 | Gathered poems of Ernest Myers |  |
154
THE TOILS OF TIME
“From Night to Night for one brief visible span
The fluttering bird fleets through the lamp-lit hall:
Like that poor bird the fluttering life of man;
From Night it sprang, and Night must o'er it fall.”
The fluttering bird fleets through the lamp-lit hall:
Like that poor bird the fluttering life of man;
From Night it sprang, and Night must o'er it fall.”
So to the ancient King his Wisest spake,
As once an old faith waned, a new waxed bright:
But what cheer now or King or People make
None knoweth; they are gone into the Night.
As once an old faith waned, a new waxed bright:
But what cheer now or King or People make
None knoweth; they are gone into the Night.
Lo, the great flaming suns that onward sweep,
Each with his brood warmed by his fiery wings,
For ever onward through the icy deep,
Potent for life or death, creative Kings.
Each with his brood warmed by his fiery wings,
For ever onward through the icy deep,
Potent for life or death, creative Kings.
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For ever?—Nay, these also must abate,
Age after age, the fires within them stored;
The sister Pleiads seek their vanished mate,
And brave Orion break his golden sword.
Age after age, the fires within them stored;
The sister Pleiads seek their vanished mate,
And brave Orion break his golden sword.
Each orb that, o'er his cycles blindly led,
Eternal-seeming source of life and light,
Hath on through space illimitable sped,
Like man, like bird, flies but from Night to Night.
Eternal-seeming source of life and light,
Hath on through space illimitable sped,
Like man, like bird, flies but from Night to Night.
All to their doom drive on unmurmuring;
One voice remonstrant lifts a lonely cry:
The trampling surge sweeps o'er one tameless thing—
Man's rebel Soul that will not learn to die.
One voice remonstrant lifts a lonely cry:
The trampling surge sweeps o'er one tameless thing—
Man's rebel Soul that will not learn to die.
“Behind all change,” he saith, “of gloom and glow,
That hurrying rush, those gleams that flash and fly,
One Light abides wherefrom those glimmerings flow:
God is that Light, and of that Light am I.”
That hurrying rush, those gleams that flash and fly,
One Light abides wherefrom those glimmerings flow:
God is that Light, and of that Light am I.”
156
So cries the Soul, but crying feels again
A seal of darkness quench that sense sublime,
Swept on once more by stress of fettering chain:—
Time is the fetter, and the seal is Time.
A seal of darkness quench that sense sublime,
Swept on once more by stress of fettering chain:—
Time is the fetter, and the seal is Time.
Not yet, O Soul, may cease the rushing race,
Not yet thy baffled yearning find its crown:
Time, the false shadow, and Time's shadow, Place,
The Powers that are and are not, drag thee down.
Not yet thy baffled yearning find its crown:
Time, the false shadow, and Time's shadow, Place,
The Powers that are and are not, drag thee down.
Let Then and Now their wildering shows give o'er,
Let Thence and Thither flee with fleeing Night;
So stand, made one with God for evermore
In one pure flame of timeless Being's Light.
Let Thence and Thither flee with fleeing Night;
So stand, made one with God for evermore
In one pure flame of timeless Being's Light.
| Gathered poems of Ernest Myers | |