Poems By Robert Leighton: 2nd ed |
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| II. | II.
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| III. |
| IV. |
| V. |
| VI. |
| VII. |
| VIII. |
| IX. |
| X. |
| XI. |
| XII. |
| XIII. |
| XIV. |
| XV. |
| XVI. |
| XVII. |
| XVIII. |
| XIX. |
| XX. |
| XXI. |
| XXII. |
| XXIII. |
| XXIV. |
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| VII. |
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| I. |
| II. |
| III. |
 | Poems |  |
II.
[Was ever greater truant! I who know]
Was ever greater truant! I who know
That my salvation lies in thee alone—
Who never gave a brief hour of my heart
All over to thee, but the angels came
And bathed my blind lids with their dews of Heaven,
Till I, of poorest insight, even I
Could see the fine light wherein poets dream!
Yet have I left thee, Poesie, as if
Thou, and not I, were the uplifted one.
That my salvation lies in thee alone—
Who never gave a brief hour of my heart
All over to thee, but the angels came
And bathed my blind lids with their dews of Heaven,
Till I, of poorest insight, even I
Could see the fine light wherein poets dream!
Yet have I left thee, Poesie, as if
Thou, and not I, were the uplifted one.
O blame the weight of the restraining earth,
And not the heart that would for thee aye beat;
Nor yet the head that sees how truly thou
Must be the God-sent mistress of my love.
I never slight thee but my mind becomes
A sunless plot that lies to the bleak north,
And ever seems to be in the year's back end:
A dismal, dreary place, of stunted growth,
And only by the lapwing's desolate cry
Startled at times into a lone weird life.
If thou art long away my heart runs waste,
Rank weeds o'errun the garden of my brain,
And choke the flowers which thou hast planted there.
But give thee hearty welcome,—like a sun
Thou swimm'st into my being, and my heart
Is jubilant as May; and, like a sky
Of unseen larks, life rings, I know not whence.
And not the heart that would for thee aye beat;
Nor yet the head that sees how truly thou
Must be the God-sent mistress of my love.
I never slight thee but my mind becomes
A sunless plot that lies to the bleak north,
And ever seems to be in the year's back end:
A dismal, dreary place, of stunted growth,
And only by the lapwing's desolate cry
Startled at times into a lone weird life.
If thou art long away my heart runs waste,
Rank weeds o'errun the garden of my brain,
And choke the flowers which thou hast planted there.
But give thee hearty welcome,—like a sun
Thou swimm'st into my being, and my heart
Is jubilant as May; and, like a sky
Of unseen larks, life rings, I know not whence.
4
If through my being I could shape thy course
Like a bold river with broad cliffy banks,
My life would be the rich and joyous vale
Through which it runs. But I am undefined,
And can but give thee flat and sedgy bounds.—
Full forced and lavish as thy bounteous source,
Thou leapest from God's hills into my heart,
But suddenly art lost within a marsh,
And thy clear voice grows husky in the reeds.
It is a sluggish and a fruitless land!
Like a bold river with broad cliffy banks,
My life would be the rich and joyous vale
Through which it runs. But I am undefined,
And can but give thee flat and sedgy bounds.—
Full forced and lavish as thy bounteous source,
Thou leapest from God's hills into my heart,
But suddenly art lost within a marsh,
And thy clear voice grows husky in the reeds.
It is a sluggish and a fruitless land!
O is there no rich soil beneath this mire?
I'll drain the fens, or sink with all my work!—
My thirsty nature gulps the living stream,
And gives none out: it stagnates, and is seen
Only in miry pools. But through my life
I'll bank a river's bed: the fenny lands
Shall pay dear tribute in a thousand rills,
And give an earthy warmth unto the flow
That comes from Heaven's hills; which else were clear
But chilly as the light of winter stars:
Chilly to human hearts, though to the gods
The life-blood of their veins.
I'll drain the fens, or sink with all my work!—
My thirsty nature gulps the living stream,
And gives none out: it stagnates, and is seen
Only in miry pools. But through my life
I'll bank a river's bed: the fenny lands
Shall pay dear tribute in a thousand rills,
And give an earthy warmth unto the flow
That comes from Heaven's hills; which else were clear
But chilly as the light of winter stars:
Chilly to human hearts, though to the gods
The life-blood of their veins.
O pure and cold
The things we cannot reach! Duty is cold;
Stern Virtue, God Himself!—We bask in Sloth,
As on a grassy slope at summer noon;
Vice draws us to it like an evening fire;
And Godlessness is like a tropic air,
It slackens thought and gives an unnerved bliss.
A sensuousness clings to us like a shell:
From Duty, Virtue, God, we shrink like snails
Into this Frailty, and deem all safe.
Weak fools! but wiser Fate! a passing foot
May crush us out on Duty, Virtue, God.
The things we cannot reach! Duty is cold;
Stern Virtue, God Himself!—We bask in Sloth,
As on a grassy slope at summer noon;
Vice draws us to it like an evening fire;
And Godlessness is like a tropic air,
5
A sensuousness clings to us like a shell:
From Duty, Virtue, God, we shrink like snails
Into this Frailty, and deem all safe.
Weak fools! but wiser Fate! a passing foot
May crush us out on Duty, Virtue, God.
To him that shrinks from frost the frost is cold.
Let him go forth and meet it, and it warms
More kindly than red brands. The way to life
Is towards forbidding things: growth in approach;
In nearness, love; and reach'd, the soul's great life.
Let him go forth and meet it, and it warms
More kindly than red brands. The way to life
Is towards forbidding things: growth in approach;
In nearness, love; and reach'd, the soul's great life.
God gives out His divinity in rays
That reach the earth; and Poesie is one.
Souls faithful to the lode grow up to God,
Each missioned by the genius of his ray.
But faithless truants meet as faithless guides
That lead into the sloughs: a wandering lamp
Hangs out before; the furies dog behind;
And thus they grope about the miry night.
And when each morn God's sun wakes up the day,
He finds them ever groping where they were!
Nor shuns he them like sanctimonious saint,
But with his bright and all-embracing eye
Seeks to reclaim them.
That reach the earth; and Poesie is one.
Souls faithful to the lode grow up to God,
Each missioned by the genius of his ray.
But faithless truants meet as faithless guides
That lead into the sloughs: a wandering lamp
Hangs out before; the furies dog behind;
And thus they grope about the miry night.
And when each morn God's sun wakes up the day,
He finds them ever groping where they were!
Nor shuns he them like sanctimonious saint,
But with his bright and all-embracing eye
Seeks to reclaim them.
Brothers of the dark,
Our sun breaks every day: we heed him not—
The insulted, slighted, most forgiving sun!
A revell'd night are our lost yesterdays,
All huddled into one, each day shut out.
Forget them as one night—what loss in that?
Eternity is round it. Be next dawn
Our first income of light. God never breathes
But through the infinitude each faithful soul
Receives its special want. O, brothers, watch!
We've singed our wings like moths in a false light,
And cannot with the larks meet dawn i' the clouds:
But see! the sky is ruffling in the east
Like a calm sea before a landing ship,
And we are on the shore with leaping hearts
To meet long parted friends. Soon will the sun
Lie high and dry upon the eastern strand,
And earth be stirring as a disembarkment.
We'll lose each other then. Each waiting heart
Fill'd with its own lost ray, base loves shall pale,
Like tapers of the night when day's let in,
And truer vision come with truer light.
Our sun breaks every day: we heed him not—
6
A revell'd night are our lost yesterdays,
All huddled into one, each day shut out.
Forget them as one night—what loss in that?
Eternity is round it. Be next dawn
Our first income of light. God never breathes
But through the infinitude each faithful soul
Receives its special want. O, brothers, watch!
We've singed our wings like moths in a false light,
And cannot with the larks meet dawn i' the clouds:
But see! the sky is ruffling in the east
Like a calm sea before a landing ship,
And we are on the shore with leaping hearts
To meet long parted friends. Soon will the sun
Lie high and dry upon the eastern strand,
And earth be stirring as a disembarkment.
We'll lose each other then. Each waiting heart
Fill'd with its own lost ray, base loves shall pale,
Like tapers of the night when day's let in,
And truer vision come with truer light.
Henceforth I live and die with my heart's love.
We rise or fall together. If I fail
To woo her as the world deems worthily,
Still have I peace of mind in having given
My poor best up to my most worthy love.
Failure in this were peace and joy at last.
Successes fanning from all other points
Were misery, so this were left unstrived.
We rise or fall together. If I fail
To woo her as the world deems worthily,
Still have I peace of mind in having given
My poor best up to my most worthy love.
Failure in this were peace and joy at last.
Successes fanning from all other points
Were misery, so this were left unstrived.
7
I give her all my being in the faith
That he who gives his all of love and will
Can never fail, but—though the outer works
Of his dear acts become no worshipp'd fane,
Be all unworthy of a world's regard,
And fail to it—still bears within himself
The true wage of success—the having done.
And he has built his temple to the gods.
That he who gives his all of love and will
Can never fail, but—though the outer works
Of his dear acts become no worshipp'd fane,
Be all unworthy of a world's regard,
And fail to it—still bears within himself
The true wage of success—the having done.
And he has built his temple to the gods.
Lead where thou wilt, I'll follow. Deeper trust
Is with me now than when, in the young time,
Thou led'st me into sunny showers of thought,
Wherein my utterance was like that of dreams—
All clear and full while in the dream; but, waked,
Dim, poor and meaningless; until again
Thy show'ry light came, and the same weak words
Were big with their lost meaning.—In the night
The earth's green loses meaning, and her flowers
Are all one eyeless black: but when she walks
In beamy day, the meadows and the flowers
Get back their lost expression. Who shall say
The night, and not the day, brings out the true?
Is with me now than when, in the young time,
Thou led'st me into sunny showers of thought,
Wherein my utterance was like that of dreams—
All clear and full while in the dream; but, waked,
Dim, poor and meaningless; until again
Thy show'ry light came, and the same weak words
Were big with their lost meaning.—In the night
The earth's green loses meaning, and her flowers
Are all one eyeless black: but when she walks
In beamy day, the meadows and the flowers
Get back their lost expression. Who shall say
The night, and not the day, brings out the true?
`Thou art my sunlight. I have learn'd to know
The highest as the truest; to trust more,
Light that discovers even a changeful sense,
Than Dark that may confound it, but gives none.—
O if thou art indeed a ray from God,
And if in thee I have my highest reach,
My deepest ecstasy, my best of life,—
What then but give a dedicated heart?
What then! but that the Universal Love
Beats like a heart in nature, pulsing out
Its deep flood to extremities of soul,
And moves us, all unconscious and despite
Our partial likings, to the good in all.
The highest as the truest; to trust more,
Light that discovers even a changeful sense,
Than Dark that may confound it, but gives none.—
O if thou art indeed a ray from God,
And if in thee I have my highest reach,
My deepest ecstasy, my best of life,—
8
What then! but that the Universal Love
Beats like a heart in nature, pulsing out
Its deep flood to extremities of soul,
And moves us, all unconscious and despite
Our partial likings, to the good in all.
But, Poesie, thou art God's broadest beam—
The secret life, the charm of all our loves.
If I may not go heart and hand with thee,
Come thou and go with me. If I must cling
To things that in my soul I do not love—
Things that yet share the universal good—
Be with me; be the light to show the good.
The secret life, the charm of all our loves.
If I may not go heart and hand with thee,
Come thou and go with me. If I must cling
To things that in my soul I do not love—
Things that yet share the universal good—
Be with me; be the light to show the good.
| Poems | |