I die.
ELDORADO.
Field on field,
Glittering in the sunset, like a golden shield,
'Gainst its levelled lances
In defence upheaving,
Spreads the sea.
As the low light glances,
Webs of purple weaving
O'er the liquid lea,
Islands in the setting,
Of the sun's begetting,
From the Western distance slowly rise to be.
Glittering in the sunset, like a golden shield,
'Gainst its levelled lances
In defence upheaving,
Spreads the sea.
As the low light glances,
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O'er the liquid lea,
Islands in the setting,
Of the sun's begetting,
From the Western distance slowly rise to be.
Isle on isle,
Glamorous in the glory of the sunset's smile,
Where the billows shimmer,
'Gainst the skyline showing,
In the West,
There fore'er they glimmer,
Worlds past mortal knowing,
Islands of the Blest,
Where, since Adam chased was
Forth of Eden, placed was
Of man's thought the portal of the Lands of Rest.
Glamorous in the glory of the sunset's smile,
Where the billows shimmer,
'Gainst the skyline showing,
In the West,
There fore'er they glimmer,
Worlds past mortal knowing,
Islands of the Blest,
Where, since Adam chased was
Forth of Eden, placed was
Of man's thought the portal of the Lands of Rest.
Line on line,
Black against the blazon of the sunset-shine,
Birds each other, flying,
Follow, like beads threaded
On a string,
To the Westward hieing,
Whence the darkness dreaded
Rises, hovering;
Tow'rd the distance golden,
Where the night is holden,
Year in, year out, seeking none knows what, they wing.
Black against the blazon of the sunset-shine,
Birds each other, flying,
Follow, like beads threaded
On a string,
To the Westward hieing,
Whence the darkness dreaded
Rises, hovering;
Tow'rd the distance golden,
Where the night is holden,
Year in, year out, seeking none knows what, they wing.
Year by year,
When, with Spring returning, once again they're here,
Many a mate behind them
In the darkling distance
Left have they.
Did these others find them,
In some new existence,
Fair and far away,
What they sought or lonely,
Dropped and died they only,
As in this our weary world of night and day?
When, with Spring returning, once again they're here,
Many a mate behind them
In the darkling distance
Left have they.
Did these others find them,
In some new existence,
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What they sought or lonely,
Dropped and died they only,
As in this our weary world of night and day?
Hour by hour,
Friends and comrades leave us, by some viewless power
From the daylight driven,
Tow'rd the unknown regions
By some breath
Blown of Hell or Heaven;
Whence, of all their legions,
None, returning, saith
If their Eldorado,
In that world of shadow,
They their land of promise found or only death.
Friends and comrades leave us, by some viewless power
From the daylight driven,
Tow'rd the unknown regions
By some breath
Blown of Hell or Heaven;
Whence, of all their legions,
None, returning, saith
If their Eldorado,
In that world of shadow,
They their land of promise found or only death.
?
What of the Night?
The sky still darkens; the stars are white:
No sign in heaven of coming light.
The sky still darkens; the stars are white:
No sign in heaven of coming light.
What of the Day?
Alas, who knoweth? The lift is grey;
The wisest can only watch and pray.
Alas, who knoweth? The lift is grey;
The wisest can only watch and pray.
What of the Past?
No reckoning sure can the seeker cast,
But as the First was will be the Last.
No reckoning sure can the seeker cast,
But as the First was will be the Last.
What of the Now?
The Present passes with knitted brow
And lips that babble of Why and How.
The Present passes with knitted brow
And lips that babble of Why and How.
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What of To-be?
This only scripture our eyes can see;
No note Time taketh of you and me.
This only scripture our eyes can see;
No note Time taketh of you and me.
DE PROFUNDIS.
Out of the deeps have we sighed to Thee,
Cried to Thee,
God, o our God!
Conjured Thee, bidden Thee bend to us,
Lend to us
Help with Thy nod;
As of old time to Thy haltest, Thy maimest,
O'er the wild waters, Thou heark'nedst and camest,
Walking dry-shod,
Called Thee to come to us;
Yet wast Thou dumb to us,
Cold as a clod;
Silence wherever we sought and supineness!
Token was none for our sense of Divineness,
None but Thy rod.
Cried to Thee,
God, o our God!
Conjured Thee, bidden Thee bend to us,
Lend to us
Help with Thy nod;
As of old time to Thy haltest, Thy maimest,
O'er the wild waters, Thou heark'nedst and camest,
Walking dry-shod,
Called Thee to come to us;
Yet wast Thou dumb to us,
Cold as a clod;
Silence wherever we sought and supineness!
Token was none for our sense of Divineness,
None but Thy rod.
Nought but Thy wrath hath been known to us,
Shown to us,
Nought but the blaze
Born of Thine anger the depths of our darkness hath sundered;
Still with reproachment through-lightened Thou hast and through-thundered
Our nights and our days:
Still the fierce floods of Thy malisons hast Thou unchained on us:
Never the soft-falling showers of Thy favour have rained on us,
Watered our ways.
Where is Thy grace, of whose glories our fathers have told us?
Where is Thy righteousness' sun, that should wrap us and hold us
Warm with its rays?
Where is Thy tender compassion, Thy pitiful dealing?
Where are Thy kindnesses loving, Thy waters of healing,
God of our praise?
Shown to us,
Nought but the blaze
Born of Thine anger the depths of our darkness hath sundered;
Still with reproachment through-lightened Thou hast and through-thundered
Our nights and our days:
Still the fierce floods of Thy malisons hast Thou unchained on us:
Never the soft-falling showers of Thy favour have rained on us,
Watered our ways.
Where is Thy grace, of whose glories our fathers have told us?
Where is Thy righteousness' sun, that should wrap us and hold us
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Where is Thy tender compassion, Thy pitiful dealing?
Where are Thy kindnesses loving, Thy waters of healing,
God of our praise?
See our sad souls, how they turn to Thee,
Burn to Thee,
Flamelike, in prayer!
Wilt Thou not look through Life's night on us,
Light on us
Making our care?
Why hast Thou hidden Thy face from Thy creatures?
Long 'tis, through cloud-curtains showing Thy features,
Fearful and fair,
Since Thou hast been of us
Hearkened or seen of us,
As of whilere.
Why hast Thou turned a deaf ear to our weeping?
Why hast Thou suffered the darkness come creeping
Over our air?
Burn to Thee,
Flamelike, in prayer!
Wilt Thou not look through Life's night on us,
Light on us
Making our care?
Why hast Thou hidden Thy face from Thy creatures?
Long 'tis, through cloud-curtains showing Thy features,
Fearful and fair,
Since Thou hast been of us
Hearkened or seen of us,
As of whilere.
Why hast Thou turned a deaf ear to our weeping?
Why hast Thou suffered the darkness come creeping
Over our air?
Art Thou, then, wroth with us, for that reliance
Setting on Science
Born but to die,
Seeking the world-all to know, so for us we might win it,
Earth in our hand have we taken, with all that is in it,
Distant and nigh,
Furrowed the scapes of the sea by the pole-pointing needle,
Meted the mountains and eke with the cloud-winger Daedal
Measured the sky,
Made of the lightning our messenger, darkness and distance,
Giants that frown from the gloom on the fields of existence,
Shouldering by,
Bounden in bondage the spirits of fire and of water,
Gutted the ground in the service of greed and of slaughter,
Scarce knowing why?
Setting on Science
Born but to die,
Seeking the world-all to know, so for us we might win it,
Earth in our hand have we taken, with all that is in it,
Distant and nigh,
Furrowed the scapes of the sea by the pole-pointing needle,
Meted the mountains and eke with the cloud-winger Daedal
Measured the sky,
Made of the lightning our messenger, darkness and distance,
Giants that frown from the gloom on the fields of existence,
Shouldering by,
Bounden in bondage the spirits of fire and of water,
Gutted the ground in the service of greed and of slaughter,
Scarce knowing why?
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Nay, all these things have we done but in quest of Thee,
Lest of Thee,
Lord, we should be
More and yet more with the gathering ages forsaken,
Lest, of the fast-falling darkness, our eyes, overtaken,
Night but should see.
Nay, all the ways of the world-jungle have we but furrowed,
All through the earth and its gloom-guarded bowels have burrowed,
Mastered the sea,
Tracked all the deserts and drunk at their far-flowing fountains,
Ploughed through the snow-wastes and measured the Heaven-scaling mountains,
But on this plea;
But of desire for Thy face the star-secrets unravelled,
Yea and the sky-spheres and spaces of Heaven have we travelled,
Seeking for Thee.
Lest of Thee,
Lord, we should be
More and yet more with the gathering ages forsaken,
Lest, of the fast-falling darkness, our eyes, overtaken,
Night but should see.
Nay, all the ways of the world-jungle have we but furrowed,
All through the earth and its gloom-guarded bowels have burrowed,
Mastered the sea,
Tracked all the deserts and drunk at their far-flowing fountains,
Ploughed through the snow-wastes and measured the Heaven-scaling mountains,
But on this plea;
But of desire for Thy face the star-secrets unravelled,
Yea and the sky-spheres and spaces of Heaven have we travelled,
Seeking for Thee.
Can it be, Lord, that Thou art after all but a miser,
Better nor wiser
Than those of old date?
Set is Thy soul, as was theirs, all Life's harvest on reaping?
All that is fruitful and fair art Thou bent on upheaping
Still in Thy gate?
Art Thou, as Jove of old time, but a God of denying,
Letting thy creatures, in vain, with their craving and crying,
Beat at Heaven's grate?
Hast Thou no soul for their striving, no heart for their yearning,
Still a deaf ear to the sound of their sufferance turning,
Early and late?
Art Thou but careful to hinder Thy handiwork's striving,
Hold back men's outstretching arms at Thy throne from arriving,
Wouldst but with Fate
Fetter the child, hand that lifteth to lay hold on Heaven,
Looking to grapple and get him the lamps of the Seven
Archangels great?
Better nor wiser
Than those of old date?
Set is Thy soul, as was theirs, all Life's harvest on reaping?
All that is fruitful and fair art Thou bent on upheaping
Still in Thy gate?
Art Thou, as Jove of old time, but a God of denying,
Letting thy creatures, in vain, with their craving and crying,
Beat at Heaven's grate?
Hast Thou no soul for their striving, no heart for their yearning,
Still a deaf ear to the sound of their sufferance turning,
Early and late?
Art Thou but careful to hinder Thy handiwork's striving,
Hold back men's outstretching arms at Thy throne from arriving,
Wouldst but with Fate
Fetter the child, hand that lifteth to lay hold on Heaven,
Looking to grapple and get him the lamps of the Seven
Archangels great?
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Nay, I believe it not! Not on this guise art Thou.
Holy and wise art Thou,
Gracious and pure.
Hadst Thou a God of such sort been as those of old story,
Brute Will incarnate, Thy power had long passed and Thy glory
Might not endure.
Nay, not in rancour nor jealousy hid'st Thou Thy features,
Though, with Thy wrath-clouds, 'twould seem, Thou the world to Thy creatures
Makest obscure;
Nor, like Zeus, liest await in Olympian defences,
Men from their Heaven-seeking flight with the snare of the senses
Looking to lure.
Thou from our striving aloof hast but held, as a father
Letteth his children vain hopes by experience rather
Learn to abjure.
Like him, Thy care to Time trusts, not coercion, for showing
How idle lore is, how futile ambition, as knowing
Better, for sure,
Were it to suffer Thy child for himself, by endeavour,
Prove how inapt are the toys, which he cherishes, ever
Peace to procure,
Leave him alone to discover how vain is thought-taking
And from his heaven-scaling dreams to reality waking,
Work his own cure.
Holy and wise art Thou,
Gracious and pure.
Hadst Thou a God of such sort been as those of old story,
Brute Will incarnate, Thy power had long passed and Thy glory
Might not endure.
Nay, not in rancour nor jealousy hid'st Thou Thy features,
Though, with Thy wrath-clouds, 'twould seem, Thou the world to Thy creatures
Makest obscure;
Nor, like Zeus, liest await in Olympian defences,
Men from their Heaven-seeking flight with the snare of the senses
Looking to lure.
Thou from our striving aloof hast but held, as a father
Letteth his children vain hopes by experience rather
Learn to abjure.
Like him, Thy care to Time trusts, not coercion, for showing
How idle lore is, how futile ambition, as knowing
Better, for sure,
Were it to suffer Thy child for himself, by endeavour,
Prove how inapt are the toys, which he cherishes, ever
Peace to procure,
Leave him alone to discover how vain is thought-taking
And from his heaven-scaling dreams to reality waking,
Work his own cure.
So, when Time humbleness taught hath us,
Brought hath us
Wisdom and grace,
When, in our hearts, what he teacheth us,
Preacheth us,
Pride shall efface,
When, our void hopes and our visions fantastic forswearing,
Us at Thy feet shall we, Lord, of Life's frenzy despairing,
Cast and abase,
All that we sought have and followed for folly confessing,
Looking for nought but to find us at last, in Thy blessing,
Shelter and place,
Then shalt Thou shine on us,
Mild and Divine, on us
Bending Thy face;
Then shall Thine arms everlasting enfold us, enwinding,
Then shall we nestle again in Thy bosom, rest finding
In Thine embrace;
Then shall Thy mercies o'erflood us, within and without us,
Shedding, — or e'er we go back to the darkness, — about us
Peace for a space.
Brought hath us
Wisdom and grace,
When, in our hearts, what he teacheth us,
Preacheth us,
Pride shall efface,
When, our void hopes and our visions fantastic forswearing,
Us at Thy feet shall we, Lord, of Life's frenzy despairing,
Cast and abase,
All that we sought have and followed for folly confessing,
Looking for nought but to find us at last, in Thy blessing,
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Then shalt Thou shine on us,
Mild and Divine, on us
Bending Thy face;
Then shall Thine arms everlasting enfold us, enwinding,
Then shall we nestle again in Thy bosom, rest finding
In Thine embrace;
Then shall Thy mercies o'erflood us, within and without us,
Shedding, — or e'er we go back to the darkness, — about us
Peace for a space.
THE TWO GATES.
Happy, belike, is he
Who, having, end to end, explored Thought's trackless sea,
Returneth back again to Ignorance's shore
And settling 'midst his kin, the folk that never think,
The endless quest gives o'er
And leaves the sounding of the obscure To-Be
To those who have not stood on Time's abysmal brink.
Who, having, end to end, explored Thought's trackless sea,
Returneth back again to Ignorance's shore
And settling 'midst his kin, the folk that never think,
The endless quest gives o'er
And leaves the sounding of the obscure To-Be
To those who have not stood on Time's abysmal brink.
At Being's either pole
A bare blank wall there is, that bars the exploring soul.
Here is the Gate of Birth; the Gate of Death is there;
Though whether Birth is Death or Death is Birth, who knows?
No sign there is of stair
By which our feet may reach the eternal goal;
And still 'twixt gate and gate Life's sea resurgent flows.
A bare blank wall there is, that bars the exploring soul.
Here is the Gate of Birth; the Gate of Death is there;
Though whether Birth is Death or Death is Birth, who knows?
No sign there is of stair
By which our feet may reach the eternal goal;
And still 'twixt gate and gate Life's sea resurgent flows.
Yet, none by other's fate
Admonished, still men fare, seeking, from gate to gate,
The secret of the things that are beyond the abyss,
The keys of Life and Death expecting still to find,
Though whether that or this
They know not nor the terms can calculate
Of spheres that lie beyond the orbit of the mind.
Admonished, still men fare, seeking, from gate to gate,
The secret of the things that are beyond the abyss,
The keys of Life and Death expecting still to find,
Though whether that or this
They know not nor the terms can calculate
Of spheres that lie beyond the orbit of the mind.
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This being so, God wot,
Were it not well, — if not contented with our lot
To sit, — to cease, at least, against the eternal rocks
Our brows fore'er to bruise and spend our strength in quest
Of keys to unknown locks,
To ask no more of what for us is not
And take what here alone on earth is certain, — rest?
Were it not well, — if not contented with our lot
To sit, — to cease, at least, against the eternal rocks
Our brows fore'er to bruise and spend our strength in quest
Of keys to unknown locks,
To ask no more of what for us is not
And take what here alone on earth is certain, — rest?
Nay, that, indeed, might be,
If moulded of mere flesh and blood alone were we.
Alack, within our veins an unknown ichor runs;
An other-worldly stress there stirreth in our brain;
Our dreams by other suns
Are lit; our thoughts, upon another sea
Than those of this our earth, to other spheres outstrain.
If moulded of mere flesh and blood alone were we.
Alack, within our veins an unknown ichor runs;
An other-worldly stress there stirreth in our brain;
Our dreams by other suns
Are lit; our thoughts, upon another sea
Than those of this our earth, to other spheres outstrain.
So, though the endeavour all
In vain we know, the stern, the inevitable call
Of those invisible powers, to which akin we are,
Still biddeth us go beat against the cliff-line sheer,
Till, when the fatal star
Ordains, a passage gape in either wall
(We know not which) and we pass in and disappear.
In vain we know, the stern, the inevitable call
Of those invisible powers, to which akin we are,
Still biddeth us go beat against the cliff-line sheer,
Till, when the fatal star
Ordains, a passage gape in either wall
(We know not which) and we pass in and disappear.
THE FASHION OF THIS WORLD.
Life hath lost its savour;
Soul is grown a slave.
Who from Wont the Slaver,
Who is there shall save?
Soul is grown a slave.
Who from Wont the Slaver,
Who is there shall save?
When shall Time's impress on
Thought to harvest turn?
When shall men the lesson
Of the ages learn?
Thought to harvest turn?
When shall men the lesson
Of the ages learn?
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When, from out the pages
Of the kings of thought,
Practise that which sages,
Prophets, poets taught?
Of the kings of thought,
Practise that which sages,
Prophets, poets taught?
When shall they, the vainness
Knowing of the quest,
Leave Life's long insaneness,
Turn their eyes to rest?
Knowing of the quest,
Leave Life's long insaneness,
Turn their eyes to rest?
Free from fruitless striving
Set the hands and feet,
Cease from heaping, hiving
Honey none shall eat?
Set the hands and feet,
Cease from heaping, hiving
Honey none shall eat?
Leave the long endeavour
After Gods without?
(Idle hoping ever
Brought despair and doubt.)
After Gods without?
(Idle hoping ever
Brought despair and doubt.)
Cast the toys of Science
To their native wind,
Call the old affiance
Back, the quiet mind?
To their native wind,
Call the old affiance
Back, the quiet mind?
Truce to pride and passion,
Strife and sorrow, say,
For the waste world's fashion,
Let it pass away?
Strife and sorrow, say,
For the waste world's fashion,
Let it pass away?
Leave the loveless asking
Of the How and Why,
In the sunbeams basking,
Live before they die?
Of the How and Why,
In the sunbeams basking,
Live before they die?
260
Shall I see it? Never!
Worlds must wax and wane
Ere the world's endeavour
Turn to truth again;
Worlds must wax and wane
Ere the world's endeavour
Turn to truth again;
Ere, from Darkness' grudges
'Gainst the Light, men, free,
Cease to be the drudges
Of the Will-to-be;
'Gainst the Light, men, free,
Cease to be the drudges
Of the Will-to-be;
Ere the stress of seeking,
Still with vain conceit
Out their void lives eking,
Loose their labouring feet;
Still with vain conceit
Out their void lives eking,
Loose their labouring feet;
Ere desire forsake them
After vain increase,
Ere from greed they cease,
Seeking but to make them,
Ere the darkness take them,
Just a pause of peace.
After vain increase,
Ere from greed they cease,
Seeking but to make them,
Ere the darkness take them,
Just a pause of peace.
NATURE AND HER LOVER.
Friendly and faithful is Nature, the one thing, indeed, that deceiveth not.
Him with a whole heart who loveth her still without solace she leaveth not:
Whoso hath faith in her favour, whatever befall him, he grieveth not.
Him with a whole heart who loveth her still without solace she leaveth not:
Whoso hath faith in her favour, whatever befall him, he grieveth not.
Though the whole orb of existence turn all his days its dark side to him;
Though all men value, wealth, worship, friendship, love, peace, be denied to him,
Though, like a waste without water, desert and lonely Life bide to him,
Though all men value, wealth, worship, friendship, love, peace, be denied to him,
Though, like a waste without water, desert and lonely Life bide to him,
261
Yet hath he Nature to lead him and lighten his path purgatorious;
Yet with her changes and chances she cheers him, the Mother Laborious;
Yet with sweet Summer she renders his days and his nights glad and glorious;
Yet with her changes and chances she cheers him, the Mother Laborious;
Yet with sweet Summer she renders his days and his nights glad and glorious;
Yet her weird wonder of Winter in peacefulness snowcalm enwinds him;
Yet her soft sadness of Autumn of Death the Deliverer minds him;
Yet, with its annual atonement, her Spring from thought's fetters unbinds him;
Yet her soft sadness of Autumn of Death the Deliverer minds him;
Yet, with its annual atonement, her Spring from thought's fetters unbinds him;
Yet, to enlighten his loneness, the webs of her sunsets are weft for him;
Yet, his sad spirit to quicken, her quiet of midnight is left for him;
Yet, with her marvel of morning, the dream of the darkness is cleft for him;
Yet, his sad spirit to quicken, her quiet of midnight is left for him;
Yet, with her marvel of morning, the dream of the darkness is cleft for him;
Yet, for his pleasance, her cloud-rack, her skies, with their changes, created are;
Yet, of her grace, his crude fancies in flower-speech and bird-song translated are;
Yet her grass springs for his solace, her trees with new leaf for him freighted are.
Yet, of her grace, his crude fancies in flower-speech and bird-song translated are;
Yet her grass springs for his solace, her trees with new leaf for him freighted are.
Love, ay, and care for her servant wide-writ to his eye on her features are;
Friendly and fain to who loves her, the Mother of Life, all her creatures are;
Blossoms, trees, meadows, skies, mountains, beasts, birds, all his tenders and teachers are.
Friendly and fain to who loves her, the Mother of Life, all her creatures are;
Blossoms, trees, meadows, skies, mountains, beasts, birds, all his tenders and teachers are.
These, that are coy unto others and cold, to him trustful and tender are,
Him for the ádept foreknowing, whose love they birth-bounden to render are:
But for the lover of Nature her secrets, her sweets and her splendour are.
262
But for the lover of Nature her secrets, her sweets and her splendour are.
Holy and helpful is Nature! Who loves her in her an acquitter finds
From the world's needs and its wishes: who trusts in her troth Life less bitter finds
And when the hour of deliverance come is, Death fairer and fitter finds.
From the world's needs and its wishes: who trusts in her troth Life less bitter finds
And when the hour of deliverance come is, Death fairer and fitter finds.
KING OF DREAMS.
“Seems, Madam? Nay, it is. I know not seems.”
Hamlet the Dane,
(So named, but very Englishman ingrain,)
Prince of the principality of dreams,
Lord of the line of those who walk the world in vain,
In action little swift, for wealth of thought,
Still following, through the windings of the brain,
The fancies many-hued,
That spring, at every turn, as 'twere from nought,
And by the sense through all the ways pursued
Of wit, are lost at last in Doubt's immense Inane,
Hamlet the Dane,
(So named, but very Englishman ingrain,)
Prince of the principality of dreams,
Lord of the line of those who walk the world in vain,
In action little swift, for wealth of thought,
Still following, through the windings of the brain,
The fancies many-hued,
That spring, at every turn, as 'twere from nought,
And by the sense through all the ways pursued
Of wit, are lost at last in Doubt's immense Inane,
Sad spirit, born to love and to be loved,
To walk the ways
Of grace and gladness in the sun's full blaze,
Yet by the tyranny of thought removed
Forth of this outdoor world of common nights and days
And doomed forever, far from Love and Light,
To travel lands unblest of brightening rays,
Life's echoes but to hark
Across the immeasurable seas of Night
And in the soleness of the spirit's dark,
To chase conceit and doubt through Fancy's tangling maze,
To walk the ways
Of grace and gladness in the sun's full blaze,
Yet by the tyranny of thought removed
Forth of this outdoor world of common nights and days
And doomed forever, far from Love and Light,
To travel lands unblest of brightening rays,
Life's echoes but to hark
Across the immeasurable seas of Night
And in the soleness of the spirit's dark,
To chase conceit and doubt through Fancy's tangling maze,
263
Thy dreaming word it was, us first that taught,
— Us, who, like thee,
Without delight, content are to be free,
— The inexorable tyranny of Thought:
Thou 'twas that lessonedst us first in that to see,
— Which to the common sense doth only seem,
Seems and is not, — the one reality
And Life, its joy and dole,
Light holding as the fabric of a dream,
The things that pass and happen in the soul
Alone to reckon worth th'account of such as we.
— Us, who, like thee,
Without delight, content are to be free,
— The inexorable tyranny of Thought:
Thou 'twas that lessonedst us first in that to see,
— Which to the common sense doth only seem,
Seems and is not, — the one reality
And Life, its joy and dole,
Light holding as the fabric of a dream,
The things that pass and happen in the soul
Alone to reckon worth th'account of such as we.
One only through the world of consciousness,
From pole to pole,
Led us as thou and so Creation's whole
Begotten showed of Thought's omnipotent stress.
Yet thou 'twas pointedst him the path unto his goal,
Three hundred years ere Schopenhauer came,
The joys and pains that mingle in Life's bowl
Approving void and naught:
Wherefore still highest, Hamlet, stands thy name,
As king for ever of the realms of thought,
Lord of the Land of Dreams and Sovran of the Soul.
From pole to pole,
Led us as thou and so Creation's whole
Begotten showed of Thought's omnipotent stress.
Yet thou 'twas pointedst him the path unto his goal,
Three hundred years ere Schopenhauer came,
The joys and pains that mingle in Life's bowl
Approving void and naught:
Wherefore still highest, Hamlet, stands thy name,
As king for ever of the realms of thought,
Lord of the Land of Dreams and Sovran of the Soul.
NOX GRAVIDA.
[ARABIC]
(The night is pregnant: thou knowest not
what it will bring forth.)
Arab Proverb.
The night's with child,
The Arabs say;
What will the issue be of coming day?
What will the night bring forth?
Soul mine,
The winds are wild,
The Orient heaven grows for nearing morning grey.
East, West, I turn; I scan the horizon South and North;
Hill, sea, heaven, earth,
In fine,
With strained and weary eyne,
I search for presage of forthcoming birth;
In all their dull sad scape of dark and dearth
I seek and see no sign.
The Arabs say;
What will the issue be of coming day?
What will the night bring forth?
Soul mine,
264
The Orient heaven grows for nearing morning grey.
East, West, I turn; I scan the horizon South and North;
Hill, sea, heaven, earth,
In fine,
With strained and weary eyne,
I search for presage of forthcoming birth;
In all their dull sad scape of dark and dearth
I seek and see no sign.
And this our Life,
A darker night
Than ever fell for lack of the sun's sight,
What bears it in its womb?
Who knows
If of its strife
Parturient aught shall come for the unbodied spright
But some amorphous birth of unenlightened gloom?
If, beyond Death,
There blows
The poppy of repose,
Whose scent extinguisheth our mortal breath,
Or that strange flower which Dante's song foresaith,
His Paradisal Rose?
A darker night
Than ever fell for lack of the sun's sight,
What bears it in its womb?
Who knows
If of its strife
Parturient aught shall come for the unbodied spright
But some amorphous birth of unenlightened gloom?
If, beyond Death,
There blows
The poppy of repose,
Whose scent extinguisheth our mortal breath,
Or that strange flower which Dante's song foresaith,
His Paradisal Rose?
RISUS SOLAMEN.
Laughter the lodge is in the wilderness,
Whereto the hermit soul
Withdraws for shelter from Life's labouring stress,
The island-refuge, midmost seas of dole
Standing, wherefrom, poor seaman in distress,
Saved from the wrack, it marks the surges roar and roll.
Whereto the hermit soul
Withdraws for shelter from Life's labouring stress,
The island-refuge, midmost seas of dole
Standing, wherefrom, poor seaman in distress,
Saved from the wrack, it marks the surges roar and roll.
It is the wicket in the wall of doubt,
The open dungeon-grate,
Wherethrough the imprisoned soul the worlds without
Surveys and by its providential gate,
Lets Heaven's air in upon Life's rabble-rout,
Content to laugh to scorn what else it needs must hate.
The open dungeon-grate,
265
Surveys and by its providential gate,
Lets Heaven's air in upon Life's rabble-rout,
Content to laugh to scorn what else it needs must hate.
It is the buckler that the sage employs
Against the fiery shower
Of ills and pains that mar the thinker's joys,
The mail, wherein encased, as in a tower,
He fares, unscathed, through Life's abhorrent noise,
Wroughten of unspiteful scorn and humour's tragic power.
Against the fiery shower
Of ills and pains that mar the thinker's joys,
The mail, wherein encased, as in a tower,
He fares, unscathed, through Life's abhorrent noise,
Wroughten of unspiteful scorn and humour's tragic power.
It is the sword wherewith the wise are fain
To encounter and repel
The insults of the vulgar, the profane,
That else would make the thinker's way a hell,
Might he with scorn not fend Life's ceaseless rain
Of “insults unavenged and unavengeable.”
To encounter and repel
The insults of the vulgar, the profane,
That else would make the thinker's way a hell,
Might he with scorn not fend Life's ceaseless rain
Of “insults unavenged and unavengeable.”
The Ithuriel-spear it is, wherewith he slays
The noisome things which creep,
Toad-like, among Life's blossom-broidered ways,
The spell wherewith he charms his cares to sleep;
Since the high soul, Life's tragic farce that plays,
Must laugh perforce, if tears of blood it will not weep.
The noisome things which creep,
Toad-like, among Life's blossom-broidered ways,
The spell wherewith he charms his cares to sleep;
Since the high soul, Life's tragic farce that plays,
Must laugh perforce, if tears of blood it will not weep.
YOU AND I.
Far away, far away,
In the sun-setting sky,
Past the darkening day,
Past the westering beams,
Far from labour and life,
Far from smile and from sigh,
Far from struggle and strife,
In the bottomless blue,
Where the stars rise and set,
Where the Old is the New,
Where men sleep and forget,
On the shores of the streams,
Where oblivions lie,
We were born, you and I,
In the Island of Dreams.
In the sun-setting sky,
Past the darkening day,
Past the westering beams,
Far from labour and life,
Far from smile and from sigh,
266
In the bottomless blue,
Where the stars rise and set,
Where the Old is the New,
Where men sleep and forget,
On the shores of the streams,
Where oblivions lie,
We were born, you and I,
In the Island of Dreams.
We are exiles, we two,
In this world of the night,
Where the sun is a ghost
And a semblance the light:
We have nothing to do
With its ban and its boast,
With its Gods, though long dead,
That yet darken Heaven's height,
Blot the stars from our sight.
Our least is its most
And our poison its bread:
We are strangers outright
To the wildering wraiths
Of its hope and its dread,
To its phantoms of faiths.
In this world of the night,
Where the sun is a ghost
And a semblance the light:
We have nothing to do
With its ban and its boast,
With its Gods, though long dead,
That yet darken Heaven's height,
Blot the stars from our sight.
Our least is its most
And our poison its bread:
We are strangers outright
To the wildering wraiths
Of its hope and its dread,
To its phantoms of faiths.
Is our exile etern?
Shall we never again
Leave this dungeon of earth,
Where we languish, we twain?
Shall we never return
To the land of our birth?
Will not Death set us free,
Through his portal, the stern,
To the palm-studded plain
And the mere with its girth
Of gold-blossoming lea,
Where the appletrees rain,
In the memoried track,
By the murmuring sea,
You and me, to go back?
Shall we never again
Leave this dungeon of earth,
Where we languish, we twain?
Shall we never return
To the land of our birth?
Will not Death set us free,
Through his portal, the stern,
To the palm-studded plain
And the mere with its girth
Of gold-blossoming lea,
267
In the memoried track,
By the murmuring sea,
You and me, to go back?
Nay, I fear me, too long
Have we dwelt here below.
Night neareth; 'tis late
And Day's taper burns low.
We are weak; Life is strong
And no light in Death's gate
Is to guide us aright,
Nor a bird with its song
Bids us whither to go.
Can our visions elate
Have been blotted outright
By Life's perishing show?
Can it be, we, in truth,
Have forever lost sight
Of the dreams of our youth?
Have we dwelt here below.
Night neareth; 'tis late
And Day's taper burns low.
We are weak; Life is strong
And no light in Death's gate
Is to guide us aright,
Nor a bird with its song
Bids us whither to go.
Can our visions elate
Have been blotted outright
By Life's perishing show?
Can it be, we, in truth,
Have forever lost sight
Of the dreams of our youth?
Alas, our heart's gold
Have we squandered in vain!
We have bartered away
For false pleasure true pain:
Our hopes are grown cold
And our heads fallen grey.
Nay, however we yearn
For our pleasaunce of old,
How our eyes though we strain,
Yet no longer we may
The way thither discern.
Since What Is we were fain
To exchange for What Seems,
We shall never return
To the Island of Dreams.
Have we squandered in vain!
We have bartered away
For false pleasure true pain:
Our hopes are grown cold
And our heads fallen grey.
Nay, however we yearn
For our pleasaunce of old,
How our eyes though we strain,
Yet no longer we may
The way thither discern.
Since What Is we were fain
To exchange for What Seems,
We shall never return
To the Island of Dreams.
268
PACEM APPELLANT.
The peace of God that passeth understanding!
Ah, mocking dream of Paul, that knew no peace,
Still without cease
Hither and thither blown of hope and doubt,
Driven of all winds of doctrine East and West
Upon Thought's troubled ocean, never landing
On any dreamy isle of palms upstanding
Against the sunset, for an hour of rest,
Still of the rabble rout
Of vain surmises tossed the world about!
Alack, what knewest thou
Of peace, sad soul, thyself that never knew'st,
Thou, on whose thought and doubt-bewrinkled brow
That bird of Heaven's sublimest, farthest blue,
That feedeth but on Paradisal dew,
Might never find a place wherein to roost?
Of peace, indeed,
Thou pratedst but as some forwandred wretch,
Dying in the desert, far from human heed,
Under the passion of the pitiless sun,
Where the hot sand-wastes to the horizon stretch,
Wave after wave, and water is there none,
His thirst to stay,
Prates of the purling wellspring 'neath the palms,
All over-rounded with the radiant calms,
The sunset-silences of dying day,
Hidden in some oasis of far away.
What preachest thou to us of peace, o Paul,
Whose strenuous life,
Forever wrecked upon the rocks of strife,
Had for its music but the battle-blare,
The shrilling stridors of the clarion's call,
For whom, enamoured of the storm-thrilled air,
The mellay hot,
The frenzy of the fight was all in all?
Ah, mocking dream of Paul, that knew no peace,
Still without cease
Hither and thither blown of hope and doubt,
Driven of all winds of doctrine East and West
Upon Thought's troubled ocean, never landing
On any dreamy isle of palms upstanding
Against the sunset, for an hour of rest,
Still of the rabble rout
Of vain surmises tossed the world about!
Alack, what knewest thou
Of peace, sad soul, thyself that never knew'st,
Thou, on whose thought and doubt-bewrinkled brow
That bird of Heaven's sublimest, farthest blue,
That feedeth but on Paradisal dew,
Might never find a place wherein to roost?
Of peace, indeed,
Thou pratedst but as some forwandred wretch,
Dying in the desert, far from human heed,
Under the passion of the pitiless sun,
Where the hot sand-wastes to the horizon stretch,
Wave after wave, and water is there none,
His thirst to stay,
Prates of the purling wellspring 'neath the palms,
All over-rounded with the radiant calms,
The sunset-silences of dying day,
Hidden in some oasis of far away.
What preachest thou to us of peace, o Paul,
Whose strenuous life,
Forever wrecked upon the rocks of strife,
Had for its music but the battle-blare,
The shrilling stridors of the clarion's call,
For whom, enamoured of the storm-thrilled air,
269
The frenzy of the fight was all in all?
Thou canst not speak for peace, that knewst it not.
The peace of God! What God had ever peace?
Shall any hold
In his one hand the Past and the To-be,
End and beginning, germ and growth and cease,
Earth, sky and sea,
Evil and good, moon-silver and sun-gold,
The Present and the Future, New and Old,
Dearth and increase,
The springs of life and death and heat and cold,
Summer and Spring and Winter, foul and fair,
The keys of flood and thunder, Day and Night,
The fountains of the darkness and the light,
And yet know peace, that is the lack of care?
Nay, of all Gods that were
Throned of our thought upon the heights of blue,
Since first the world with morn and eve was new
And the high lights of heaven were in the air,
Certes, none farther was from peace than He
Who died for men upon the accurséd tree,
Died in despair,
Forsaken of His high unhearkening Sire,
Fate-foiled and baulked of His divine desire,
In His death-agony
Attesting, in the face of earth and sea
And sky, that quaked for pity of His pain,
Having more ruth upon Him than the Lord
To whom He cried in vain,
That He, the would-be Saviour, came to bring,
Being overmastered of Necessity,
— That power of powers beyond the Gods, — a sword
Upon the sorry suffering sons of men,
A sword, and not that balm
Of peace celestial, everywhere and when,
Through every case ensued of churl and king,
So therewithal their sorrows they may calm
And hush to harmony Life's dissonant psalm.
Shall any hold
In his one hand the Past and the To-be,
End and beginning, germ and growth and cease,
Earth, sky and sea,
Evil and good, moon-silver and sun-gold,
The Present and the Future, New and Old,
Dearth and increase,
The springs of life and death and heat and cold,
Summer and Spring and Winter, foul and fair,
The keys of flood and thunder, Day and Night,
The fountains of the darkness and the light,
And yet know peace, that is the lack of care?
Nay, of all Gods that were
Throned of our thought upon the heights of blue,
Since first the world with morn and eve was new
And the high lights of heaven were in the air,
Certes, none farther was from peace than He
Who died for men upon the accurséd tree,
Died in despair,
Forsaken of His high unhearkening Sire,
Fate-foiled and baulked of His divine desire,
In His death-agony
Attesting, in the face of earth and sea
And sky, that quaked for pity of His pain,
Having more ruth upon Him than the Lord
To whom He cried in vain,
That He, the would-be Saviour, came to bring,
Being overmastered of Necessity,
— That power of powers beyond the Gods, — a sword
Upon the sorry suffering sons of men,
A sword, and not that balm
270
Through every case ensued of churl and king,
So therewithal their sorrows they may calm
And hush to harmony Life's dissonant psalm.
Nay, Thou, the Anointed Son
Of Israel's God, Jehovah's Chosen One,
Thou sweetest soul this earth that ever trod,
Jesus, Thou knewest not the peace of God.
Of Israel's God, Jehovah's Chosen One,
Thou sweetest soul this earth that ever trod,
Jesus, Thou knewest not the peace of God.
The peace of God! Even the Gods of Greece,
Who, as one saith, to whom these songs of mine
Glad homage yield, “were only men and wine,”
Even these, who took Life lightly, had no peace.
Their own ambrosia held
No spell secure against the birds of care
That winged their way up through the Olympian air,
Earth's murmurings, that knelled
Still in their ears, like passing-bells of doom,
Mingling their menace with the hum of prayer
And sacrifice, and stormed the heavenly stair
With auguries of gloom,
Forebodings dull of thunders drawing nigh
And tones prophetic of the times to be,
When Saturn's sons to a new dynasty
Of Gods must yield the empery of the sky.
Light as their yoke and eath
Lay on the earth, amidst the folk beneath,
In town and country, hamlet, hill and holt,
What was there but revolt
And murmur without end and clamouring
Of the dull, thankless human race, the dolt
Blind populace, that Stork to Log for king,
Still as the usance is of foolish man,
Unthinking, have preferred, since Time began?
Nay, in Heaven's self, within
Jove's very sacred courts Olympian,
Variance ran riot and the air august
Was dizzy with the din
Of strife and overshadowed with the dust
Of discord still among the Thunderer's kin.
Or, if the Gods might for a moment drown
The cares of kingship in the ambrosial cup
And laying down
The sceptre, give themselves to revelling up,
The nobler ones whom they begat than they,
The heroes gendered of the Gods whilere,
The burden of the world for them to bear,
In weariness, in sorrow and affray,
The price of their misrule for them must pay.
For that Prometheus to the folk supine,
When the Gods left the world in darkness dire
To cower and pine,
In gloom and cold, brought down the boon of fire,
Needs he, in Caucasus, his sin divine
Must on his mountain-crucifix of stone,
Saviour Primaeval, to all time atone:
And for that Zeus the earth in toil and wrong,
In turmoil aud in woe,
Let of his lightness wallow, Hercules
His hero-soul in travail and unease
By land and sky and sea must fretting go,
The things life-long,
That, being in wrong forefashioned, to the end
In wrongness must persever, still in vain
Endeavouring to amend,
Must wear his life in weariness and pain
And die, at last, despairing, on the pyre,
What while his heavenly sire
Still drowsed and revelled in Olympus hall,
Yet, for all feasting, might not from his ears
Shut out the accusing cries,
That, from earth surging to the sleeping skies,
Shore through his slumbers like a trumpet's call;
Whilst, floating, Fate-borne, from the Future's ways,
The mounting menace of the coming years
Darkened his dream, phantasmal, with dismays.
Who, as one saith, to whom these songs of mine
Glad homage yield, “were only men and wine,”
Even these, who took Life lightly, had no peace.
Their own ambrosia held
No spell secure against the birds of care
That winged their way up through the Olympian air,
Earth's murmurings, that knelled
Still in their ears, like passing-bells of doom,
Mingling their menace with the hum of prayer
And sacrifice, and stormed the heavenly stair
With auguries of gloom,
Forebodings dull of thunders drawing nigh
And tones prophetic of the times to be,
When Saturn's sons to a new dynasty
Of Gods must yield the empery of the sky.
Light as their yoke and eath
Lay on the earth, amidst the folk beneath,
In town and country, hamlet, hill and holt,
What was there but revolt
And murmur without end and clamouring
Of the dull, thankless human race, the dolt
Blind populace, that Stork to Log for king,
Still as the usance is of foolish man,
Unthinking, have preferred, since Time began?
Nay, in Heaven's self, within
Jove's very sacred courts Olympian,
271
Was dizzy with the din
Of strife and overshadowed with the dust
Of discord still among the Thunderer's kin.
Or, if the Gods might for a moment drown
The cares of kingship in the ambrosial cup
And laying down
The sceptre, give themselves to revelling up,
The nobler ones whom they begat than they,
The heroes gendered of the Gods whilere,
The burden of the world for them to bear,
In weariness, in sorrow and affray,
The price of their misrule for them must pay.
For that Prometheus to the folk supine,
When the Gods left the world in darkness dire
To cower and pine,
In gloom and cold, brought down the boon of fire,
Needs he, in Caucasus, his sin divine
Must on his mountain-crucifix of stone,
Saviour Primaeval, to all time atone:
And for that Zeus the earth in toil and wrong,
In turmoil aud in woe,
Let of his lightness wallow, Hercules
His hero-soul in travail and unease
By land and sky and sea must fretting go,
The things life-long,
That, being in wrong forefashioned, to the end
In wrongness must persever, still in vain
Endeavouring to amend,
Must wear his life in weariness and pain
And die, at last, despairing, on the pyre,
What while his heavenly sire
Still drowsed and revelled in Olympus hall,
Yet, for all feasting, might not from his ears
Shut out the accusing cries,
That, from earth surging to the sleeping skies,
Shore through his slumbers like a trumpet's call;
272
The mounting menace of the coming years
Darkened his dream, phantasmal, with dismays.
Nay, in Olympus was no peace at all.
Peace, yet they say, in slumber is. — Alack,
Sleep is a boon
Given and withholden of the Gods at will;
Whereof, beneath the lapses of the moon,
How many sorry souls there be that lack
Nor of its flower-dew flood may drink their fill!
Year in, year out,
How many eyes there be that watch the night,
Enrounded of the shifting shadow-rout,
Crawl through the channels of the dark to day,
Nor close until the phantom dawn, crept back
Along the horizon grey,
Lay on their lids its hand of ghostly white!
How many minions of the moon there be
Who, when she rides, must wake perforce to see
Her pearl-car climbing through the pale cloud-pack!
Nay, if sleep come for calling, now and then,
In answer to our plea,
How many of us miserable men, —
How many? Nay, far rather say, how few
There be, who, falling from its heavenly place,
As it were honeydew,
Feel on their longing lids the granted grace
Of consummated slumber, sweet and true,
Of sleep unstirred, consolatory, deep!
How many, stretched on the tormenting rack
Of tortuous dreams, must, hour-long, night-long, lie
And watch the waste years creep,
Phantasmagoric, o'er the background black,
And all the piteous Past troop trembling by,
To Memory reluctant mirroring
Each fain-forgotten thing,
Each noble purpose, only born to die,
Each golden harvest that Time failed to reap,
Each heaven-high hope of youth by age unwon,
Each bygone deed of shame,
That rends the soul, each righteousness undone,
Against the dazzling dark, in traits of flame,
Painting each dear-belovéd face, each form
Once cherished, now from sight of moon and sun,
From sense of good and evil, cold and warm,
Shut in the grave,
Bidding our loves, that lie beneath the grass,
Before us, one by one,
Resurgent on rememorance's wave,
In pale procession, by the corpse-light, pass,
Till the tired eyes have no more tears to weep
And the racked soul cries out for one to save!
Sleep is a boon
Given and withholden of the Gods at will;
Whereof, beneath the lapses of the moon,
How many sorry souls there be that lack
Nor of its flower-dew flood may drink their fill!
Year in, year out,
How many eyes there be that watch the night,
Enrounded of the shifting shadow-rout,
Crawl through the channels of the dark to day,
Nor close until the phantom dawn, crept back
Along the horizon grey,
Lay on their lids its hand of ghostly white!
How many minions of the moon there be
Who, when she rides, must wake perforce to see
Her pearl-car climbing through the pale cloud-pack!
Nay, if sleep come for calling, now and then,
In answer to our plea,
How many of us miserable men, —
How many? Nay, far rather say, how few
There be, who, falling from its heavenly place,
As it were honeydew,
Feel on their longing lids the granted grace
Of consummated slumber, sweet and true,
Of sleep unstirred, consolatory, deep!
How many, stretched on the tormenting rack
Of tortuous dreams, must, hour-long, night-long, lie
And watch the waste years creep,
Phantasmagoric, o'er the background black,
And all the piteous Past troop trembling by,
To Memory reluctant mirroring
273
Each noble purpose, only born to die,
Each golden harvest that Time failed to reap,
Each heaven-high hope of youth by age unwon,
Each bygone deed of shame,
That rends the soul, each righteousness undone,
Against the dazzling dark, in traits of flame,
Painting each dear-belovéd face, each form
Once cherished, now from sight of moon and sun,
From sense of good and evil, cold and warm,
Shut in the grave,
Bidding our loves, that lie beneath the grass,
Before us, one by one,
Resurgent on rememorance's wave,
In pale procession, by the corpse-light, pass,
Till the tired eyes have no more tears to weep
And the racked soul cries out for one to save!
Alas!
Alas! Thou bringest us scant peace, o Sleep.
Alas! Thou bringest us scant peace, o Sleep.
In coelo quies! Peace in Heaven, they say,
Is.
Is.
Since to any heaven there is no way
Save by the port of death, still open set
To all who draw Life's breath,
Peace, rather might we say, is but in death.
Surely, in death there should be peace!—And yet,
And yet! Shall then this passionate heart forbear
In death itself to follow on Life's fret,
This boiling teeming brain of ours forswear
Its long accustomed ways of thought and care?
Shall memory cease of pleasure and of pain?
Shall Death benumb,
With its sheer thunderstroke of “Be-no-more!”
The passionate pulses of the heart and brain,
So that the life therein, the senses' store,
The throbbing thought, shall all at once fall dumb
Nor memory at the core
Of the slain Self awaken e'er again?
Alack! We scarce can credit that this strife
Of ours is but a dream,
A vision of the night, to end with death,
As those which vanish with the morning's breath
And are forblotted of the auroral beam.
Uneath it is to deem
That this our many-mingling, strenuous life,
Our great and goodly life, that holds the keys
Of lands and skies and seas,
Our life, that seemed immortal as the light
And as invulnerable in its might
To any power and process of decay
As is the golden glory of the day
Or as the silver splendour of the night,
Should ever own Death's sway
And with the passing body pass away.
Impossible, indeed, to us it seems,
Though, dust, to dust
This flesh return and frittered of Time's rust,
Blood, bones, nerves, sinews mingle with the clay,
That through the brain the old imperious dreams
Should cease to roam, that, in the accustomed track,
From earth to Heaven and down to Hell again,
Memory and phantasy no more should strain
Nor forth and back
Fare through the skies and past the starry plain.
We cannot deem that man that sleep of death,
Wherein remembrance no more entereth,
Should ever sleep or know the blesséd cease
Of torturing thought, that seldom left him here
An hour of calm.
Save by the port of death, still open set
To all who draw Life's breath,
Peace, rather might we say, is but in death.
Surely, in death there should be peace!—And yet,
And yet! Shall then this passionate heart forbear
In death itself to follow on Life's fret,
This boiling teeming brain of ours forswear
Its long accustomed ways of thought and care?
Shall memory cease of pleasure and of pain?
Shall Death benumb,
With its sheer thunderstroke of “Be-no-more!”
The passionate pulses of the heart and brain,
So that the life therein, the senses' store,
274
Nor memory at the core
Of the slain Self awaken e'er again?
Alack! We scarce can credit that this strife
Of ours is but a dream,
A vision of the night, to end with death,
As those which vanish with the morning's breath
And are forblotted of the auroral beam.
Uneath it is to deem
That this our many-mingling, strenuous life,
Our great and goodly life, that holds the keys
Of lands and skies and seas,
Our life, that seemed immortal as the light
And as invulnerable in its might
To any power and process of decay
As is the golden glory of the day
Or as the silver splendour of the night,
Should ever own Death's sway
And with the passing body pass away.
Impossible, indeed, to us it seems,
Though, dust, to dust
This flesh return and frittered of Time's rust,
Blood, bones, nerves, sinews mingle with the clay,
That through the brain the old imperious dreams
Should cease to roam, that, in the accustomed track,
From earth to Heaven and down to Hell again,
Memory and phantasy no more should strain
Nor forth and back
Fare through the skies and past the starry plain.
We cannot deem that man that sleep of death,
Wherein remembrance no more entereth,
Should ever sleep or know the blesséd cease
Of torturing thought, that seldom left him here
An hour of calm.
We know not and we fear.
Yet, peradventure, room there were for hope;
Since to the darkling sphere
Of Death's all-puissance who a bound shall set?
Who with His all-permuting might shall cope,
Saying, “Thou shalt fare no farther?”
275
Of Death's all-puissance who a bound shall set?
Who with His all-permuting might shall cope,
Saying, “Thou shalt fare no farther?”
Nay, He yet,
Belike, of His omnipotence, some spell
May hold in store,
Such as can even thought to cease compel
And charm the sense in slumber evermore;
So, in the ultimate darkness, past the scope
Of Time and Space, deliverance and release
From all Life's travail seeking, when we grope,
God willing, we may yet at last find peace.
Belike, of His omnipotence, some spell
May hold in store,
Such as can even thought to cease compel
And charm the sense in slumber evermore;
So, in the ultimate darkness, past the scope
Of Time and Space, deliverance and release
From all Life's travail seeking, when we grope,
God willing, we may yet at last find peace.
THE BREAD OF LIFE.
Nothing under Heaven,
In this world-all watered by the planets seven,
Is unblent with pain.
Even as hail and thunder, snow and frost and rain
Ear the earth and fit it flowers to bear and grain,
So the fierce Fates mould us in the mills of strife;
So the barm of Sorrow, with its bitter leaven,
Bears the bread of Life.
In this world-all watered by the planets seven,
Is unblent with pain.
Even as hail and thunder, snow and frost and rain
Ear the earth and fit it flowers to bear and grain,
So the fierce Fates mould us in the mills of strife;
So the barm of Sorrow, with its bitter leaven,
Bears the bread of Life.
Truth its best bloom, beauty,
Seldom shows for seeking: “Allah's,” says Siyouti,
“Is a rugged road.”
Deep the plough of patience, ere the seed be strowed,
Long must labour's harrow score the earth, when sowed,
Winter, Spring and Summer o'er it come and go,
Long the sheaves must ripen in the sun of duty,
Ere the harvest show.
Seldom shows for seeking: “Allah's,” says Siyouti,
“Is a rugged road.”
Deep the plough of patience, ere the seed be strowed,
276
Winter, Spring and Summer o'er it come and go,
Long the sheaves must ripen in the sun of duty,
Ere the harvest show.
Winds of woe must sunder
From the chaff the corn out; stress's mill-stones under,
Ground must be the grain,
Bolted by experience from the husk unsane,
With the yeast of yearning and the salt of pain
Blended and by Fortune kneaded, ill and good,
Ere from out Life's ovens come the bread of wonder,
For the spirit's food.
From the chaff the corn out; stress's mill-stones under,
Ground must be the grain,
Bolted by experience from the husk unsane,
With the yeast of yearning and the salt of pain
Blended and by Fortune kneaded, ill and good,
Ere from out Life's ovens come the bread of wonder,
For the spirit's food.
Hafiz es Siyouti, a famous Egyptian theologian and traditionist of the fifteenth century. If we may trust to contemporary report, He seems to have himself troubled the “rugged road” in question but little, having, rightly or wrongly, borne the reputation of being a reveller.
TENEBRÆ.
In the dark, my soul, thou goest groping,
Helpless hands forthstretching, fearing, hoping,
Eyes unseeing, ears unhearing oping.
Helpless hands forthstretching, fearing, hoping,
Eyes unseeing, ears unhearing oping.
What are these that waver round about me,
These of whom I fain am, yet misdoubt me?
Is the darkness in me or without me?
These of whom I fain am, yet misdoubt me?
Is the darkness in me or without me?
Shadow-hands out-holden are to greet me;
Shadow-eyes from out the shadow meet me;
Shadow-pinions pass and overfleet me.
Shadow-eyes from out the shadow meet me;
Shadow-pinions pass and overfleet me.
Nay, I know you. You my youthful years are,
Years of manhood, years of hopes and fears are,
You my memories of smiles and tears are.
Years of manhood, years of hopes and fears are,
You my memories of smiles and tears are.
You, that now are but a phosphorescence
Of the darkness, once a real presence
Had and walked with me in pain and pleasance.
Of the darkness, once a real presence
Had and walked with me in pain and pleasance.
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Once your radiance all my road enlightened;
Once your presence all my pleasures heightened;
Once your faces all my fancies brightened.
Once your presence all my pleasures heightened;
Once your faces all my fancies brightened.
Kinsfolk once to me from fair and far lands
Seemed you, from the high celestial star-lands
Coming to me, hands fulfilled of garlands,
Seemed you, from the high celestial star-lands
Coming to me, hands fulfilled of garlands,
Gladdening me with many mystic stories
Of the lands beyond the sunset-glories,
Of the realms whereunto Death the door is,
Of the lands beyond the sunset-glories,
Of the realms whereunto Death the door is,
Strains of spirit-music to me bringing,
Snatches of the stars' and seraphs' singing,
Echoes of the bells of Heaven's ringing,
Snatches of the stars' and seraphs' singing,
Echoes of the bells of Heaven's ringing,
Paradisal plains to me portraying,
From the angels' stores my spirit straying
'Gainst Earth's weakness with Heaven's honey staying.
From the angels' stores my spirit straying
'Gainst Earth's weakness with Heaven's honey staying.
Now myself in you I see and hearken;
Now your voices but the silence starken
Round me and your eyes the darkness darken.
Now your voices but the silence starken
Round me and your eyes the darkness darken.
Now I see that you no visitations
From high Heav'n were, only emanations
From my self, in all its incarnations.
From high Heav'n were, only emanations
From my self, in all its incarnations.
As mine eyes grow dim, the spent fires smoulder
Out in yours; and as my blood grows colder,
Cold you grow, and old, as I grow older.
Out in yours; and as my blood grows colder,
Cold you grow, and old, as I grow older.
Now I see that you with dreams but plied me,
Youth and manhood past, to age to guide me,
Blind and deaf to all that might betide me;
Youth and manhood past, to age to guide me,
Blind and deaf to all that might betide me;
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That, mine eyes when you with visions blinded,
When your elfhorns in mine ears you winded,
Deaf to Life them making, you but minded
When your elfhorns in mine ears you winded,
Deaf to Life them making, you but minded
Were to hinder me Life's void from knowing
And its burden off untimely throwing,
Ere the season come was for my going.
And its burden off untimely throwing,
Ere the season come was for my going.
Tools therein you were of Nature, caring
Only lest her creature should, despairing,
Cease, before his term, her chains from wearing.
Only lest her creature should, despairing,
Cease, before his term, her chains from wearing.
Now, your aim attained, you cease from seeming,
Care no more to colour this my dreaming
With your radiant hues, your glories gleaming.
Care no more to colour this my dreaming
With your radiant hues, your glories gleaming.
Now the gathering years in gloom have drowned me,
In your shadow-shapes you hover round me,
At the chains, wherewith of old you bound me,
In your shadow-shapes you hover round me,
At the chains, wherewith of old you bound me,
Straining ever, signing me to follow
Where, within his vasty caverns hollow
Hid, the Sovran Shadow waits to swallow
Where, within his vasty caverns hollow
Hid, the Sovran Shadow waits to swallow
All the tale of Time and all Life's reaping,
Shadow up on shadow ever heaping,
Till all Life is in his shadow-keeping.
Shadow up on shadow ever heaping,
Till all Life is in his shadow-keeping.
Nay, I know the way. No need to show it!
Lead, I follow. It is time, I know it:
Needs Death's debit must they pay that owe it.
Lead, I follow. It is time, I know it:
Needs Death's debit must they pay that owe it.
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DREAM AND DAWN.
A voice, in a dream,
At the noon of the winter night I heard,
When the world was agleam
With the wildering white
Of the moon
And never a bird
On the wing
Or a thing
There was to be seen
In the night,
But the sheen
Of the pale phantasmal light
On the shimmering snow.
A silence there was as of death,
And nothing, no voice and no breath,
There stirred,
Save the crack of the frost-taken trees
And the ebb and the flow
Of the fluttering breeze,
As it eddied and erred
To and fro
On the face of the wold,
In the track of the conquering cold.
No sign and no sound
On the glimmering ground,
No stir in the wide-woven haze
Of the moon-mist, the world-all that wound
In the weft of its argent rays,
No pipe of a passer-by,
No fall of a foot on the ways,
No song of a bird in the sky.
At the noon of the winter night I heard,
When the world was agleam
With the wildering white
Of the moon
And never a bird
On the wing
Or a thing
There was to be seen
In the night,
But the sheen
Of the pale phantasmal light
On the shimmering snow.
A silence there was as of death,
And nothing, no voice and no breath,
There stirred,
Save the crack of the frost-taken trees
And the ebb and the flow
Of the fluttering breeze,
As it eddied and erred
To and fro
On the face of the wold,
In the track of the conquering cold.
No sign and no sound
On the glimmering ground,
No stir in the wide-woven haze
Of the moon-mist, the world-all that wound
In the weft of its argent rays,
No pipe of a passer-by,
No fall of a foot on the ways,
No song of a bird in the sky.
It spoke of the things which were
And the things which are to be;
It told of the thickening air
And the mists of sorrow and care,
That gathered o'er land and sea;
It spoke of the world's despair
And the gloom that, day by day,
The face of the heavens o'ergrew,
Straitening the steadfast blue;
It murmured of life grown grey
And darkened with doubt and strife,
Of thought fear-fettered and song that goes,
Fighting its way through a host of foes,
Seeking a sunnier clime:
And shrill as the wail of the wind it rose,
As it told
Of the fast-coming time,
The time when the world shall have fallen old
And the peoples, cumbered with care and gold,
No heaven left them tow'rd which to climb,
Shall wallow, unholpen, in night and cold
And find no foster, no hand to hold,
No saviour to further them forth of the slime.
And the things which are to be;
280
And the mists of sorrow and care,
That gathered o'er land and sea;
It spoke of the world's despair
And the gloom that, day by day,
The face of the heavens o'ergrew,
Straitening the steadfast blue;
It murmured of life grown grey
And darkened with doubt and strife,
Of thought fear-fettered and song that goes,
Fighting its way through a host of foes,
Seeking a sunnier clime:
And shrill as the wail of the wind it rose,
As it told
Of the fast-coming time,
The time when the world shall have fallen old
And the peoples, cumbered with care and gold,
No heaven left them tow'rd which to climb,
Shall wallow, unholpen, in night and cold
And find no foster, no hand to hold,
No saviour to further them forth of the slime.
“Yet, yet is it time,” it said:
“Yet, yet may the curse be awried;
Yet, yet may the folk, if they turn aside
From the track that tends to the pit of hell
And the path of the place of dread,
Yet, yet may they see the morning tide
And the world awake from the dead.
Yet, yet, if they wend from the wildering quest
Of shame successful and gain undue,
Base strife forswearing and greed unblest,
Unfruitful vantage and vain increase,
And turn them again to the Fair and the True,
Content hereafter with love and peace,
Reborn shall Life be and bloom anew:
The world shall be quit of curst unrest,
Of riches and poverty:
No more shall the folk from East to West,
The rich and the poor, the strong and the weak,
For void and vanity still contest
And strive by land and sea.
No need thenceforward for Heaven to seek
Past the towering clouds and the mountain-peak;
For Heaven on earth will be.”
The things that it spoke I cried aloud
“Yet, yet may the curse be awried;
Yet, yet may the folk, if they turn aside
From the track that tends to the pit of hell
And the path of the place of dread,
Yet, yet may they see the morning tide
And the world awake from the dead.
Yet, yet, if they wend from the wildering quest
Of shame successful and gain undue,
Base strife forswearing and greed unblest,
Unfruitful vantage and vain increase,
And turn them again to the Fair and the True,
Content hereafter with love and peace,
Reborn shall Life be and bloom anew:
The world shall be quit of curst unrest,
281
No more shall the folk from East to West,
The rich and the poor, the strong and the weak,
For void and vanity still contest
And strive by land and sea.
No need thenceforward for Heaven to seek
Past the towering clouds and the mountain-peak;
For Heaven on earth will be.”
To the easeful few and the toiling crowd,
To all men, far and near;
In the night and the noon and the morning-tide,
The tale in season and out I cried,
For all the world to hear.
I sang my loudest; but no one hearkened;
None heeded, low or high:
Not a word, not a sigh,
Not a sign, made reply
To the stress of my song-straitened soul.
But dayward and nightward, from pole to pole,
The silence deepened, the shadows darkened,
Till sad as the winter night was the summer day,
And Life went staggering still on its lightless way.
The days and the weeks and the years went by,
In gloom and silence, and nothing came,
No voice of thunder, no hand of flame,
To lighten the lowering sky:
But still Hate ruled in the world and Greed
And still men battled for more than need
Nor reckoned of aught but their aimless aim
282
The ages came and the ages went;
And still no sign for the eyes attent
There showed of coming change.
Till sudden it seemed as if Life listened
And far in the East, through the cloud-rack rent,
A glimmer of morning grew and glistened.
The darkness flowered o'er the Orient range
With a blossom of daybreak sweet and strange;
And deep in the heart of the distance grey,
There spoke from the mountains the trumpets of morrowing Day.
The black cloud-canopy burst in sunder;
The blue awoke with a blaze of wonder;
And lo, of the echoes volleyed and hurled
From pole to zenith in peals of thunder,
The voice of my dream was the voice of the wakening world.
ETERNAL QUESTION.
Since you are dead,
My queen,
And dead with you
Are all the gracious things
You used to do,
The lovesome sweetnesses you looked and said,
The tender thoughts that harboured in your head,
Dead as the Summers past, the bygone Springs,
Dead as the blossomtides of heretofore,
As that which once hath been
And is to all eternity no more,
How comes it that the throstle yonder sings,
That in the woods the primroses are new,
The cowslips in the green
Pale golden glitter even as of yore
And are yet trinketed with diamond dew,
That, in their primal sheen,
Unmindful of your life, my love forsped,
The seasons wear the livery erst they wore,
That roses yet are red,
That jessamines are white and Heaven is blue?
My queen,
And dead with you
Are all the gracious things
You used to do,
The lovesome sweetnesses you looked and said,
The tender thoughts that harboured in your head,
Dead as the Summers past, the bygone Springs,
Dead as the blossomtides of heretofore,
As that which once hath been
And is to all eternity no more,
How comes it that the throstle yonder sings,
That in the woods the primroses are new,
The cowslips in the green
Pale golden glitter even as of yore
And are yet trinketed with diamond dew,
That, in their primal sheen,
283
The seasons wear the livery erst they wore,
That roses yet are red,
That jessamines are white and Heaven is blue?
With eyes unsure for tears,
I look upon the linden's golden cloud,
She loved so, when in May
It leafed and laughed and blossomed, myriad-boughed.
This year forlorn, as in the happy years,
It buds and blows and brims the blissful day
With breath of Faërie,
Telling in scent its tale of things bygone
And things that yet shall be
In elfin realms, where mortal hopes and fears
Are not and thought is free
From Time, nor Life by mortal night and dawn
Strait-measured goes beneath the blossomed bough.
I look upon the linden's golden cloud,
She loved so, when in May
It leafed and laughed and blossomed, myriad-boughed.
This year forlorn, as in the happy years,
It buds and blows and brims the blissful day
With breath of Faërie,
Telling in scent its tale of things bygone
And things that yet shall be
In elfin realms, where mortal hopes and fears
Are not and thought is free
From Time, nor Life by mortal night and dawn
Strait-measured goes beneath the blossomed bough.
Back from Spring's golden Now
Unto the golden Then, when life was love,
I look, from earth a-bloom to Heaven above
A-flower with sun and song:
Idly I look and marvel idly how
These all, that owe their life to thought, can be,
Can thus that life prolong,
Resurgent still anew,
Can sleep and wake again and have new birth,
Once Winter's death is o'er and fields are free,
Beneath the unclouded blue,
When she, who thought them into life for me,
Death's gate unto the Silent Land passed through,
Forever lifeless lies
And sleeps beneath the all-engrossing earth,
Thoughtless and senseless, knowing dark nor light,
In unawakening night,
Where nothing is but nothing, nothing sure,
To all eternity,
But Death the pale and pure,
God of the deafened ears and darkened eyes,
And we,
Who lived but in her life, must needs endure
Blank earth without her presence and blank skies.
Unto the golden Then, when life was love,
I look, from earth a-bloom to Heaven above
A-flower with sun and song:
Idly I look and marvel idly how
These all, that owe their life to thought, can be,
Can thus that life prolong,
Resurgent still anew,
Can sleep and wake again and have new birth,
Once Winter's death is o'er and fields are free,
Beneath the unclouded blue,
When she, who thought them into life for me,
Death's gate unto the Silent Land passed through,
Forever lifeless lies
And sleeps beneath the all-engrossing earth,
Thoughtless and senseless, knowing dark nor light,
In unawakening night,
Where nothing is but nothing, nothing sure,
284
But Death the pale and pure,
God of the deafened ears and darkened eyes,
And we,
Who lived but in her life, must needs endure
Blank earth without her presence and blank skies.
Ah, piteous problem! Since Death first began
With the voracious earth
All that is precious in the eyes of man,
All that is most of worth,
All that is fair, for evermore to cover,
Nor might, for any questioning, discover
That which he would withal nor how his ban
Had root in cause, how many and many a lover,
His ripening harvest smitten of death with dearth,
Hath with his sorry thought
Wrestled and striven in vain and vainly sought
To solve the sad enigma of his woe,
His hopes first nursed by Nature into flower,
As 'twere in very wantonness, one hour,
And in the next, as idly, evenso
To nothingness inexorable brought!
How many have the answer striven to know
And found it but in blank unanswering Nought!
With the voracious earth
All that is precious in the eyes of man,
All that is most of worth,
All that is fair, for evermore to cover,
Nor might, for any questioning, discover
That which he would withal nor how his ban
Had root in cause, how many and many a lover,
His ripening harvest smitten of death with dearth,
Hath with his sorry thought
Wrestled and striven in vain and vainly sought
To solve the sad enigma of his woe,
His hopes first nursed by Nature into flower,
As 'twere in very wantonness, one hour,
And in the next, as idly, evenso
To nothingness inexorable brought!
How many have the answer striven to know
And found it but in blank unanswering Nought!
Yet in their unreturning track I go,
Down-trodden of the many-mingling feet
Of myriad generations, fool and sage,
And to the irresponsive heavens repeat
The idle question of so many an age.
Nay, silence, trifler! Hide thy foolish head.
Best were it mute
To be, when speech in nothing profiteth
And thought-taking still barren is of fruit.
The Summer passeth; see, the vines are red
And Autumn's mist the coming frosts foresaith.
Nay, lesson take
By Nature and that grief,
For which no mortal ever found relief,
For very decency and manhood's sake,
Cover, as doth she, with green and golden leaf.
What booteth it complain, when all is said,
Or seek to awake
The unexistent Gods with prayerful breath?
Peace! 'Tis in vain to question of the dead;
And peace in presence meetest is of death.
Down-trodden of the many-mingling feet
Of myriad generations, fool and sage,
And to the irresponsive heavens repeat
The idle question of so many an age.
Nay, silence, trifler! Hide thy foolish head.
Best were it mute
To be, when speech in nothing profiteth
And thought-taking still barren is of fruit.
The Summer passeth; see, the vines are red
And Autumn's mist the coming frosts foresaith.
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By Nature and that grief,
For which no mortal ever found relief,
For very decency and manhood's sake,
Cover, as doth she, with green and golden leaf.
What booteth it complain, when all is said,
Or seek to awake
The unexistent Gods with prayerful breath?
Peace! 'Tis in vain to question of the dead;
And peace in presence meetest is of death.
SAT ME LUSISTIS.
1.
Oft, in the wailing weather.
Before the dawning grey,
I hear a dream-voice calling
From regions far away:
“Yonder,” I hear it say,
“The sapphire seas are falling,
“All through the golden day,
“Upon the silver shore.
“Let us go thither, thither.
“There will we dwell together
“And sunder nevermore.
Before the dawning grey,
I hear a dream-voice calling
From regions far away:
“Yonder,” I hear it say,
“The sapphire seas are falling,
“All through the golden day,
“Upon the silver shore.
“Let us go thither, thither.
“There will we dwell together
“And sunder nevermore.
“Far, far beyond the setting,
“A land of love there lies,
“Where there shall no more weeping
“Be for the weary eyes;
“Where, under bluebell skies,
“Frail blooms of Faith's begetting,
“Thy dreams, not dead, but sleeping,
“Transfigured shall arise,
“To greet thee on the strand;
“There Love and Life, forgetting
“This world of fruitless fretting,
“Go ever hand in hand.”
“A land of love there lies,
“Where there shall no more weeping
“Be for the weary eyes;
“Where, under bluebell skies,
“Frail blooms of Faith's begetting,
“Thy dreams, not dead, but sleeping,
“Transfigured shall arise,
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“There Love and Life, forgetting
“This world of fruitless fretting,
“Go ever hand in hand.”
2.
Go, tell your cheating story
To those who know you not.
Your wiles no more delude me,
That never have forgot
The deserts cold and hot,
The sandwastes red and gory,
Wherethrough my life you wooed me
To waste in quest of what
You knew might never be.
Now that my head is hoary,
Your seas, your shores of glory
Are nought in nought to me.
To those who know you not.
Your wiles no more delude me,
That never have forgot
The deserts cold and hot,
The sandwastes red and gory,
Wherethrough my life you wooed me
To waste in quest of what
You knew might never be.
Now that my head is hoary,
Your seas, your shores of glory
Are nought in nought to me.
Your golden islands, glowing
Out yonder in the West,
Long, long have ceased to lure me
Upon their fruitless quest.
If Hope within my breast
Once flamed for Fancy's blowing,
Time hath availed to cure me
Of all but wish for rest;
And by the extinguished fire
I dwell, delight forgoing,
My one desire the knowing
The vainness of desire.
Out yonder in the West,
Long, long have ceased to lure me
Upon their fruitless quest.
If Hope within my breast
Once flamed for Fancy's blowing,
Time hath availed to cure me
Of all but wish for rest;
And by the extinguished fire
I dwell, delight forgoing,
My one desire the knowing
The vainness of desire.
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DIIS VENTURIS.
Les temps sont venus
Pour les dieux inconnus.
Théodore de Banville.
Pour les dieux inconnus.
Théodore de Banville.
I.
Gods of the days to be,
Swift be the faring of your shining feet!
Why tarry ye?
The world is weary of the Gods effete,
Whose shadows linger on Olympus seat.
O'er lands and skies and seas
No spirit hovers, such as heretofore
Spoke in each wave-beat on the moaning shore,
Each shadow on the meadows and the wheat,
Each murmurous rill, each windwaft in the trees.
Swift be the faring of your shining feet!
Why tarry ye?
The world is weary of the Gods effete,
Whose shadows linger on Olympus seat.
O'er lands and skies and seas
No spirit hovers, such as heretofore
Spoke in each wave-beat on the moaning shore,
Each shadow on the meadows and the wheat,
Each murmurous rill, each windwaft in the trees.
Christs of the coming times,
Where do ye linger in the distance dim?
Long but a memory,
A rose of old romance, in fable-climes
Flowered out and faded into fading rhymes,
Remembrance is of Him,
The shadow-God of stony Galilee,
Whose shadow-life upon the shadow-tree,
Faint through the ages 'gainst the horizon's rim,
A shadow-death to deity sublimes.
Where do ye linger in the distance dim?
Long but a memory,
A rose of old romance, in fable-climes
Flowered out and faded into fading rhymes,
Remembrance is of Him,
The shadow-God of stony Galilee,
Whose shadow-life upon the shadow-tree,
Faint through the ages 'gainst the horizon's rim,
A shadow-death to deity sublimes.
Long of the olden Gods
Men's minds are empty, as the heavens are bare.
Yonder, in the blank of blue,
Jove hath long ceased to wield the thunder's rods:
From the void heavens no more Jehovah nods
Nor Allah from the air
Reluctant smiles on those to Him that sue:
No Thunderer volleys at the recreant crew
Nor with the lightnings smites them to the clods:
No incense climbs the high coerulean stair;
No altars smoke with sacrifice and prayer.
Men's minds are empty, as the heavens are bare.
Yonder, in the blank of blue,
Jove hath long ceased to wield the thunder's rods:
From the void heavens no more Jehovah nods
Nor Allah from the air
Reluctant smiles on those to Him that sue:
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Nor with the lightnings smites them to the clods:
No incense climbs the high coerulean stair;
No altars smoke with sacrifice and prayer.
All tarries, low and high,
For that which is to come. The air is great
With presages of fast-approaching Fate.
Surely the times are nigh,
The foreappointed times for which we wait,
With eyes uplifted to the lowering sky.
The sun in Heaven's gate
Grows pale and cold for lack of deity:
Men's hearts are sick of hope; the hour is late;
With age light saddens over land and sea
And still there come no Gods to gladden me.
For that which is to come. The air is great
With presages of fast-approaching Fate.
Surely the times are nigh,
The foreappointed times for which we wait,
With eyes uplifted to the lowering sky.
The sun in Heaven's gate
Grows pale and cold for lack of deity:
Men's hearts are sick of hope; the hour is late;
With age light saddens over land and sea
And still there come no Gods to gladden me.
II.
I know not what ye are,
Who tarry yet beyond the topmost star,
The Future in your hands to make or mar.
Who tarry yet beyond the topmost star,
The Future in your hands to make or mar.
What Joves for us you hold,
What Phoebus with the bow and lyre of gold,
What Dians diademed with moonbeams cold,
What Phoebus with the bow and lyre of gold,
What Dians diademed with moonbeams cold,
What Cytherea waits
To light our lives behind the Morning's gates,
What Loves to laugh to scorn the frowning Fates,
To light our lives behind the Morning's gates,
What Loves to laugh to scorn the frowning Fates,
I know not, nor your heaven,
Whether you number by the Baalim Seven,
The Æsir Twelve or by the Brahms Eleven.
Whether you number by the Baalim Seven,
The Æsir Twelve or by the Brahms Eleven.
This only, this I know,
You shall be no mere Gods of wail and woe,
No cross-bound weaklings, such as oversow
You shall be no mere Gods of wail and woe,
No cross-bound weaklings, such as oversow
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The labouring fields of Life
With harvest-centuries of hate and strife
And strew behind them sorrow ever-rife
With harvest-centuries of hate and strife
And strew behind them sorrow ever-rife
And hope that faileth still,
That all the ways of thought with fear fulfil
And leave Life fenceless 'gainst the usurping Will.
That all the ways of thought with fear fulfil
And leave Life fenceless 'gainst the usurping Will.
Nor shall you be of those
Who give folk helpless to a host of foes
And future pleasance pledge for present woes,
Who give folk helpless to a host of foes
And future pleasance pledge for present woes,
Who promise men a mock
Of Heaven to come with Hell on earth to unlock;
No apers of Prometheus on his rock,
Of Heaven to come with Hell on earth to unlock;
No apers of Prometheus on his rock,
Without the saving fire
Th'immortal Titan stole from Jove his sire,
To light the darkling world for Life's desire.
Th'immortal Titan stole from Jove his sire,
To light the darkling world for Life's desire.
You shall be none of these.
Where they have wrought us sorrow, you shall ease,
Strengthening the bent backs and the feeble knees.
Where they have wrought us sorrow, you shall ease,
Strengthening the bent backs and the feeble knees.
Gods shall you be of joy,
Led by some radiant Dionysiac boy
To solve the world of sorrow and annoy.
Led by some radiant Dionysiac boy
To solve the world of sorrow and annoy.
Where those that went before
Of sin and sufferance and atonement sore
Told and of soul and body still at war,
Of sin and sufferance and atonement sore
Told and of soul and body still at war,
You shall of life and light,
Of grace and gladness speak in the sun's sight,
Shall lead the morning through the halls of Night.
Of grace and gladness speak in the sun's sight,
Shall lead the morning through the halls of Night.
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Your presage life foresaith,
No making ready for swift-coming death,
But joy new-drawn with each recurrent breath.
No making ready for swift-coming death,
But joy new-drawn with each recurrent breath.
Forth of the Past-time's gloom
Your world, delivered from the shadow of doom,
Its head shall like a lily lift and bloom.
Your world, delivered from the shadow of doom,
Its head shall like a lily lift and bloom.
Love over all shall reign,
New earth, new heavens, new-purged of sorrow's stain,
And Peace return to dwell with men again.
New earth, new heavens, new-purged of sorrow's stain,
And Peace return to dwell with men again.
Yea, yours shall be the time
Of Life new-blossomed in a golden clime,
Washed and made white of all the ages' slime,
Soul's hunger quenched and body grown sublime!
Of Life new-blossomed in a golden clime,
Washed and made white of all the ages' slime,
Soul's hunger quenched and body grown sublime!
Would I might see it, I!
Would Heaven I might its coming but aby,
But live to look upon its face and die!
Would Heaven I might its coming but aby,
But live to look upon its face and die!
Ah, would to God! But, nay;
I share the old world's curse and must away
With it to night, before the coming day.
I share the old world's curse and must away
With it to night, before the coming day.
SOUL'S TWILIGHT.
The hour 'twixt sleep and wake,
The twilight of the soul it is, when all things take
Fashions and shapes
Other than those in this our world that are,
When Thought itself in webs of mystery drapes
And clothes itself in colours from some star
Borrowed, that in the Inane ethereal shines afar.
The twilight of the soul it is, when all things take
Fashions and shapes
Other than those in this our world that are,
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And clothes itself in colours from some star
Borrowed, that in the Inane ethereal shines afar.
An other-worldly haze
Then to the spirit cleaves and all the sense arrays
In webs of gold
Woven on the Dreamland's looms, of richer hue
Than was that tapestry of fable old,
Wherein each man his own desire might view
And through the fairy fields his heart's delight ensue.
Then to the spirit cleaves and all the sense arrays
In webs of gold
Woven on the Dreamland's looms, of richer hue
Than was that tapestry of fable old,
Wherein each man his own desire might view
And through the fairy fields his heart's delight ensue.
Then every common thing
Transfigured is; the thoughts are butterflies that wing
To other skies
Than those which canopy our earthly sphere
And soaring, fearless, on their far emprise,
Explore the worlds beyond the azure sheer,
In quest of heavenly gems and flowers that blow not here.
Transfigured is; the thoughts are butterflies that wing
To other skies
Than those which canopy our earthly sphere
And soaring, fearless, on their far emprise,
Explore the worlds beyond the azure sheer,
In quest of heavenly gems and flowers that blow not here.
Then is it that each word,
Each note, voice, windwaft, sound, by chance, awaking, heard,
A bird of Heaven
Becomes and from the Paradisal throng,
That choir in concert with the Planets Seven,
Borrowing the immortal cadence of their song,
With mirth and music fills our air of woe and wrong.
Each note, voice, windwaft, sound, by chance, awaking, heard,
A bird of Heaven
Becomes and from the Paradisal throng,
That choir in concert with the Planets Seven,
Borrowing the immortal cadence of their song,
With mirth and music fills our air of woe and wrong.
These tarry with us not;
Most, when from the dream-hour we waken, are forgot:
But such mere scraps
And snatches still as linger in the brain,
When their bright tide no more the sense enwraps,
Suffice to glorify Life's air inane,
As shreds of coloured glass the hues of Heaven retain.
Most, when from the dream-hour we waken, are forgot:
But such mere scraps
And snatches still as linger in the brain,
When their bright tide no more the sense enwraps,
Suffice to glorify Life's air inane,
As shreds of coloured glass the hues of Heaven retain.
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AN OLD REFRAIN.
My share I've suffered of dole and dearth,
With labour plenty and little play:
My bread I've boughten at double worth;
I've given the best of myself in pay:
Scant share of pleasance I've had or mirth;
And now all that loved me are under the clay.
My world is a waste and my song is a sigh;
And werena my heart licht, I wad die.
With labour plenty and little play:
My bread I've boughten at double worth;
I've given the best of myself in pay:
Scant share of pleasance I've had or mirth;
And now all that loved me are under the clay.
My world is a waste and my song is a sigh;
And werena my heart licht, I wad die.
I've delved in the Autumn, I've sown in the Spring;
I've holpen in harvest to garner the fruit;
I've lilted in Summer with life on the wing
And carolled in Winter, when all was mute.
But now I have heart no more to sing:
The music's dead in my broken lute,
The bird soared back to its native sky;
And werena my heart licht, I wad die.
I've holpen in harvest to garner the fruit;
I've lilted in Summer with life on the wing
And carolled in Winter, when all was mute.
But now I have heart no more to sing:
The music's dead in my broken lute,
The bird soared back to its native sky;
And werena my heart licht, I wad die.
The things that I loved have had their day;
They're all consumed of Time's wasting fire.
The sun hath waned from the world away;
The sad folk grovel in gloom and mire.
My life is lightless; my head is grey;
My soul is weary for wandesire;
I'm sick with regret for the days gone by;
And werena my heart licht, I wad die.
They're all consumed of Time's wasting fire.
The sun hath waned from the world away;
The sad folk grovel in gloom and mire.
My life is lightless; my head is grey;
My soul is weary for wandesire;
I'm sick with regret for the days gone by;
And werena my heart licht, I wad die.
I'm sick of the riot of spite and strife
That darkens the old all-suffering sun;
I'm weary of hearing the name of Right
Perverted to wrong and rapine done;
I'm weary of hearing the dark called light
By those whose fashions the daylight shun;
I'm weary of warring with lust and lie;
And werena my heart licht, I wad die.
That darkens the old all-suffering sun;
I'm weary of hearing the name of Right
Perverted to wrong and rapine done;
I'm weary of hearing the dark called light
By those whose fashions the daylight shun;
I'm weary of warring with lust and lie;
And werena my heart licht, I wad die.
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The blossoming world of the days of my youth
The cheat and the huckster have brought to need:
They've broken the blazon of honour and truth
And crippled Faith's wings with their hate and their greed.
The sweetness of song they have marred sans ruth:
For a flower that they found they have left us a weed:
In the green leaf they've sown; they will reap in the dry;
And werena my heart licht, I wad die.
The cheat and the huckster have brought to need:
They've broken the blazon of honour and truth
And crippled Faith's wings with their hate and their greed.
The sweetness of song they have marred sans ruth:
For a flower that they found they have left us a weed:
In the green leaf they've sown; they will reap in the dry;
And werena my heart licht, I wad die.
They've made of our world, that was well content,
A desert of hatred and doubt and gloom.
Dissembling their aim 'neath a smug ostent,
Our life for their profit they've robbed of bloom.
The teeth of the dragon, wherever they went,
They've sown for harvest: they've left no room
In life for the things that are fair and high;
And werena my heart licht, I wad die.
A desert of hatred and doubt and gloom.
Dissembling their aim 'neath a smug ostent,
Our life for their profit they've robbed of bloom.
The teeth of the dragon, wherever they went,
They've sown for harvest: they've left no room
In life for the things that are fair and high;
And werena my heart licht, I wad die.
Our feet they've fettered with rules of wrong
And bounden our souls in a sordid thrall:
Life blossoms no longer with love and song;
The heel of the spoiler is over it all.
Our souls have hung on the cross too long;
They have drunken too deep of the sponge of gall.
There's none to hearken our bitter cry;
And werena my heart licht, I wad die.
And bounden our souls in a sordid thrall:
Life blossoms no longer with love and song;
The heel of the spoiler is over it all.
Our souls have hung on the cross too long;
They have drunken too deep of the sponge of gall.
There's none to hearken our bitter cry;
And werena my heart licht, I wad die.
What worth is life in this time of ours,
That is but a tangle of strife and spleen,
A haggard riot of restless hours?
A quiet grave, where the grass is green
With the sacrament of the sun and showers,
Were better than life so mad and mean.
Aweary for rest and peace am I;
And werena my heart licht, I wad die.
That is but a tangle of strife and spleen,
A haggard riot of restless hours?
A quiet grave, where the grass is green
With the sacrament of the sun and showers,
Were better than life so mad and mean.
Aweary for rest and peace am I;
And werena my heart licht, I wad die.
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ON THE BEACH.
The sea
Slides up along the sands and spits its spray at me.
A note, methinks, of mockery I feel
In the hoarse cadence of its strident stave,
A hand of steel,
Under the fretwork of the foam, divine,
That clutches at my heart
And carries off a part
Of this sad soul and martyred sense of mine,
Upon the resonant surge of the subsiding wave,
Unto its darkling lair in some abysmal cave.
Slides up along the sands and spits its spray at me.
A note, methinks, of mockery I feel
In the hoarse cadence of its strident stave,
A hand of steel,
Under the fretwork of the foam, divine,
That clutches at my heart
And carries off a part
Of this sad soul and martyred sense of mine,
Upon the resonant surge of the subsiding wave,
Unto its darkling lair in some abysmal cave.
The foe
Of earth thou art and all thereon that come and go,
Indifferent, inexorable deep!
Tame tigress, still and smiling art thou now
And li'st asleep,
Like a cat basking in the summer sun,
As if thou ne'er hadst known
A dying seaman's groan,
As if thy coiling weeds had never spun
A net wherein to take the labouring vessel's prow,
As if none other thing than smile and sleep didst thou.
Of earth thou art and all thereon that come and go,
Indifferent, inexorable deep!
Tame tigress, still and smiling art thou now
And li'st asleep,
Like a cat basking in the summer sun,
As if thou ne'er hadst known
A dying seaman's groan,
As if thy coiling weeds had never spun
A net wherein to take the labouring vessel's prow,
As if none other thing than smile and sleep didst thou.
And yet
But yesterday thy face with fury was afret,
That smiles upturned now to the sunshine bland;
Thy grinning jaws were white with whirling foam
And on the land
Gaped, as they would devour it, men and all:
Thine angry onset tore
Great gobbets from the shore
And thy brute billows, like a moving wall,
With their embattled hosts the buttressed cliff-line clomb,
Uprearing monstrous arms toward the blue sky-dome.
But yesterday thy face with fury was afret,
That smiles upturned now to the sunshine bland;
Thy grinning jaws were white with whirling foam
And on the land
Gaped, as they would devour it, men and all:
Thine angry onset tore
Great gobbets from the shore
And thy brute billows, like a moving wall,
With their embattled hosts the buttressed cliff-line clomb,
Uprearing monstrous arms toward the blue sky-dome.
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My heart
Yet fain unto thee is, fair traitress that thou art:
For that unfathomable and infinite,
Still constant, in inconstance, to unrest,
Thou art as it:
As it, from day to day thou art unsame;
And like this soul of mine,
Though earth and sky combine
To master thee, none ever might thee tame.
Thou, like myself, art sad, even at thy gladsomest,
And doubt and darkness dwell beneath thy sunshot breast.
Yet fain unto thee is, fair traitress that thou art:
For that unfathomable and infinite,
Still constant, in inconstance, to unrest,
Thou art as it:
As it, from day to day thou art unsame;
And like this soul of mine,
Though earth and sky combine
To master thee, none ever might thee tame.
Thou, like myself, art sad, even at thy gladsomest,
And doubt and darkness dwell beneath thy sunshot breast.
E'enso
I love to haunt thy marge and mark thy fickle flow,
To hearken to thy hoarse persistent song
And fill my fancy with the mystic lore
Of ages long
Bygone, whereof thou tell'st, and worlds forsped.
There, when Life's straitening skies
Close over me, mine eyes
Should look their last on earth; and when I'm dead,
I'd have them bury me, old ocean, on thy shore,
Where I might slumber, rocked of thy monotonous roar.
I love to haunt thy marge and mark thy fickle flow,
To hearken to thy hoarse persistent song
And fill my fancy with the mystic lore
Of ages long
Bygone, whereof thou tell'st, and worlds forsped.
There, when Life's straitening skies
Close over me, mine eyes
Should look their last on earth; and when I'm dead,
I'd have them bury me, old ocean, on thy shore,
Where I might slumber, rocked of thy monotonous roar.
A LAST TOAST.
I LIFT my glass To the days that pass And the weeks that wax to years:
A bitter wine Is this draught of mine, A mirth that is mixed with tears;
A bitter wine Is this draught of mine, A mirth that is mixed with tears;
For the world, that was young With my songs first sung, Is old with the last of my tune;
The air's grown cold And the silver and gold Are pale of the sun and the moon:
The air's grown cold And the silver and gold Are pale of the sun and the moon:
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The women and men, That I loved erewhen, Are dead, as my youth is dead;
All, all are gone And I stand alone, With the snows of age on my head.
All, all are gone And I stand alone, With the snows of age on my head.
I look on the face Of the coming race: My faith I find in none;
No eye is bright With the spirit-light, That is not of moon or sun,
No eye is bright With the spirit-light, That is not of moon or sun,
The light of the soul, That its deathless goal, Uncounting care or cost,
Still seeking goes, In a waste of woes, For Love and the world well lost.
Still seeking goes, In a waste of woes, For Love and the world well lost.
The eyes, that I see, Look back on me With a mute unmoved amaze;
There's nothing to find Of heart or mind In their dull distrustful gaze.
There's nothing to find Of heart or mind In their dull distrustful gaze.
No noble heat In men's looks I meet, No thought of heavenly things,
No hint of the hope, From earth's dull scope That, us upbearing, wings.
No hint of the hope, From earth's dull scope That, us upbearing, wings.
The horse and the ass, As they, toiling, pass, More light have, meseems, in their eyes,
More sense of the spell Of the things that dwell In the spheres beyond the skies.
More sense of the spell Of the things that dwell In the spheres beyond the skies.
That sun of glory, Our island-story, That lightens the book of fame,
Unbeaconing burneth; The dull folk spurneth The splendour of England's name.
Unbeaconing burneth; The dull folk spurneth The splendour of England's name.
In heart and brain, In nerve and vein, There flows no generous tide;
Long years of blending Have marred, past mending, The pith of our English pride.
Long years of blending Have marred, past mending, The pith of our English pride.
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The jackal's scions Have swamped the lion's; The puddle of Celt and Jew
Has poisoned the flood Of the noblest blood That ever a world-race knew.
Has poisoned the flood Of the noblest blood That ever a world-race knew.
Men look up never; Their whole endeavour For gain is and sensual ease;
Beyond earth's sphere There is never an ear That hearkens, an eye that sees.
Beyond earth's sphere There is never an ear That hearkens, an eye that sees.
Dull-straining still Through the mists of Will, That wall their lives like a fog,
Brute-like they fare, Unknowing where, Their souls in the power of the dog.
Brute-like they fare, Unknowing where, Their souls in the power of the dog.
On soulless Science Is their reliance, To spare them the stress of strife:
Earth's conquest dreaming, Their baubles deeming The keys of the House of Life,
Earth's conquest dreaming, Their baubles deeming The keys of the House of Life,
They think, sans labour, To win Fate's favour And know not the quest in vain;
Since nought can win us True peace within us Save travail of heart and brain.
Since nought can win us True peace within us Save travail of heart and brain.
Like swine in the ditch, In haste to be rich, They wallow in Life unsweet,
Still “Progress” hailing, Though all is failing, Is falling beneath their feet.
Still “Progress” hailing, Though all is failing, Is falling beneath their feet.
VAIN, vain all showeth To him who knoweth Life's process in the past,
A squirrel-round Of shadows, drowned In darkness first and last;
A squirrel-round Of shadows, drowned In darkness first and last;
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No whit remaining Of what for gaining Have heroes and sages died,
All swept by Time, With the ages' slime, Away on his shadow-tide;
All swept by Time, With the ages' slime, Away on his shadow-tide;
Each age beginning Anew nor winning By that which its fathers won:
The Sage said true, There is nothing new Nor stable under the sun.
The Sage said true, There is nothing new Nor stable under the sun.
Man born is of dust And return to it must, To be lost in th'abyss of decay:
What progress can be For the waif on Time's sea, That for ever is passing away?
What progress can be For the waif on Time's sea, That for ever is passing away?
As man is, so race is; All, noble and base, is, Or sooner or later, the grave's:
Each, each hath its hour And is lost, like the shower, That maketh no mark on the waves.
Each, each hath its hour And is lost, like the shower, That maketh no mark on the waves.
In the tombs of the Past, Toys outworn and offcast, Are the things to have found that we ween:
All, under the sun, That can said be or done, Said, done and forgotten hath been.
All, under the sun, That can said be or done, Said, done and forgotten hath been.
O FOOLISH men, Since the suns, erewhen That were, have lost their light
And all our lore is In vain their glories To render again to sight,
And all our lore is In vain their glories To render again to sight,
Since myriad races Their faded faces Have hidden beneath the soil
And lost to Fame Is their very name And the trace of their termless toil,
And lost to Fame Is their very name And the trace of their termless toil,
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How shall you hope To span Time's scope With the pulse of your puny thought,
When these, that were great, Have bowed to Fate And died with the deeds they wrought?
When these, that were great, Have bowed to Fate And died with the deeds they wrought?
How shall you stay, Who are less than they, As the worm is less than the star?
How shall you think Fame's draught to drink, When these forgotten are?
How shall you think Fame's draught to drink, When these forgotten are?
Nay, bow your necks, Time's thriftless wrecks, Sad slaves of senseless Will,
Of Will that drives Your lightless lives From dark to darkness still.
Of Will that drives Your lightless lives From dark to darkness still.
Bow, bow the head To the forces dread That rule the Furies' rods!
Bend, bend the knee To the Needs-must-be, The power behind the Gods!
Bend, bend the knee To the Needs-must-be, The power behind the Gods!
Nor harsh nor kind, But deaf and blind And dumb it is, alack!
No stress of yours, No wit enures To turn it from its track.
No stress of yours, No wit enures To turn it from its track.
One only charm Against its harm, Against its idiot ire,
One only spell Shall stead you well, Surrender of desire.
One only spell Shall stead you well, Surrender of desire.
This, an you will, Shall serve you still: By this alone you can
Away from you The ills fordo, That mar the life of man.
Away from you The ills fordo, That mar the life of man.
Yet by this sign May you repine Offcast, and lust put by,
Wring from Fate's claws Some little pause Of peace, before you die;
Wring from Fate's claws Some little pause Of peace, before you die;
Some little leisure From pain and pleasure, Some space of thought contrite,
Some hour of balm, In the sunset-calm, Before the coming night,
Some hour of balm, In the sunset-calm, Before the coming night,
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Austere and tender, More fit to render, With purificative breath,
The world-worn soul For the making whole With the sacrament of death.
The world-worn soul For the making whole With the sacrament of death.
THIS, this my hope is; Though waste Life's scope is And Heaven is blank and blind,
I strain my eyes Through the lightless skies, For signs of the light behind.
I strain my eyes Through the lightless skies, For signs of the light behind.
Though all in my ken Is void and men Are faithless, my faith is strong;
The time to be, That I shall not see, I hail with the last of my song.
The time to be, That I shall not see, I hail with the last of my song.
My cup I raise To the coming days; I hail them with hallowing rhyme;
Across the ages, The bards and sages I pledge of the purging-time,
Across the ages, The bards and sages I pledge of the purging-time,
The time that shall come, When my voice long dumb And my dust is cold in the clay,
The era of peace, When strife shall cease, At the close of the world's long day;
The era of peace, When strife shall cease, At the close of the world's long day;
When battle and pest, When toil and unrest Their worst shall have wrought for men
And the one shall be free In the frank To-be, Where now there are lazars ten;
And the one shall be free In the frank To-be, Where now there are lazars ten;
When all, high and low, Shall have learned to know That the kindly fruits of the earth,
With love and peace, In their due increase, Are all that is winning-worth;
With love and peace, In their due increase, Are all that is winning-worth;
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When men shall the town For the field and the down Forsake, for the ream and the rill,
The roar and the reek For the peace of the peak And the silence divine of the hill;
The roar and the reek For the peace of the peak And the silence divine of the hill;
When all shall go back To the mow and the stack, The sod and the sward and the vine,
Content to forswear The curse and the care Of wealth and the lust of the eyne;
Content to forswear The curse and the care Of wealth and the lust of the eyne;
To put off the greed, On the beast in the mead That preys and the bird on the bough,
And wool but to reap, And not life, from the sheep And but milk from the goat and the cow;
And wool but to reap, And not life, from the sheep And but milk from the goat and the cow;
When Love shall be lord In the world outwarred And weary of toil and lust,
When men with forgetting Shall soothe Life's setting And pass in peace to the dust.
When men with forgetting Shall soothe Life's setting And pass in peace to the dust.
IN the name of the days When Love the ways Shall rule of the ransomed earth,
When poor shall be none Nor rich 'neath the sun, The days of the world's rebirth,
When poor shall be none Nor rich 'neath the sun, The days of the world's rebirth,
With the wine of my soul I brim up the bowl, With love and laughter and scorn;
And I drink this last toast, In the teeth of a host Of ills, to the Coming Morn.
And I drink this last toast, In the teeth of a host Of ills, to the Coming Morn.
| Carol and Cadence | |