The Year of the World A Philosophical Poem on "Redemption from The Fall". By William B. Scott |
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 | The Year of the World |  |
III.
Pause awhile
In this grave argument (as poets term
The tenor of their tales) till between thee,
Reader, and I the writer, some few words
Be said. In truth I look up from my page,
And smile—no smile of self complacency,
For not with steel on stone, by hieroglyphs
Shadowed, nor with cithera sung, nor spoken
With apostolic singleness as of old,
This shadowing of the most august first time—
This speculation of the course of ages—
Is fashioned; but with watchful care of words
The artist now compiles; and with the steps
Of analytic consciousness he goes—
Backward and forward goes the theorist,
Upon his Seerath-bridge: and round him men
Whose time is parcelled into hours, (the clock,
The town-clock, at this instant you may hear
Telling the lapse exact of this day's transit,)
Scarce steady themselves an instant without price,
Bent constantly on short dates and per cents.
And I would not be quite apart from such;
They bear the latest social form, and Change
Acts through them nobly, and conventions thicken
Net-like so thick, that it may be, ere long,
We can no further be removed from nature.
But more—about this room from whence I see
The innumerable snow-flakes wandering down
Upon the sapless boughs and turfless ground,—
Are many books, three thousand years of books;
Elora, Mount Sinai, and the Porch,
Are printed there, and wordy condensations
Making eclectic garments for quick thinkers:
And poets, eyes of time, observers only;
And of all these the earliest still the best.
Nor are those walls of other histories void,
Things sacred from the hand of art are here,
Penates from the Nile, Pompeian pictures,
Masks—that of Homer, and of the Redeemer
Traced from an altar magnified by pilgrims.
And in this presence touch I pen and pencil—
And in this presence dare I theorize
Even of the infinite and the real!
In this grave argument (as poets term
The tenor of their tales) till between thee,
Reader, and I the writer, some few words
Be said. In truth I look up from my page,
And smile—no smile of self complacency,
For not with steel on stone, by hieroglyphs
12
With apostolic singleness as of old,
This shadowing of the most august first time—
This speculation of the course of ages—
Is fashioned; but with watchful care of words
The artist now compiles; and with the steps
Of analytic consciousness he goes—
Backward and forward goes the theorist,
Upon his Seerath-bridge: and round him men
Whose time is parcelled into hours, (the clock,
The town-clock, at this instant you may hear
Telling the lapse exact of this day's transit,)
Scarce steady themselves an instant without price,
Bent constantly on short dates and per cents.
And I would not be quite apart from such;
They bear the latest social form, and Change
Acts through them nobly, and conventions thicken
Net-like so thick, that it may be, ere long,
We can no further be removed from nature.
But more—about this room from whence I see
The innumerable snow-flakes wandering down
Upon the sapless boughs and turfless ground,—
Are many books, three thousand years of books;
Elora, Mount Sinai, and the Porch,
13
Making eclectic garments for quick thinkers:
And poets, eyes of time, observers only;
And of all these the earliest still the best.
Nor are those walls of other histories void,
Things sacred from the hand of art are here,
Penates from the Nile, Pompeian pictures,
Masks—that of Homer, and of the Redeemer
Traced from an altar magnified by pilgrims.
And in this presence touch I pen and pencil—
And in this presence dare I theorize
Even of the infinite and the real!
Friend reader, is the north wind cold? bring coals
Unto the sinking embers till new flames
Crackle and leap; in this we are agreed,
Yesterday's fires no second heats exhale.
Is not the Past all gone, and code or myth
Treatise or history that now remain
Are but the chambers whence the Spirits passed
Into the world of Deeds, through which to work
In infinite mutation to the present:
As circles on the water still expand
When the dead stone that caused them lies below.
I speak not of the poet; wisdom even
Is like a giant's garment borne but once;
As was the cross of Jesus, after whom
Who followeth bears a cross but not like his;
Not more like his than did the labourers
Whom crowned Saint Helen guided in their search
Till they exhumed the holy wood? Was not
The impulse vital from which those wise works
Proceeded; went it not abroad then, searching
Into the roots of action?—thought no more,
But action—antiquating the embalméd word
Which was its voice at first. Woe unto him
Who sees not this, alas for him that thwarts it!
Unto the sinking embers till new flames
Crackle and leap; in this we are agreed,
Yesterday's fires no second heats exhale.
Is not the Past all gone, and code or myth
Treatise or history that now remain
Are but the chambers whence the Spirits passed
Into the world of Deeds, through which to work
In infinite mutation to the present:
As circles on the water still expand
14
I speak not of the poet; wisdom even
Is like a giant's garment borne but once;
As was the cross of Jesus, after whom
Who followeth bears a cross but not like his;
Not more like his than did the labourers
Whom crowned Saint Helen guided in their search
Till they exhumed the holy wood? Was not
The impulse vital from which those wise works
Proceeded; went it not abroad then, searching
Into the roots of action?—thought no more,
But action—antiquating the embalméd word
Which was its voice at first. Woe unto him
Who sees not this, alas for him that thwarts it!
| The Year of the World | |