The Year of the World A Philosophical Poem on "Redemption from The Fall". By William B. Scott |
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 | The Year of the World |  |
II.
Here I pause.
Because I would not like a prophet speak!
Daring with unblessed feet the burning path
Of divine instinct, or with hand unblessed
To touch the cherubim:—
Because I would not willingly offend,—
Seeing I venerate the present hour,
Also the past I venerate—and because
The number is but few who do not sneer
At hope, the sacred angel of the future,
Thus gladly violating even nature,
If thereby they exhibit the astute—
The vice of prudent men. And furthermore,
The time that passes is too multiform,
The true and false unsifted, all too close
Pressing upon us, to be largely read.
But certainly the spring-time comes apace,
The songs of birds have certainly been heard;
Also, the snake, not wholly without pain,
Doth leave his old skin in the last year's dust.
Because I would not like a prophet speak!
Daring with unblessed feet the burning path
Of divine instinct, or with hand unblessed
To touch the cherubim:—
Because I would not willingly offend,—
Seeing I venerate the present hour,
Also the past I venerate—and because
The number is but few who do not sneer
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Thus gladly violating even nature,
If thereby they exhibit the astute—
The vice of prudent men. And furthermore,
The time that passes is too multiform,
The true and false unsifted, all too close
Pressing upon us, to be largely read.
But certainly the spring-time comes apace,
The songs of birds have certainly been heard;
Also, the snake, not wholly without pain,
Doth leave his old skin in the last year's dust.
Let us advance in faith, by which each one
In simpleness shall persevere towards
The one Idea of the universe,
The longing of all finite life; the Good,
Which we can compass not,
Which yet sustaineth us.
In simpleness shall persevere towards
The one Idea of the universe,
The longing of all finite life; the Good,
Which we can compass not,
Which yet sustaineth us.
To whom the soul points, moving either way
Around its dial-sphere, by which it holds
Power above the finite: whom the sense owns
Visibly seen in all things round us here.
All this phantasmal time
Existing as his type.
Around its dial-sphere, by which it holds
Power above the finite: whom the sense owns
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All this phantasmal time
Existing as his type.
He who established from of old the law
Of generation; movement without end,
Inevitable, widening from the centre,
Circling and evolving all that is,
Of unity, diversity,
Antagonism, life.
Of generation; movement without end,
Inevitable, widening from the centre,
Circling and evolving all that is,
Of unity, diversity,
Antagonism, life.
| The Year of the World | |