The collected poems of Arthur Edward Waite in two volumes ... With a Portrait |
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 | The collected poems of Arthur Edward Waite |  |
OF THE DEEP SEAS
Some world-secret dwells in sadness,
Granting tears at length are dried,
All the cares which mar life's pages,
From the heirship of the ages,
Cast, and once for all, aside.
Granting tears at length are dried,
All the cares which mar life's pages,
From the heirship of the ages,
Cast, and once for all, aside.
Take the heights and the abysses,
Those great spaces which are past,
And the forward vistas, blending
With our dreams of life unending—
Holy hopes, attainments vast:
Those great spaces which are past,
And the forward vistas, blending
With our dreams of life unending—
Holy hopes, attainments vast:
60
Surely joy, with all its keenness,
Haunts too narrow grooves of change,
On the common sense of pleasure
Draws too much, to serve as measure
Of the world's resource and range.
Haunts too narrow grooves of change,
On the common sense of pleasure
Draws too much, to serve as measure
Of the world's resource and range.
Morning stars may sing together,
Sons of God for joy may shout;
But beyond the choric pæan
Spreads the stillness empyrean:
There the anthem falters out.
Sons of God for joy may shout;
But beyond the choric pæan
Spreads the stillness empyrean:
There the anthem falters out.
If we came and passed like summer,
Short of sight though joy would be,
It might help us towards forgetting,
Twixt our rising and our setting,
What a moth's-flight space had we.
Short of sight though joy would be,
It might help us towards forgetting,
Twixt our rising and our setting,
What a moth's-flight space had we.
But confronting earth's unearnest
And yet ever anxious span
With the undeclared hereafter,
Joy must perish and light laughter
Waver on the lips of man.
And yet ever anxious span
With the undeclared hereafter,
Joy must perish and light laughter
Waver on the lips of man.
Life is so far past all searching,
So much hangs from strings so frail,
That the firmest faith must question
And against all dark suggestion
Hope can never quite prevail.
So much hangs from strings so frail,
That the firmest faith must question
And against all dark suggestion
Hope can never quite prevail.
Love remains and Love can save us,
All the keys of doom are there;
But if more with gladness blended
Than dejections deep attended,
Those who love shall first declare.
All the keys of doom are there;
But if more with gladness blended
Than dejections deep attended,
Those who love shall first declare.
61
Well then to be self-reliant,
Highest ends with strength achieve,
Hold that life is best expounded
By the faith in goodwill grounded—
So go forward, so believe.
Highest ends with strength achieve,
Hold that life is best expounded
By the faith in goodwill grounded—
So go forward, so believe.
But ask not that joy be with us;
Light things are by joy express'd:
Unto us the deeps are speaking,
Past the sadness of their seeking
Is God's graveness—and God's rest.
Light things are by joy express'd:
Unto us the deeps are speaking,
Past the sadness of their seeking
Is God's graveness—and God's rest.
| The collected poems of Arthur Edward Waite | |