 | The Poems and Plays of William Vaughn Moody |  |
SCENE I.
A high mountain pass, down which flows a brook, with pools and waterfalls. Early morning.Raphael.
Climbing, sings.
On earth all is well, all is well on the sea;
Though the day breaks dull
All is well.
Ere the thunder had ceased to yell
I flew through the wash of the sea
Wing and wing with my brother the gull.
On the crumbling comb of the swell,
With the spindrift slashing to lee,
Poised we;
The petrel thought us asleep
Till sidewise round on stiffened wing,
Keen and taut to take the swing
With the glass-green avalanches in their swerving plunge and sweep,
Down the glassy, down the prone,
Swift as swerving thunder-stone,
We shot the green crevasses
And we hallooed down the passes
Of the deep.
Though the day breaks dull
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Ere the thunder had ceased to yell
I flew through the wash of the sea
Wing and wing with my brother the gull.
On the crumbling comb of the swell,
With the spindrift slashing to lee,
Poised we;
The petrel thought us asleep
Till sidewise round on stiffened wing,
Keen and taut to take the swing
With the glass-green avalanches in their swerving plunge and sweep,
Down the glassy, down the prone,
Swift as swerving thunder-stone,
We shot the green crevasses
And we hallooed down the passes
Of the deep.
On earth all is well, all is well.
In the weeds of the beach lay the shell
With the sleeper within,
And the pulse of the sleeper showed through
The walls of his delicate house
That will wake with the sun into silver and purple and blue.
Where the creek makes out and the sea makes in
Between the low cliff-brows
Was borne the talk of the aldered linn
Matching the meadow's subtile din;
And hark, from the grey high overhead
The lark's keen joy was shed!
For what though the morning sulky was
And the punctual sun belated,
His nest was snug in the tufted grass,
Soft-lined and stoutly plaited,
And shine sun may or stay away
Nests must be celebrated!
In the weeds of the beach lay the shell
With the sleeper within,
And the pulse of the sleeper showed through
The walls of his delicate house
That will wake with the sun into silver and purple and blue.
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Between the low cliff-brows
Was borne the talk of the aldered linn
Matching the meadow's subtile din;
And hark, from the grey high overhead
The lark's keen joy was shed!
For what though the morning sulky was
And the punctual sun belated,
His nest was snug in the tufted grass,
Soft-lined and stoutly plaited,
And shine sun may or stay away
Nests must be celebrated!
Drowsy with dawn, barely asail,
Buzzes the blue-bottle over the shale,
Scared from the pool by the leaping trout;
And the brood of turtlings clamber out
On the log by their oozy house.
Round the roots of the cresses and stems of the ferns
The muskrat goes by dodges and turns;
Till she has seized her prey she heeds not the whine of her mouse.
Lovingly, spitefully, each
Kind unto kind makes speech;
Marriage and birth and war, passion and hunger and thirst,
Song and plotting and dream, as it was meant from the first!
He climbs higher, and sings.
Buzzes the blue-bottle over the shale,
Scared from the pool by the leaping trout;
And the brood of turtlings clamber out
On the log by their oozy house.
Round the roots of the cresses and stems of the ferns
The muskrat goes by dodges and turns;
Till she has seized her prey she heeds not the whine of her mouse.
Lovingly, spitefully, each
Kind unto kind makes speech;
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Song and plotting and dream, as it was meant from the first!
Peering in the dust I thought
“How all creatures, small and great,
For his pleasure God hath wrought!”
“How all creatures, small and great,
For his pleasure God hath wrought!”
When I saw the robins mate
Low I sang unto my harp,
“Happy, happy, his estate!
Low I sang unto my harp,
“Happy, happy, his estate!
“Down curved spaces He may warp
With old planets; long and long,
Where the snail doth tease and carp,
With old planets; long and long,
Where the snail doth tease and carp,
“Asking with its jellied prong,
A whole summer He may bide,
Wondrous tiny lives among,
Curious unsatisfied.”
A whole summer He may bide,
Wondrous tiny lives among,
Curious unsatisfied.”
The trees grow stunted in this keener air,
And scarce the hardiest blossoms dare to take
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Boast mosses and a poor increase of flowers,
But all the northern shelters hold their snow.
Such flowers as come, come not quite flower-like,
But smitten from their gracious habitudes
By some alarm, some vast and voiceless cry
That just has ceased to echo ere I came.
These white buds stand unnaturally white,
Breathing no odors till their terror pass;
Those grey souls toss their arms into the wind,
Peer through their locks with bright distracted eyes
And hug the elfin horror to their breasts—
Poor brain-turned gypsy wildings, doomed to birth
In this uneasy region! ... Yonder lift
The outposts of the habitable land.
Ages of looking on the scene beyond
Have worn the granite into shapes of woe
And old disaster.
He climbs higher, to where the ravine debouches into the Valley of the Judgment.
Each time when I stand
Upon the borders of this monstrous place,
I still must question wherefore it was flung
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Sheer from the morning cliffs that hold up Heaven
To nether caverns where no foot of man
Has clambered down, nor eye of angel dared
To spy upon the sluggish denizens,
If any dwell so deep. What giant plow
Harnessed to behemoth and mastodon
Set this slope furrow down the side of the world?
And to what harvest? ... Here the sons of men,
Living and dead and yet unborn, might come
Unto the final judgment; here the lost
Might make one desperate stand. ... What moveth there?
What leonine and wingèd shape is he
Steals up yon gorge all desolate of light
Whence voices of fierce-tongued and desperate streams
Sound faint as throats of nooning doves? Till now
Never have I beheld a living thing
Amid these wastes. What manner beast is he
That he hath power to awe me, though removed
So far the fallen vastness of a cliff
Wherefrom a temple might be quarried, looks
Fit for a shepherd's sling? ... Surely he comes
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But whither steals he homeward there aloft?
What lair is his cloud-hidden in the snows,
Whose mates and loves wait 'neath the desert palms
To hear him tell his deed? Huge was the fight
That left that mighty prowess broken so!
For sorely is he broken: now he stops
And lies exhausted by an icy pool,
Now labors up the shale, skirts the bald top,
Drops with fierce caution down the further slope
Eyeing the next hard pass. I wonder ... ? No ...
Strange! 't was a blood-drop fell upon that flower
A-tremble from the brink. Another here
Upon the ground-moss—nay, upon my hand—
It falls all round me! ...
Looking upward.
Ah, an eagle goes
Lame from the battle, mate or duelist
Of him who crept by yonder. Even here
I see the vast wings, shattered and unpenned,
Almost refuse their labor; now he swerves
To rest upon a needled dolomite,
Then upward grievously another stage
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I too must seek my eyrie—sad enough,
Since there my heart abides not any more,
Amid the waste infinitudes of light
Missing the flow of day, the refluent dark;
Amid the bliss of unconcerning eyes
Remembering woman's anguish, man's resolve,
Youth's wistful darling guess, kindled and quenched
And quenched and kindled yet a little year
In eyes too frail to hold their meaning long
Where chance and enmity conspire with death.
He flies up the Valley.
| The Poems and Plays of William Vaughn Moody | |