University of Virginia Library

GROWTH

It is half an indignity and half a delight
To know in age that I am but a child
Kept in a nursery. And yet we must
Be children of a king, pardoned so oft
Our passion fits, immodesties and noise,
Washed clean and dressed in shining raiment. Here
In this wide palace of air my spirit glows
With the gold and silver that it looks upon
As if it had never paddled in the mire.
Some majesty it must be ordered this
Transfiguration, the drapery of light
That I might come fitly unto the feast.
And this deep music of being in me, how
Could it be played upon my jangled strings
But by a master to whom the broken heart,
The listless will, the self-despisings, are
But notes that in the spirit melody
Had lost their sister notes, and sounding these
All breathe together in one melting chord.
O, what profundity, what gentleness
In power, to take what's base or fearful and
To find its place in beauty. I begin
To guess the infinite wisdom of the king,
And to what stature we must grow to come
To our inheritance, how airy delicate
The fingers holding the sceptre, and how deep
Must be the vision in brows that wear the crown.
For with what calm the princes of the stars
Carry the madness of battle on their orbs,
And yet the multitudinous agony
Must be theirs also. Are not the hands that strike
The stricken heart, within their sovereignty?
I sigh to think of all the toil to be
Ere we, who cry out at a prick of the thumb,
Can in the inexorable cavalcade
Ride on the power. And yet there is a joy
In contemplating the heroic gods,
The labour of the high, unshakable ones
In whom the king has trust. For have we not
An infant spark of that which in the gods
Can pierce both heaven and brothel with its light
And be seduced neither by love nor hate,
But with the secret wisdom of their king
Weaving the richness of the universe
Into the least of things. So in our dark
Are breathings from the stars: no ear but there
The majesty whispers itself: there's no exalted
Thought but the king gave unto it its light.
Dazed by excess of riches we do not know
That we are heaped with gifts from all the gods,
Microcosmos unconscious of itself.
And with this wisdom childhood ends, and all
Its songs are sung. I know a door has closed
Behind me and I can never again with joy
Live in that house. The arts that once were sweet
Would now be bitter in using. For not death
Which brings us back to life can take away
Age from the spirit. When again I try
To learn the starry alphabet of life
All I have passed through will be emptiness,
And only that have power which draws me to
The circle of wisdom. O, that I might be
A nameless vagrant without home, who yet
Could cry to the winds “Brother” as they pass,
And nod back at the stars, and so adore
The visible beauty that I may pass into
All that I contemplate, and feel the trees
Growing within me, men live, winds blow, seas roll
In the inner glory. Being so myriad I
Might forget I had a self and let the fullness
Be counsellor unto me, and move as those
Born of the spirit, its messengers, whose ways
Are undecipherable as the winds,
And come at last after long tutelage
Nigh to the circle of wisdom, to those who shine
In ageless beauty and with smokeless light.