A Child of the People And Other Poems. By James Chapman Woods |
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 | A Child of the People |  |
99
NIGHT.
Night! In the balcony now in the heart of the heart of this London,
Still from pavement to sky,—still as the graves shut at noon.
Still the trees in the square, and behind them like sleep-stricken fireflies,
Lights burn steady and still, hung in a visible dark.
One by one in the windows the lights go out; where they linger,
Lo there are watchers within; shadows will move on the blinds.
Dead to the bodily eye is the world, but the soul's eye hath vision,—
Fiery realities, throes, most where the curtains are drawn.
What of this night will the world-soul say when the years by a hundred
More shall be told? Of the world, history grows in the dark.
Why may not also the skies be, drawn round the windows of heaven,
Masks of a merciless might, veils of imagineless deeds?
Forgings for Time and Eternity round us,—who saith, “Not above us!”
Still the soul straineth beyond: Lo there, yon storm-drift of clouds,—
Shadows of gods, may-be, who, banished at last by a greater,
Linger with desolate eyes fast on the thrones that were theirs!
Shall then some god-scribe record of this hour that it slept, when the ancient
Lordship of heaven changed hands? Giants of chaos and night
Strained to the zenith to snatch from its rulers the tyrannous sceptre?
What if the morrow on us burst in a tempest of fire,—
Wild upheaval of worlds when the fresh gods first handle the thunder?
Madmen are many around,—what if mad gods be above?
Still from pavement to sky,—still as the graves shut at noon.
Still the trees in the square, and behind them like sleep-stricken fireflies,
Lights burn steady and still, hung in a visible dark.
One by one in the windows the lights go out; where they linger,
Lo there are watchers within; shadows will move on the blinds.
Dead to the bodily eye is the world, but the soul's eye hath vision,—
Fiery realities, throes, most where the curtains are drawn.
What of this night will the world-soul say when the years by a hundred
More shall be told? Of the world, history grows in the dark.
100
Masks of a merciless might, veils of imagineless deeds?
Forgings for Time and Eternity round us,—who saith, “Not above us!”
Still the soul straineth beyond: Lo there, yon storm-drift of clouds,—
Shadows of gods, may-be, who, banished at last by a greater,
Linger with desolate eyes fast on the thrones that were theirs!
Shall then some god-scribe record of this hour that it slept, when the ancient
Lordship of heaven changed hands? Giants of chaos and night
Strained to the zenith to snatch from its rulers the tyrannous sceptre?
What if the morrow on us burst in a tempest of fire,—
Wild upheaval of worlds when the fresh gods first handle the thunder?
Madmen are many around,—what if mad gods be above?
Soul, it is well for thee, greater than Time and the worlds that he changes;
Faint not though folds of the sky haunt thee with truths that they hide:
Thou who conceivest of them art of them; the day is thy prison,
Holding thee back from the quest; night hath no cords to confine.
Thine is the will to attain to the heart of the infinite secret;
Flag not nor falter; the night broadens about thee for wings.
Faint not though folds of the sky haunt thee with truths that they hide:
101
Holding thee back from the quest; night hath no cords to confine.
Thine is the will to attain to the heart of the infinite secret;
Flag not nor falter; the night broadens about thee for wings.
| A Child of the People | |