Narcissus and Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Narcissus and Other Poems

By E. Carpenter

Carpenter, Edward (1844-1929)

EARTH'S VOICES.

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EARTH'S VOICES.

I

The invocations and the cries of Earth.—
Once, high uplifted into lucid space
Beyond the vital air's inveiling girth,
Alone in night and the intense embrace
Of the star-circled sun, I turned my face,
And saw the fields and forests, islands, seas,
Of this fair planet moving from their place
Eastward for ever; and I seemed to seize
The low rhythm of their movement like a murmuring breeze.

II

Half lay in shadow and the land of night;
And as when o'er a sparkling ocean-plain
Wave follows wave in mounds of rolling light
To some dim shore where all their splendours wane,

So ruddy deserts and green lands of grain,
Blue seas and rocky headlands, rank by rank,
Passing in slow procession did attain
The shore of night, and on that cloudy bank
Out of all sight and sequence into darkness sank.

III

But now the Moon, late hidden, as I moved
Peered over Earth's black shoulder, like a sprite
Half charmed by some huge monster half beloved,
Half feared because of his exceeding might.
And where, about the pole descending white,
Wide snow-fields lie, and like an ermine cape
Cover the rounded world, her glances bright
Glimmered in azure calm o'er half its shape;
The rest the sovereign sun in cloth of gold did drape.

IV

So beautiful the scene that with delight
Gazing I lost no detail of its graces,
Until—like one who, wakeful late at night
With meditating fond familiar faces,

Starts from the busy picture fancy traces,
Awe-struck with outer silence—wonderbound
I watched the worlds glide forward from their places
Into abysmal stillness: not a sound
Now marked their smooth resistless speed to the profound.

V

Then in an universe of suns I saw
Our planet pass obscurely like a mote;
And filled with sudden yearning and great awe,
To know the burden of its single note
Amid the spheric chant, with wings of thought
I cleft the airless space, dipt into shade
Nightward below the Moon, and, forward brought
In one large curve of meteor swiftness, made
Entrance into the sunlight on Earth's orient grade.

VI

There paused a moment; then with slow wide wing
Sank through the murmurous air. And as I beat
Earthward, a lark, like arrow from the string,
Shot by me with a shrill great cry to greet

The rising sun, and tossed his music sweet
Upward and outward in a fount for ever.
Screaming below a wounded eagle fleet
Went like a whirlwind over rock and river,
Seeking the high crag-homeland of his death's endeavour.

VII

So, landward, I alighted on a beach
Beside a misty sunlit sea that swayed
And shimmered like a cloud of fireflies, each
Borne to and fro as random fancy bade;
When through the soft hush that the water made
I heard loud voices and rude choral song,
And saw a boat that with its anchor weighed
Pushed outward from the shore, and in a throng
The women stood, and seaward their white farewells flung.

VIII

Until the daring music dipt and died
Over the flood, and all the air was still;
Then turning from the melancholy tide
The women mounted homeward up the hill;

And I remained. It seemed their sturdy will
Was to explore new lands; instead whereof
I heard the whistling shrouds sing wildly shrill
Over a white sea domed with black above;
The roaring winds about them whirled and snakelike strove,

IX

Stung by the lightning, and a maddened cry
Smote heavenward as the gaping beams drank death;
And, like a hungry beast that cannot die,
Ocean flung high her white and windy breath,
Heaped huge her wet coils o'er the dead beneath,
And forward rolling in fresh quest of prey
Rustled each surfy scale and python wreath.
But turning from my dream I took the way
Of those sad wives, and sought the village o'er the bay.

X

And one walked ever, vacant-eyed, apart,
And hastened; whom I followed to a rude
Dim chamber where the one child of her heart,
Smitten with mortal pain—six years of feud

'Twixt life and death—moaned and in grievous mood
Denied endearance; whom her mother kissed
And stroked her fair hair, but thus vainly sued
One smile of recognition, for I wist
She only cried as cries a lamb lost in the mist,

XI

Whom the unknown One watches. So an hour
Her mother watched and lulled a low refrain
Which with her weariness did overpower
To placid sleep the fretful sense of pain;
And evermore the song, renewed again
About that chamber, seemed obscurely fraught
With ancient memories of grief and vain
Renewals of despair, the slow years wrought
To patient love and tenderness which is not taught.

XII

But now borne forward on the wind afar
I heard the roll of drums, and in the street,
Standing, beheld the burnished ranks of war
Pass by in dignity of measured beat.

Strange was the tramp of quick persistent feet
O'erharmonised by music, like the days
Of one who through a long life's frost and heat
Still labours on and, while he labours, prays,—
His faith high while his feet halt on the dusty ways.

XIII

A thousand soldiers with eyes forward cast,
Yet flashing somewhat at the random shout
A stranger village sent them, so they passed:
Fair and sunfreckled, veteran and raw lout,
Each with his own cloudfancies clothed about—
To bring fame homeward like a friend, or die
Storming the stubborn-hearted steep redoubt.
And as they went their music rang on high
Afar through fields and vineyards to the summer sky.

XIV

Empty the little street was, and quite still;
Save, as I passed, the murmur of one blind
Gray beggar who upon a warm door-sill,
Deaf in his age and darkened in his mind,

Muttered the wind of words he could not find
Wherewith to implore the silence; and his moan,
As I went forward, floating after, twined
About my heart, till, hamlet left, alone
I sat where grass was green upon a sunny stone.

XV

Then I perceived that Nature has one cry
For all her children; for around me shrill
Cicalæ, hid in flowering grasses high,
Made the whole land with their sharp music thrill;
Which with the hot air over vale and hill
Went quivering heavenward, like a censer-fire
Of Nature's own strange yearning to fulfil
Some intimate foreknowledge and desire
Of unexpressed perfection, whereto all aspire.

XVI

And overhead three swifts, keen-twittering,
Darted each after each and passed,
Cleaving the winds with scymitar-curved wing,
Skyward, in mad career of circles vast,

Until they vanished in the blue at last.
So I arose, and passing from that place
Fled o'er the fields and woodland valleys fast,
Until upon a plain I paused a space
Before a densely-peopled wideflung city's face.

XVII

Like a great altar on a rising ground
It stood, surmounted by a smoky sign
High-pointing heavenward; and I heard a sound,
Low, like the bateless roaring of the brine
Which on a thousand miles of Afric's line
Surges for ever: 'twas a nation's prayer,
Hoarse, unremitting, and the mist malign
Was laden with reiterate plaint of care,
Triumph and strife and wide-eye'd want and wan despair.

XVIII

And past me, with a shriek from East and West,
And feet of thunder up the sloping ways,
The great town drew in fiery grim unrest
Her steaming traffic through its iron maze;

And all the roads a flickering dust did raise,
Like white flames o'er the country far and wide,
Because of those who in the wheeling chaise
Or huge deliberate wain on every side
About her to and fro their busy errands plied.

XIX

So, standing by the gate, I was aware
Of low soft singing and a voice whose tone
Struck strangely through the resonant harsh air;
And at a window spied a maid, alone,
Oblivious of hard ways and walls of stone,
Who, all the while with needle deft in hand,
Sang, and it was as Love a veil had thrown
About her singing and herself, to stand
Between her cloud-world and the loud ungracious land.

XX

For in the heaven of her voice I saw
The fair fields where love-dreaming feet delay
Beside a brook whose budding beeches straw
Dead leaves of last year in the new-mown hay;

Where 'twixt the closely-grown stems two can stay
And see but one scene all an afternoon,
Save in each other's eyes, where Love's bright ray
Burns diverse beauty, like the sun and moon,
Silver and golden, through warm nights and days of June.

XXI

So fair a Paradise of longing dwelt
Between her lips. But as I dreamt thereof
There came a hush, and some around me knelt.
I turned; and saw the sad reverse of Love:
A slow funereal train that seemed to move
Upon the music of its own low plaint,
In silence of all hearts, while two did prove
Death's extreme severance, and one with faint
World-desolate cry broke the pauses of the chant.

XXII

Which passed. And, like a loud returning tide,
The roaring world swept upward to the gate,
Bearing me inward; and straightway the wide
Street-wilderness unwound its noisy state.

I heard the eager strife and fierce debate
Of wayside traffic and the hurried tramp
Of countless feet upon the pavement-slate,
Like rain that nightly falls upon a damp
Garden, whose steadfast plash the ear with awe doth stamp.

XXIII

And din of hawkers and in dusk by-lanes
Discordance of hoarse tuneless instruments,
Rhythmical ring of anvils, hiss of planes,
And busy hum of factories immense;
And one, a mother with pale features tense,
Who, peering in each swift indifferent face,
Pleaded her child's life, till her own starved sense
Turned giddy in the shifting whirling race,
And she fled from men's scorn to Death's obscure embrace.

XXIV

And one, a man, in crying of his wares
Grown aged, till forgetful even of gain,
Feeble in body, bent, and gray in hairs,
Nought of him but a voice seemed to remain;

For with a long high note, like one in pain,
Rising and falling with pathetic art,
Prone through the streets he went and wheeled his wain,
Nor looked to right or left to find a mart,
But only forward to fulfil his one dim part.

XXV

Then, turning from the crowd, I saw the men
Who sharpen rude steel to each shapely end
Ranged rank on rank within a long low den,
Each doomed from high seat o'er a wheel to bend,
As though a nation's tyranny did lend
The load of all its wealth to every shoulder;
And with the murmur of the stones did blend
A hectic cough, fitful, of lives that moulder
Motionless under heaven, each like a grey rock-boulder

XXVI

And farther onward, in a lurid glare,
I saw the red heat-wrinkled limbs of those
Who ply their fierce glass furnaces with air,
And, day and night renewed, without repose

100

Blow till the tube's white-dazzling pendant glows
To clear and perfect grace—a subtle feat;
And evermore the blast with fitful throes
Of molten fury from that inward heat
Roared upward in the silence of their naked feet.

XXVII

So through the ranks I passed of those who do
Good service in the masonry of man,
Whose measurements are sure and blows are true,
And hearts courageous for whate'er they can
In field, or factory, or camp, who scan,
Most critical, their own work; and I heard
Their labour's musical low murmur span
The spaces of a land's despair—a word
Whispered in Heaven's ear: and my heart with joy was stirred.

XXVIII

Whereafter, in a while, I saw a crowd
Stream to a gate as of some sacred fane,
And passing inward was aware of loud
Sweet harmonies in rhythmical refrain,

101

And heard the ringing strings recite again
Those heights and depths of yearning human mood,
Eternal orisons, which one in pain
Daylong and nightlong of dread solitude
Wrought for the want and wonder of Earth's multitude.

XXIX

Yea, when a string smote softly through the still,
Giving a note of sorrow to all times,
Whereto with gradual melodious thrill
One after one responded, like faint chimes
Heard in the leafen gloom of sunny climes:
All hearts with awe were silent; but thereon,
As when a wind breaks forward through the limes,
Sweeping the bees out, with an angry tone
A myriad tumultuous voices drowned the one;

XXX

And raved in harsh reiterated rage
And insane self-insistence, till a chill
Shudder the listening spirit did engage,
As when one brooding all night o'er some ill

102

Wakes to the hard blind roaring of Life's mill.
So note on note the intertangled sound
Grew in chaotic utterance until,
With whirlwind cries of fear, as though the ground
Of all existence opened, from the world-profound

XXXI

Three tones strode upward through the noisy throng.
Great was the hush: as when a rabble crew,
Bent on destruction, wanton spite and wrong,
Sees one it fears but knows not in full view.
Great was the wonder of that hush, wherethrough
I heard the plaintive voice that spake before,
Cry as for help; and though the murmur grew
Instant again, I knew there was a power
Prompt to devise deliverance ere the final hour.

XXXIII

Thus wave on wave the wind of music swept
About our hearts, till all old memories
Of joy and sorrow from their slumbers leapt
Transfigured to life-radiance in surprise

103

At their own beauty; and the seas and skies
Poured all their splendour o'er us, and fair dreams
And high forebodings in those symphonies
Glanced on us, fitful with reflected gleams
Shot from the silver waters as of unseen streams.

XXXIII

So when I turned again into the street,
Even Life's common sounds seemed glorified
In Music's sunlike utterance: the fleet
Insistent days and hours seemed to divide
With measured equal beats the rhythmic stride
Of ages, in whose loud discordance stood,
Not old despair of hopes so long belied,
But promise of harmonious ends of good
And present part in splendour not yet understood.

XXXIV

Thus pensive through the city's western gate
Half unaware I wandered, and a slight
Slope led me from that tumult. 'Twas now late:
The level sun made shadow more than light,

104

And beat the mountains with his burning might
To ruddy gold. Calm was the fragrant wind
Of garden closes. One, a peasant wight,
Sang as the day went downward unrepined;
But soon I left that land and all its lays behind;

XXXV

And fled up on the mountains, crag by crag,
Until I gained their pathless utmost peak,
Where, resting on an extreme stony jag,
I turned, and saw that City's towers antique
And modern chimneys, as by sudden freak,
Flushed scarlet in the sun's descending fire;
And straight a hundred belfry throats did speak
A deep-toned Ave, mounting higher and higher
Heavenward about the world as daylight did expire.

XXXVI

And as when on a purple Alpine ridge
With silver-sweet farewell the evening star
Delays an instant, until Earth's black edge,
Deemed motionless of mortals, from afar

105

Plunges obscurely forward to debar
All further greeting: so on that grey crag
Close under heaven I felt Earth, like a car,
Wheel from beneath me, and my flight did lag
Westward from that high mountain like a wind-borne flag.

XXXVII

And I beheld, once more, Night's cloudy rim
Creep forward over continents and seas,
And heard the bells of eve, where'er the dim
Shadow delayed, break upward on the breeze
With childlike cries for help to One who sees
From them that fear the darkness; by whose shore
I saw a vision of those who on their knees
Morning and eve the face of heaven explore,
Circling the world with prayer and praise for evermore.

XXXVIII

Loudly the bells rang; but ere long each tone
Lapsed in the general consent of sound,
As upward and in airy flight alone
I left the haunts of mortals, and the round

106

Of Earth gave but one cry to the profound—
Voices and bells with notes of labour blent,
One indistinct hoarse murmur, inly wound
About the world, and rising, as intent
To reach the throne of God before its force was spent.

XXXIX

An instant so. And then the veil of air
Dropped, and I passed into the absolute
Far silence of the spheres. No sound was there,
But all the throbbing hours fell round me mute,
Like wavelets where no shore is; past compute
The myriad worlds, in mystic motion free,
Fled round about or fell like ripened fruit
All down Night's infinite; and like a sea
The universe set shoreward to eternity.

XL

So I beheld Earth, with her weary load
Of want, pass swiftly; and it was as when
Some plaintive strain of music on a road
Grows distant-faint and flutters out of ken

107

Behind an angle: like the minds of men,
At once their world and prison, that white vail
Of soft circumfluent air did surely pen
Each heavenward cry and high despairing wail
Wall-like within its own impassable fixed pale.

XLI

And swifter, like a wan and eager wight
Threading some gay-apparelled crowd, she fled
Among the universal spheres of night
Following her lord the sun where'er he led,
Until she passed and vanished as one dead;
While he supreme in thunder-stillness strode
Forward with lessening flame into the dread
Distance of gloom where all his glory showed
Less than the starry lamps which light grey Time's abode.

XLII

Yet in that moment saw I that his feet
Were shod with purpose; for in some huge arc
He swept sublime, whose centre equal-fleet,
Who knows? might flame-like cleave the wondering dark

108

About some greater light—again a spark
Before the greatest. So with high hand fraught
With quick farewells to Earth I turned to mark
The end of all our wanderings, and sought
Him who holds all world-systems centred in his Thought.