 | Carol and Cadence |  |
279
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,
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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.
| Carol and Cadence | |