University of Virginia Library

Arise, put on thy strength,
O soul released at length
From thy blind bondage in the cave obscure:
Let night call unto night;
Thou to the comely light
Lift thy confronting brow, serene and sure.

Why turn thy glances back?
Here glows thy glorious track,
Bright with the dawn and light of forward feet:
A daughter of the morn
New-risen and new-born,
Why tarriest thou to take thy birthright sweet?

Poor soul, thou art perplext,
Thou hast so long been vext
By shadowy hopes that baffling beckoned thee:
What wonder thou wert fain
To list whatever strain
Amid the dimness spake consolingly?

Of that enchanted shade
Thou hast renouncement made,
Yet weepest for the flowers that round thee grew:
Bleak seems the field and bare,
Shorn of its harvest fair;
Not yet is death of old things birth of new.

But other seed more blest
Is in the kind earth's breast:
Watch yet one hour; thy recompense is nigh:
Yea, and thy Gods that were
Are here again more fair,
All human, all divine, that cannot die.

How long, how long, forlorn Humanity,
Must thou gaze forth from Naxos' shore in vain
For vanished sails that ne'er come back to thee,
For Theseus' arms that clasp thee ne'er again?
Let thy sad eyes look round;
The young God ivy-crowned,
Splendidly coming up out of the sea,
Is stretching forth his hand to marry thee
With marriage-ring of the new bridal-vow.
Be glad, for thy best life begins but now;
For he shall breathe a new love in thy veins,
And shall drown utterly all regretful pains,
Pouring thee draughts of his celestial wine,
And blessing thee with kisses o'er and o'er,
Until he set thee for a heavenly sign,
To be a starry splendour evermore.

O longing listener on the stormy shore,
Are they so harsh, the sounds that round thee roar?
A little while, thy disentangling ear
Amid the tuneless din shall hear
An under-streaming subtle symphony,
A mystic maze of ordered melody
Drawn out in long importunate agony,
With tender piteous straining
Of lute to lute complaining
Pleadingly ever, and with keen replying
Living intensely in pain, and almost dying,
Until the trumpet's pealing voice
Bids the wondering world rejoice,
And all-compelling sweeps along
The faltering feet of stringëd song.

Yet are there moments sweeter far than all,
And holier far, that on the spirit fall
Of him who, midst the eager strife
Of Hate and Death with Love and Life,
A little quiet space may win
From war without and war within,
And suddenly from the dim earth borne on high
Upon the wings of his great ecstasy
To some still mountain-top of magic spell,
Shall gaze into the things invisible,
And know with purged and understanding eye
The wondrous forms of fair futurity.
Then let the marvel of the whole
Strike on the wishing, wondering soul,
That her serene delight shall seem
Most like the pious painter's dream,
Presenting how in solemn wise
They come with ancient mysteries
To dedicate the Child Divine
Within his Father's golden shrine:
And fair boy-angels bravely clad
On either side are softly glad;
Not yet their lips will touch the flute,
Not yet their fingers wake the lute,
Nor may the dreaming gazer know
How sweet the spell-bound flood shall flow,
But dreams in wonder more and more
Of some consummate act in store,
Wherein shall fit fulfilment be
Of such divine expectancy.