 | Threescore, and other poems |  |
23
DAYS IN DARKNESS SET.
Why are our days in darkness set,
Sundered by intersperséd glooms,
Like diamonds on a field of jet,
And life a retinue of dooms?
Sundered by intersperséd glooms,
Like diamonds on a field of jet,
And life a retinue of dooms?
Self-sentenced are we by our greeds,
That outface virtue on the seats
Whence law should flow from generous creeds
To drench with life these selfish heats.
That outface virtue on the seats
Whence law should flow from generous creeds
To drench with life these selfish heats.
Rude tyrants are we to our being,
Cooping us in the gilded pens
Of worldliness, with its mis-seeing,
By glimmers duped from shallow fens;
Cooping us in the gilded pens
Of worldliness, with its mis-seeing,
By glimmers duped from shallow fens;
24
Or simmering on the flameless fire,
Of daily vice, that heartstrings chars,
We make the soul an earthly pyre,
Blackening its healthiness with scars;
Of daily vice, that heartstrings chars,
We make the soul an earthly pyre,
Blackening its healthiness with scars;
The soul, which is a light flashed thence
Where life, beyond the sphere of earths,
Glows with a being so intense,
Each throbbing is a thousand births;
Where life, beyond the sphere of earths,
Glows with a being so intense,
Each throbbing is a thousand births;
Flashed thence to be itself creative,
Thought, feeling, bounteous deed aye raying
Upon all neighbor life, and, native
Of Heaven, with broad divineness swaying.
Thought, feeling, bounteous deed aye raying
Upon all neighbor life, and, native
Of Heaven, with broad divineness swaying.
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