 | Gathered poems of Ernest Myers |  |
148
PERVIGILIUM ANIMAE
Cras amet qui nunquam amavit, quique amavit cras amet.
In the watch before the daybreak over land and over sea
Broods the brooding Night more nearly in her sad solemnity.
Then the star-fires, ere they vanish in the day's deluding light,
Urgent with redoubled ardour burn from their embattled height.
In that hour they drew me toward them, through the void they drew me high,
Not so far that in the vastness seemed their haughty host more nigh,
But to where their silent bidding, as the vision broader grew,
Bade me mark Man's little kingdom circling in my magic view.
Half in sun and half in shadow restless ran the spinning sphere,
Far beyond her track the sunlight died into the darkness drear.
Broods the brooding Night more nearly in her sad solemnity.
Then the star-fires, ere they vanish in the day's deluding light,
Urgent with redoubled ardour burn from their embattled height.
In that hour they drew me toward them, through the void they drew me high,
Not so far that in the vastness seemed their haughty host more nigh,
But to where their silent bidding, as the vision broader grew,
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Half in sun and half in shadow restless ran the spinning sphere,
Far beyond her track the sunlight died into the darkness drear.
Then my soul was pierced with pity, all as though there met my sight
Some poor sheep unheeded straying, straying blindly through the night.
“Mother,” cried my pitying spirit, fondly as though Earth could hear,
“Mother own or foster Mother, still to Man a mother dear,
Ever speeding, ever circling, shuttle in the cosmic loom,
Round to spring and round to winter, here in glory, here in gloom,
Lo, thy haggard Moon that haunts thee, thy forlorn remembrancer,
Watching till the fate shall find thee that must leave thee like to her.
Age by age thy force must fail thee, fading with thy fading sun,
All thy living gifts and glories pine and perish one by one:
All the sounds of happy summer on the fragrant breezes borne,
All the fiery pomp of even, all the floating mists of morn:
All the wondrous forms of Water, calm or forceful, pent or free,
All the charm and all the terror of the myriadmooded Sea:
Mossy rills amid the mountains, children of the brooding snow,
All the torrent's flashing fury, all the regal river's flow:
Human hope and human labour, noble love and noble hate,
All the strife and all the valour, hero hearts that feared not fate:
All the magic love of lovers glorifying earth and sea,
Love of mothers, love of fathers, deepest loves of all that be.
Vowed to Death we file before him, hail him Victor, hail him King,
King within the narrow kingdom caging here our captive wing.
Some poor sheep unheeded straying, straying blindly through the night.
“Mother,” cried my pitying spirit, fondly as though Earth could hear,
“Mother own or foster Mother, still to Man a mother dear,
Ever speeding, ever circling, shuttle in the cosmic loom,
Round to spring and round to winter, here in glory, here in gloom,
Lo, thy haggard Moon that haunts thee, thy forlorn remembrancer,
Watching till the fate shall find thee that must leave thee like to her.
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All thy living gifts and glories pine and perish one by one:
All the sounds of happy summer on the fragrant breezes borne,
All the fiery pomp of even, all the floating mists of morn:
All the wondrous forms of Water, calm or forceful, pent or free,
All the charm and all the terror of the myriadmooded Sea:
Mossy rills amid the mountains, children of the brooding snow,
All the torrent's flashing fury, all the regal river's flow:
Human hope and human labour, noble love and noble hate,
All the strife and all the valour, hero hearts that feared not fate:
All the magic love of lovers glorifying earth and sea,
151
Vowed to Death we file before him, hail him Victor, hail him King,
King within the narrow kingdom caging here our captive wing.
Be it so; we bow before him, yet forbear not from the fight,
Yet must Man take up the challenge of the allenfolding Night.
These must die, but in their dying dies not all they meant for Man,
Dies not all they woke within him far beyond their bounded span;
All that Man has blindly reached for, stretching hands of hope forlorn,
Dragging down the hope he clung to, yet for moments high upborne,
Things of sense and soul confounding, small with great and foul with fair,
Hiding God in human semblance—yet a gleam of God was there—
Seeking still to find fulfilment of an unfulfilled design,
Frail and fainting, yet thro' darkness feeling after forms divine:
Till the Spirit, rising fearless far beyond thy fostering shade,
Claim the freedom, claim the fulness, claim the kingdom long delayed;
Not as now I hence behold thee, by the mocking spell up-buoyed,
Seeing thy low fate more lowly, drearier yet the dreary void;
No, but with another rising higher than all height by far,
When all high and low have vanished, lowly earth and lofty star;
When the fires have lost their fervour and the deeps their deadly chill,
All the force of moving matter merged in forces mightier still.
Then let him that shrank from loving, fearing lest his love should fall,
Love, and him that loved aforetime love with higher hope thro' all.
Stand we here, O foster Mother, here in dim expectancy,
Stand we here in stern endeavour, watch and work and wait with thee.”
Yet must Man take up the challenge of the allenfolding Night.
These must die, but in their dying dies not all they meant for Man,
Dies not all they woke within him far beyond their bounded span;
All that Man has blindly reached for, stretching hands of hope forlorn,
Dragging down the hope he clung to, yet for moments high upborne,
Things of sense and soul confounding, small with great and foul with fair,
Hiding God in human semblance—yet a gleam of God was there—
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Frail and fainting, yet thro' darkness feeling after forms divine:
Till the Spirit, rising fearless far beyond thy fostering shade,
Claim the freedom, claim the fulness, claim the kingdom long delayed;
Not as now I hence behold thee, by the mocking spell up-buoyed,
Seeing thy low fate more lowly, drearier yet the dreary void;
No, but with another rising higher than all height by far,
When all high and low have vanished, lowly earth and lofty star;
When the fires have lost their fervour and the deeps their deadly chill,
All the force of moving matter merged in forces mightier still.
Then let him that shrank from loving, fearing lest his love should fall,
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Stand we here, O foster Mother, here in dim expectancy,
Stand we here in stern endeavour, watch and work and wait with thee.”
Thus I spake, but Earth beneath me said me neither yea nor nay,
Neither nay nor yea she answered, speeding on her soundless way.
Then the dream was fallen from me, and the starry spell withdrawn;
And I woke, with Earth around me wakened to the widening dawn.
Neither nay nor yea she answered, speeding on her soundless way.
Then the dream was fallen from me, and the starry spell withdrawn;
And I woke, with Earth around me wakened to the widening dawn.
| Gathered poems of Ernest Myers | |