Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Morning and noon and evening, week by week
And month by month and year by year, return,
The never-ending harmonies of this world,
Without an end or pause. The mill-stream flows
Continuous; the industrious wheel turns round;
The heavy stones grind on, yet all that flows
Into the watchful hopper-sack's no more
Than needful for each day's void kneading-trough.
The garments cast last night next morn we don,
And still, for gains to spend, our lives burn down,
Until the vintage-time of life's year comes;
For still some guest, unanswered and unbid,
In our soul's prison waits with lidless eyes
Turned we know not wherefore towards the Future.

Here sit I now this bright noonday with hands
And thoughts all free and unclaimed, like some fool
On whom hath fallen good fortune; and behold!
The Conscience questions and almost disowns
Right to this freedom and this idleness.
Why is the wheel still now? it asks,—the stream,

114

Why sleeps it locked and limpid in the sun?
For custom's yoke so marks the neck it clothes,
Its absence becomes irksome, and the Law,
Blessed or accursed we say not, seems for man
A thunder-call to Action;—seems indeed,
As much else seems, but is not. Let us rest,
Now and then rest, and make Time wait on us—
Holily rest, the flowers o' the field and we,
Being again twin-brothers as of old
'Neath Eden's cedar shades.

This sabbath morn
The wan sun coldly shines, yet fields and roads,
The young math springing through the hard black soil,
The market-cart half shedded, and the stack
Of hay now cut short like the poor man's bread,
Cheerily glisten. In this small dull room
Steadily beats the red fire, while the dog
Winks listlessly before it; winks and dreams,
And suddenly looks round him like churched boys
Ashamed to nod. Upon this window-sill
The sparrows light for crumbs laid duly there;
Upon the topmost withy of that hedge,
Leafless and sharp as wire-work, whistling clear,
A half-hour since a blackbird perched: I turned,
Startled by song, too sudden turned! Within
The village church the household every one
Have shut themselves, and I alone remain
Idle and free.

115

The house clock throbs, still throbs,
Heard or unheard it throbs. 'Tween soul and sense,
Peace like Death's angel comes: fresh powers awake,
Freed from the straining tendons of the world.
As one whose master sleeps, may dare to think
Of liberty and thereof sing, this new
Interior life Itself sees without wonder,
And hears its own thoughts whispering thus, ‘Behold!
Eternity's sonorous shores, and I
Am here.’ The present is withdrawn, the Real
Is round us inexpressibly: it seems
That the breath ceases and the heart stands still,
Or as in trance we were removed from them,
And thereupon the Soul's white eyes unclose
Upon the sunless ether.

Such a glimpse
Of immaterial things men oft-times feel
In silence, mental stillness, nerve-repose,
And conscience undisturbed. It flows and ebbs,
Ebbs utterly away. Could we but press
Right through these crypts unlit of Consciousness,
Seek out the sanctum whose ineffable flame
Cannot by mortal eyes be borne, and rend
The sensuous veils that shelter us from God!
Could we but press
The adventure through soul instincts such as these,
Both eye and ear, it might be, would wake up

116

To an unspeakable energy, and heaven
Open as to the dying!
But yet why,
Thus hastening sunwards, drop the priceless threads
Our dear earth-born Arachne weaves for us?
One great tent-curtain all enfolds; this world
All other worlds, this life all other lives,
Like echoes answer each to each. The stars
Are seen but in the dark, Force hides herself
In the inert on all sides; nor can we
Breathe but while death conspires; and only here,
Here where black earth bears heartsease, human eyes
Converse, and passions cling with burning lips,
Dying together; here where autumn suns
Bronze the bread-yielding sheaves and leaves of trees
Drop to the evening breezes, while the brows
Of the strong reapers melt, or their hands chill,
Bearing the moonlit scythe or sickle home.

All things are types and symbols: earth and heaven
Each other interpenetrate: all creeds
And churches crowning the hill-tops of time,—
Pillars of fire by night, of cloud by day,
Are but attempts to touch the symbolized.

But now the village tongue hath been let loose,
The village church resigns its worshippers:
Staid ancient couples maunder past; they skirt

117

The well-known fields by pathways; now and then
Men call and latches clink, and childhood's din
Rings here and there. The winking dog starts up,
And by the door stands with fixed eyes and ears;
Approaching steps are heard; the tingling rain
Of female voices o'er the threshold falls!
—Ah, there you sit; just as, three hours ago,
We left you. The old vicar preached, good soul!
Corinthians, fifteenth, fifty-first, that grand
Wonderful verse—‘Behold, a mystery!
We shall not all sleep, we shall all be changed.’
A sparrow had got in; from roof to roof
It flew—oh, fifty times. The quire to-day
Really did well, it did one good to hear,
And like the text the singers sang, ‘Behold,
We shall not all sleep, we shall all be changed.’