 | Threescore, and other poems |  |
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FREE.
That stout maple cannot walk,
Or the wild deer mount on wings,
Unchecked eagle glibly talk,
Blazing rainbow shift its rings,—
Think you therefore they are thralls,
Convict culprits tied to stalls,
Hindered, hampered, shrunken slaves,
Longing to be free in graves?
Each is whole with nature's gifts,
Runs its cordial range of life,
Void of impulse that uplifts
Motion to a counterstrife.
Freedom is not lawlessness;
She of law is all compact;
For 't is that doth loving press
Quickening shoots to fruitful act.
Nothing bodied but must be
Circumclosed in rightful bounds:
Suns and planets, like the tree,
Wheel by law their mighty rounds;
Law it was that shaped their being,
Drew them from chaotic naught,
And their lives from riot freeing
Keeps them now with splendor fraught.
Can you see without your eye,
Whose far virtues, every one,
Through encagéd matter ply,
Matter moulded like the Sun?
Or the wild deer mount on wings,
Unchecked eagle glibly talk,
Blazing rainbow shift its rings,—
Think you therefore they are thralls,
Convict culprits tied to stalls,
Hindered, hampered, shrunken slaves,
Longing to be free in graves?
Each is whole with nature's gifts,
Runs its cordial range of life,
Void of impulse that uplifts
Motion to a counterstrife.
Freedom is not lawlessness;
She of law is all compact;
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Quickening shoots to fruitful act.
Nothing bodied but must be
Circumclosed in rightful bounds:
Suns and planets, like the tree,
Wheel by law their mighty rounds;
Law it was that shaped their being,
Drew them from chaotic naught,
And their lives from riot freeing
Keeps them now with splendor fraught.
Can you see without your eye,
Whose far virtues, every one,
Through encagéd matter ply,
Matter moulded like the Sun?
Through the hot-breathed engine fleet,
Telegraph that light outspeeds,
Our slow bulks have swifter feet,
And are freer thought and deeds.
Thus the lower lifts the higher,
Kindling soul to subtler fire,
When for truth we wisely watch,
From glad Nature secrets snatch.
Life were freedom, if the soul
Were not oft its own fee'd foe,
Madly seeking sunken goal,
'Gainst its current's healthy flow.
Health is then when no desire
Is by noisome hindrance pained,
And no hallowed soaring fire
With a fulsome heat profaned.
Telegraph that light outspeeds,
Our slow bulks have swifter feet,
And are freer thought and deeds.
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Kindling soul to subtler fire,
When for truth we wisely watch,
From glad Nature secrets snatch.
Life were freedom, if the soul
Were not oft its own fee'd foe,
Madly seeking sunken goal,
'Gainst its current's healthy flow.
Health is then when no desire
Is by noisome hindrance pained,
And no hallowed soaring fire
With a fulsome heat profaned.
Life's unsounded current's head
Sparkles trickling from the vast,
By almighty wisdom sped,
Into life divinely cast;
Sparkles with a Soul, new-launched,
Or elate or terror-blanched,
Ever struggling to be free,—
Spirit, quintessential spright,
Deathless possibility,
Motor mute, invisible might,
Forger fine of every form,
Driving on through calm or storm;
Onward, upward, through the joys
Childhood tires of as of toys,
Through the fragrance, fresh ascending,
From young passion's censer swung
Round the blushing self, sweet blending
Incense to another flung;
Onward to the looming heights
Where great manhood reigns in power,
Looming through the artful lights
Hope throws on the coming hour.
Sparkles trickling from the vast,
By almighty wisdom sped,
Into life divinely cast;
Sparkles with a Soul, new-launched,
Or elate or terror-blanched,
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Spirit, quintessential spright,
Deathless possibility,
Motor mute, invisible might,
Forger fine of every form,
Driving on through calm or storm;
Onward, upward, through the joys
Childhood tires of as of toys,
Through the fragrance, fresh ascending,
From young passion's censer swung
Round the blushing self, sweet blending
Incense to another flung;
Onward to the looming heights
Where great manhood reigns in power,
Looming through the artful lights
Hope throws on the coming hour.
Soul, O Soul, how swarm thy trials,
As huge tempests 'bout the earth,
When they pour from burning phials
Wreck that proves her steadfast worth.
Thou shalt seem to be uplifted
But to be cast lower down:
Keen delights, desires unsifted,
Freedom in their joyance drown.
Freedom springs not from the dross
Of warm wants self-gratified;
Her plumed pinions are not gross
With hot fuel, passion-plied.
Passions, pleasures, have their places,
And so has clean appetite;
But 't is not as Freedom's braces,
Or inflators of her flight.
As huge tempests 'bout the earth,
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Wreck that proves her steadfast worth.
Thou shalt seem to be uplifted
But to be cast lower down:
Keen delights, desires unsifted,
Freedom in their joyance drown.
Freedom springs not from the dross
Of warm wants self-gratified;
Her plumed pinions are not gross
With hot fuel, passion-plied.
Passions, pleasures, have their places,
And so has clean appetite;
But 't is not as Freedom's braces,
Or inflators of her flight.
Of the self unbind the self;
Hush the lusts, loud greeds of pelf:
Thus acquitted being bless
Through full self-forgetfulness.
Diamond's worth is what it throws
From its core to others' eyes:
Man is precious as he glows
With the large humanities;
And 't is they whose wingéd might
Lifts him into freedom's light.
From cold mineral up to man
Aspiration is the law
Whereby each accomplish can,
Each his life unstained by flaw.
When all wishes upward strive,
Then will life be full alive:
Only is the soul then free,
When it freer aims to be.
Onward, upward; higher, higher;
See! there beckons angel-fire.
Hush the lusts, loud greeds of pelf:
Thus acquitted being bless
Through full self-forgetfulness.
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From its core to others' eyes:
Man is precious as he glows
With the large humanities;
And 't is they whose wingéd might
Lifts him into freedom's light.
From cold mineral up to man
Aspiration is the law
Whereby each accomplish can,
Each his life unstained by flaw.
When all wishes upward strive,
Then will life be full alive:
Only is the soul then free,
When it freer aims to be.
Onward, upward; higher, higher;
See! there beckons angel-fire.
| Threescore, and other poems | |