The poem is sung.
The picture quite
Finished and hung
In the candid light;
But poet and painter must go away
Ere they hear what the critical people say.
Age after age,
Without a break,
A prophet shall rage
By a lonely lake:
And know not ere he has gone away
Who is to listen to what he'll say.
But the poet shall hear,
The painter see
The praises dear
Of their mystery:
And poet and painter and prophet find
The glory they thought they had left behind.
There is an ear
To hear the song,
An eye to peer
At the picture long:
A brain to gather the tale and bless
The prophet who spoke to the wilderness.
The Hill of Vision [1912]
Showing posts with label 1912. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1912. Show all posts
Friday, July 24, 2015
The Lonely God
(To Stephen MacKenna)
So Eden was deserted, and at Eve
Into the quiet place God came to grieve.
His face was sad, His hands hung slackly down
Along His robe, too sorrowful to frown
He paced along the grassy paths and through
The silent trees, and where the flowers grew
Tended by Adam. All the birds had gone
Out to the world, and singing was not one
To cheer the lonely God out of His grief —
The silence broken only when a leaf
Tap't lightly on a leaf, or when the wind,
Slow-handed, swayed the bushes to its mind.
And so along the base of a round hill,
Rolling in fern, He bent His way until
He neared the little hut which Adam made,
And saw its dusky rooftree overlaid
With greenest leaves. Here Adam and his spouse
Were wont to nestle in their little house
Snug at the dew-time: here He, standing sad,
Sighed with the wind, nor any pleasure had
In heavenly knowledge, for His darlings twain,
Had gone from Him to learn the feel of pain,
And what was meant by sorrow and despair,
— Drear knowledge for a Father to prepare.
There He looked sadly on the little place,
A beehive round it was, without a trace
Of occupant or owner: standing dim
Among the gloomy trees it seemed to Him
A final desolation, the last word
Wherewith the lips of silence had been stirred.
Chaste and remote, so tiny and so shy,
So new withal, so lost to any eye,
So pac't of memories all innocent
Of days and nights that in it had been spent
In blithe communion, Adam, Eve, and He,
Afar from Heaven and its gaudery
And now no more! He still must be the God
But not the friend; a Father with a rod
Whose voice was fear, whose countenance a threat,
Whose coming terror, and whose going wet
With penitential tears; not evermore
Would they run forth to meet Him as before
With careless laughter, striving each to be
First to His hand and dancing in their glee
To see Him coming — they would hide instead
At His approach, or stand and hang the head,
Speaking in whispers, and would learn to pray
Instead of asking, "Father, if we may."
Never again to Eden would He haste
At cool of evening, when the sun had paced
Back from the tree-tops, slanting from the rim
Of a low cloud, what time the twilight dim,
Knit tree to tree in shadow, gathering slow
Till all had met and vanished in the flow
Of dusky silence, and a brooding star
Stared at the growing darkness from afar,
While haply now and then some nested bird
Would lift upon the air a sleepy word
Most musical, or swing its airy bed
To the high moon that drifted overhead.
'Twas good to quit at evening His great throne,
To lay His crown aside, and all alone
Down through the quiet air to stoop and glide
Unkenned by angels : silently to hide
In the green fields, by dappled shades, where brooks,
Through leafy solitudes and quiet nooks
Flowed far from heavenly majesty and pride,
From light astounding and the wheeling tide
Of roaring stars. Thus does it ever seem
Good to the best to stay aside and dream
In narrow places, where the hand can feel
Something beside, and know that it is real.
His angels ! silly creatures who could sing
And sing again, and delicately fling
The smoky censer, bow and stand aside
All mute in adoration : thronging wide,
Till nowhere could He look but soon He saw
An angel bending humbly to the law
Mechanic; knowing nothing more of pain,
Than when they were forbid to sing again,
Or swing anew the censer, or bow down,
In humble adoration of His frown.
This was the thought in Eden as He trod
. . . It is a lonely thing to be a God.
So long ! afar through Time He bent His mind,
For the beginning, which He could not find,
Through endless centuries and backwards still
Endless for ever, till His 'stonied will
Halted in circles, dizzied in the swing
Of mazy nothingness — His mind could bring
Not to subjection, grip or hold the theme
Whose wide horizon melted like a dream
To thinnest edges. Infinite behind
The piling centuries wire trodden blind
In gulfs chaotic — so He could not see
When He was not who always had To Be.
Not even godly fortitude can stare
Into Eternity, nor easy bear
The insolent vacuity of Time:
It is too much, the mind can never climb
Up to its meaning, for, without an end,
Without beginning, plan, or scope, or trend
To point a path, there nothing is to hold
And steady surmise: so the mind is rolled
And swayed and drowned in dull Immensity.
Eternity outfaces even Me
With its indifference, and the fruitless year,
Would swing as fruitless were I never here.
And so for ever, day and night the same,
Years flying swiftly nowhere, like a game
Played random by a madman, without end
Or any reasoned object but to spend
What is unspendable — Eternal Woe!
O Weariness of Time that fast or slow
Goes never further, never has in view
An ending to the thing it seeks to do,
And so does nothing: merely ebb and flow,
From nowhere into nowhere, touching so
The shores of many stars and passing on,
Careless of what may come or what has gone.
O solitude unspeakable! to be
For ever with oneself! never to see
An equal face, or feel an equal hand,
To sit in state and issue reprimand,
Admonishment or glory, and to smile
Disdaining what has happened the while!
O to be breast to breast against a foel
Against a friend ! to strive and not to know
The laboured outcome : Love nor be aware
How much the other loved, and greatly care
With passion for that happy love or hate,
Nor know what joy or dole was hid in fate.
For I have ranged the spacy width and gone
Swift north and south, striving to look upon
An ending somewhere. Many days I sped
Hard to the west, a thousand years I fled
Eastwards in fury, but I could not find
The fringes of the Infinite. Behind
And yet behind, and ever at the end
Came new beginnings, paths that did not wend
To anywhere were there : and ever vast
And vaster spaces opened — till at last
Dizzied with distance, thrilling to a pain
Unnameable, I turned to Heaven again.
And there My angels were prepared to fling
The cloudy incense, there prepared to sing
My praise and glory — O, in fury I
Then roared them senseless, then threw down the sky
And stamped upon it, buffeted a star
With My great fist, and flung the sun afar:
Shouted My anger till the mighty sound
Rung to the width, frighting the furthest bound
And scope of hearing: tumult vaster still,
Thronging the echo, dinned my ears, until
I fled in silence, seeking out a place
To hide Me from the very thought of Space.
And so, He thought, in Mine own Image I
Have made a man, remote from Heaven high
And all its humble angels: I have poured
My essence in his nostrils: I have cored
His heart with My own spirit; part of Me
His mind with laboured growth unceasingly
Must strive to equal Mine ; must ever grow
By virtue of My essence till he know
Both good and evil through the solemn test
Of sin and retribution, till, with zest,
He feels his godhead, soars to challenge Me
In Mine own Heaven for supremacy.
Through savage beasts and still more savage clay
Invincible, I bid him fight a way
To greater battles, crawling through defeat
Into defeat again : ordained to meet
Disaster in disaster: prone to fall
I prick him with My memory to call
Defiance at his victor and arise
With anguished fury to his greater size
Through tribulation, terror and despair
Astounded, he must fight to higher air,
Climb battle into battle till he be
Confronted with a flaming sword and Me.
So growing age by age to greater strength,
To greater beauty, skill and deep intent:
With wisdom wrung from pain, with energy
Nourished in sin and sorrow he will be
Strong, pure and proud an enemy to meet,
Tremendous on a battle-field, or sweet
To walk by as a friend with candid mind.
— Dear enemy or friend so hard to find,
I yet shall find you, yet shall put My breast
In enmity or love against your breast
Shall smite or clasp with equal ecstasy
The enemy or friend who grows to Me.
The topmost blossom of his growing I
Shall take unto Me, cherish and lift high
Beside Myself upon My holy throne :
— It is not good for God to be alone.
The perfect woman of his perfect race
Shall sit beside Me in the highest place
And be My Goddess, Queen, Companion, Wife,
The rounder of My majesty, the life,
Of My ambition. She will smile to see
Me bending down to worship at her knee
Who never bent before, and she will say,
— "Dear God, who was it taught Thee how to pray?"
And through eternity, adown the slope
Of never-ending time, compact of hope,
Of zest and young enjoyment, I and She
Will walk together, sowing jollity
Among the raving stars, and laughter through
The vacancies of Heaven, till the blue
Vast amplitudes of space lift up a song,
The echo of our presence, rolled along
And ever rolling where the planets sing
The majesty and glory of the King.
Then conquered, thou, eternity, shall lie
Under my hand as little as a fly.
I am the Master: I the mighty God
And you My workshop. Your pavilions trod
By Me and Mine shall never cease to be,
For you are but the magnitude of Me,
The width of My extension, the surround
Of My dense splendor. Rolling, rolling round,
To steeped infinity and out beyond
My own strong comprehension you are bond
And servile to My doings. Let you swing
More wide and ever wide you do but fling
Around this instant Me, and measure still
The breadth and the proportion of My Will.
Then stooping to the hut — a beehive round —
God entered in and saw upon the ground
The dusty garland, Adam, (learned to weave)
Had loving placed upon the head of Eve
Before the terror came, when joyous they
Could look for God at closing of the day
Profound and happy. So the Mighty Guest
Bent, took, and placed the blossoms in His breast.
"This," said He gently, "I shall show My queen
When she hath grown to Me in space serene,
And say " 'twas worn by Eve." So, smiling fair,
He spread abroad His wings upon the air.
The Hill of Vision [1912]
So Eden was deserted, and at Eve
Into the quiet place God came to grieve.
His face was sad, His hands hung slackly down
Along His robe, too sorrowful to frown
He paced along the grassy paths and through
The silent trees, and where the flowers grew
Tended by Adam. All the birds had gone
Out to the world, and singing was not one
To cheer the lonely God out of His grief —
The silence broken only when a leaf
Tap't lightly on a leaf, or when the wind,
Slow-handed, swayed the bushes to its mind.
And so along the base of a round hill,
Rolling in fern, He bent His way until
He neared the little hut which Adam made,
And saw its dusky rooftree overlaid
With greenest leaves. Here Adam and his spouse
Were wont to nestle in their little house
Snug at the dew-time: here He, standing sad,
Sighed with the wind, nor any pleasure had
In heavenly knowledge, for His darlings twain,
Had gone from Him to learn the feel of pain,
And what was meant by sorrow and despair,
— Drear knowledge for a Father to prepare.
There He looked sadly on the little place,
A beehive round it was, without a trace
Of occupant or owner: standing dim
Among the gloomy trees it seemed to Him
A final desolation, the last word
Wherewith the lips of silence had been stirred.
Chaste and remote, so tiny and so shy,
So new withal, so lost to any eye,
So pac't of memories all innocent
Of days and nights that in it had been spent
In blithe communion, Adam, Eve, and He,
Afar from Heaven and its gaudery
And now no more! He still must be the God
But not the friend; a Father with a rod
Whose voice was fear, whose countenance a threat,
Whose coming terror, and whose going wet
With penitential tears; not evermore
Would they run forth to meet Him as before
With careless laughter, striving each to be
First to His hand and dancing in their glee
To see Him coming — they would hide instead
At His approach, or stand and hang the head,
Speaking in whispers, and would learn to pray
Instead of asking, "Father, if we may."
Never again to Eden would He haste
At cool of evening, when the sun had paced
Back from the tree-tops, slanting from the rim
Of a low cloud, what time the twilight dim,
Knit tree to tree in shadow, gathering slow
Till all had met and vanished in the flow
Of dusky silence, and a brooding star
Stared at the growing darkness from afar,
While haply now and then some nested bird
Would lift upon the air a sleepy word
Most musical, or swing its airy bed
To the high moon that drifted overhead.
'Twas good to quit at evening His great throne,
To lay His crown aside, and all alone
Down through the quiet air to stoop and glide
Unkenned by angels : silently to hide
In the green fields, by dappled shades, where brooks,
Through leafy solitudes and quiet nooks
Flowed far from heavenly majesty and pride,
From light astounding and the wheeling tide
Of roaring stars. Thus does it ever seem
Good to the best to stay aside and dream
In narrow places, where the hand can feel
Something beside, and know that it is real.
His angels ! silly creatures who could sing
And sing again, and delicately fling
The smoky censer, bow and stand aside
All mute in adoration : thronging wide,
Till nowhere could He look but soon He saw
An angel bending humbly to the law
Mechanic; knowing nothing more of pain,
Than when they were forbid to sing again,
Or swing anew the censer, or bow down,
In humble adoration of His frown.
This was the thought in Eden as He trod
. . . It is a lonely thing to be a God.
So long ! afar through Time He bent His mind,
For the beginning, which He could not find,
Through endless centuries and backwards still
Endless for ever, till His 'stonied will
Halted in circles, dizzied in the swing
Of mazy nothingness — His mind could bring
Not to subjection, grip or hold the theme
Whose wide horizon melted like a dream
To thinnest edges. Infinite behind
The piling centuries wire trodden blind
In gulfs chaotic — so He could not see
When He was not who always had To Be.
Not even godly fortitude can stare
Into Eternity, nor easy bear
The insolent vacuity of Time:
It is too much, the mind can never climb
Up to its meaning, for, without an end,
Without beginning, plan, or scope, or trend
To point a path, there nothing is to hold
And steady surmise: so the mind is rolled
And swayed and drowned in dull Immensity.
Eternity outfaces even Me
With its indifference, and the fruitless year,
Would swing as fruitless were I never here.
And so for ever, day and night the same,
Years flying swiftly nowhere, like a game
Played random by a madman, without end
Or any reasoned object but to spend
What is unspendable — Eternal Woe!
O Weariness of Time that fast or slow
Goes never further, never has in view
An ending to the thing it seeks to do,
And so does nothing: merely ebb and flow,
From nowhere into nowhere, touching so
The shores of many stars and passing on,
Careless of what may come or what has gone.
O solitude unspeakable! to be
For ever with oneself! never to see
An equal face, or feel an equal hand,
To sit in state and issue reprimand,
Admonishment or glory, and to smile
Disdaining what has happened the while!
O to be breast to breast against a foel
Against a friend ! to strive and not to know
The laboured outcome : Love nor be aware
How much the other loved, and greatly care
With passion for that happy love or hate,
Nor know what joy or dole was hid in fate.
For I have ranged the spacy width and gone
Swift north and south, striving to look upon
An ending somewhere. Many days I sped
Hard to the west, a thousand years I fled
Eastwards in fury, but I could not find
The fringes of the Infinite. Behind
And yet behind, and ever at the end
Came new beginnings, paths that did not wend
To anywhere were there : and ever vast
And vaster spaces opened — till at last
Dizzied with distance, thrilling to a pain
Unnameable, I turned to Heaven again.
And there My angels were prepared to fling
The cloudy incense, there prepared to sing
My praise and glory — O, in fury I
Then roared them senseless, then threw down the sky
And stamped upon it, buffeted a star
With My great fist, and flung the sun afar:
Shouted My anger till the mighty sound
Rung to the width, frighting the furthest bound
And scope of hearing: tumult vaster still,
Thronging the echo, dinned my ears, until
I fled in silence, seeking out a place
To hide Me from the very thought of Space.
And so, He thought, in Mine own Image I
Have made a man, remote from Heaven high
And all its humble angels: I have poured
My essence in his nostrils: I have cored
His heart with My own spirit; part of Me
His mind with laboured growth unceasingly
Must strive to equal Mine ; must ever grow
By virtue of My essence till he know
Both good and evil through the solemn test
Of sin and retribution, till, with zest,
He feels his godhead, soars to challenge Me
In Mine own Heaven for supremacy.
Through savage beasts and still more savage clay
Invincible, I bid him fight a way
To greater battles, crawling through defeat
Into defeat again : ordained to meet
Disaster in disaster: prone to fall
I prick him with My memory to call
Defiance at his victor and arise
With anguished fury to his greater size
Through tribulation, terror and despair
Astounded, he must fight to higher air,
Climb battle into battle till he be
Confronted with a flaming sword and Me.
So growing age by age to greater strength,
To greater beauty, skill and deep intent:
With wisdom wrung from pain, with energy
Nourished in sin and sorrow he will be
Strong, pure and proud an enemy to meet,
Tremendous on a battle-field, or sweet
To walk by as a friend with candid mind.
— Dear enemy or friend so hard to find,
I yet shall find you, yet shall put My breast
In enmity or love against your breast
Shall smite or clasp with equal ecstasy
The enemy or friend who grows to Me.
The topmost blossom of his growing I
Shall take unto Me, cherish and lift high
Beside Myself upon My holy throne :
— It is not good for God to be alone.
The perfect woman of his perfect race
Shall sit beside Me in the highest place
And be My Goddess, Queen, Companion, Wife,
The rounder of My majesty, the life,
Of My ambition. She will smile to see
Me bending down to worship at her knee
Who never bent before, and she will say,
— "Dear God, who was it taught Thee how to pray?"
And through eternity, adown the slope
Of never-ending time, compact of hope,
Of zest and young enjoyment, I and She
Will walk together, sowing jollity
Among the raving stars, and laughter through
The vacancies of Heaven, till the blue
Vast amplitudes of space lift up a song,
The echo of our presence, rolled along
And ever rolling where the planets sing
The majesty and glory of the King.
Then conquered, thou, eternity, shall lie
Under my hand as little as a fly.
I am the Master: I the mighty God
And you My workshop. Your pavilions trod
By Me and Mine shall never cease to be,
For you are but the magnitude of Me,
The width of My extension, the surround
Of My dense splendor. Rolling, rolling round,
To steeped infinity and out beyond
My own strong comprehension you are bond
And servile to My doings. Let you swing
More wide and ever wide you do but fling
Around this instant Me, and measure still
The breadth and the proportion of My Will.
Then stooping to the hut — a beehive round —
God entered in and saw upon the ground
The dusty garland, Adam, (learned to weave)
Had loving placed upon the head of Eve
Before the terror came, when joyous they
Could look for God at closing of the day
Profound and happy. So the Mighty Guest
Bent, took, and placed the blossoms in His breast.
"This," said He gently, "I shall show My queen
When she hath grown to Me in space serene,
And say " 'twas worn by Eve." So, smiling fair,
He spread abroad His wings upon the air.
The Hill of Vision [1912]
The Monkey's Cousin
I shall reach up, I shall grow
Till the high gods say — "Hello,
Little brother, you must stop
Ere our shoulders you o'ertop."
I shall grow up, I shall reach
Till the little gods beseech
— "Master, wait a little, do,
We are running after you I"
I shall bulk and swell and scale
Till the little gods shall quail,
Running here and there to hide
From the terror of my stride.
The Hill of Vision [1912]
Till the high gods say — "Hello,
Little brother, you must stop
Ere our shoulders you o'ertop."
I shall grow up, I shall reach
Till the little gods beseech
— "Master, wait a little, do,
We are running after you I"
I shall bulk and swell and scale
Till the little gods shall quail,
Running here and there to hide
From the terror of my stride.
The Hill of Vision [1912]
Chopin's Funeral March
Yea, ye shall rest, O be sure that your sleep will endure:
Through the daylight, the dusk, and the dark, while the moon and the sun
Rise successive and fail and die down when the journey is done :
Ye shall rest, taking heed of no thing that shall come or shall go:
Ye shall sleep through the thunder nor heed when the hurricanes blow:
When the strong trees are felled and the rocks topple down from the height:
While the mountains dissolve into sand and the valleys upright
Climb stark into mountains again, ye shall hear not a sound,
Secure in the sleep that I give in the heart of the ground :
Till the earth like a mote through the spaces falls into the sun,
And the work of all things that have been is a work that is done.
The Hill of Vision [1912]
Through the daylight, the dusk, and the dark, while the moon and the sun
Rise successive and fail and die down when the journey is done :
Ye shall rest, taking heed of no thing that shall come or shall go:
Ye shall sleep through the thunder nor heed when the hurricanes blow:
When the strong trees are felled and the rocks topple down from the height:
While the mountains dissolve into sand and the valleys upright
Climb stark into mountains again, ye shall hear not a sound,
Secure in the sleep that I give in the heart of the ground :
Till the earth like a mote through the spaces falls into the sun,
And the work of all things that have been is a work that is done.
The Hill of Vision [1912]
Poles
Cleric and Convict are moulded on,
The same old grinning skeleton,
And a saint might think if he looked within
That the Devil had gotten beneath his skin.
The Hill of Vision [1912]
The same old grinning skeleton,
And a saint might think if he looked within
That the Devil had gotten beneath his skin.
The Hill of Vision [1912]
The Winged Tramp
I saw a poor man walking slow,
Scarcely knowing where to go;
And from door to door he said,
Unto those who stood within,
— "Give me, with a little bread,
Absolution for my sin."
And the people always said,
— "Friend, come in and eat our bread;
Lay you down and rest a while,
Sleep a little time and pray
Unto God and He will smile
All your weighty sin away."
Then the poor man rose and flew
Up to God and no one knew
He was God's beloved Son:
And He told His Father plain
What the folk had said and done:
— So God spared the world again.
The Hill of Vision [1912]
Scarcely knowing where to go;
And from door to door he said,
Unto those who stood within,
— "Give me, with a little bread,
Absolution for my sin."
And the people always said,
— "Friend, come in and eat our bread;
Lay you down and rest a while,
Sleep a little time and pray
Unto God and He will smile
All your weighty sin away."
Then the poor man rose and flew
Up to God and no one knew
He was God's beloved Son:
And He told His Father plain
What the folk had said and done:
— So God spared the world again.
The Hill of Vision [1912]
Psychometrist
I listened to a man and he
Had no word to say to me :
Then unto a stone I bowed,
And it spoke to me aloud.
"The Force that bindeth me so long,
Once moved in the linnet's song,
Now upon the ground I lie,
While the centuries go by.
"Linnets must for joy atone
And he fastened into stone,
While upon the waving tree
Stones shall sing in Energy."
The Hill of Vision [1912]
Had no word to say to me :
Then unto a stone I bowed,
And it spoke to me aloud.
"The Force that bindeth me so long,
Once moved in the linnet's song,
Now upon the ground I lie,
While the centuries go by.
"Linnets must for joy atone
And he fastened into stone,
While upon the waving tree
Stones shall sing in Energy."
The Hill of Vision [1912]
New Pinions
I tore the shackles from my feet,
The bandage from my straining eye,
I spread my wings above the street
And soared upon the sky.
I knew the stars for friends, and knew
The sun and moon more happy grew
To see me flying by.
And they, far down below, who moved
With hobbled ankles, groping mad
Among the gutters disapproved
And said that it was sad
A man should want to leave the sty,
To spread his wings abroad and fly
When garbage might be had.
But I in converse with the sun,
Or visiting the moon on high,
Or joining with a star to run
Mad races on the sky,
Can hardly find the time to spare
A thought for the dull gropers there
Who never lift an eye.
The Hill of Vision [1912]
The bandage from my straining eye,
I spread my wings above the street
And soared upon the sky.
I knew the stars for friends, and knew
The sun and moon more happy grew
To see me flying by.
And they, far down below, who moved
With hobbled ankles, groping mad
Among the gutters disapproved
And said that it was sad
A man should want to leave the sty,
To spread his wings abroad and fly
When garbage might be had.
But I in converse with the sun,
Or visiting the moon on high,
Or joining with a star to run
Mad races on the sky,
Can hardly find the time to spare
A thought for the dull gropers there
Who never lift an eye.
The Hill of Vision [1912]
In the Cool of the Evening
I thought I heard Him calling. Did you hear
A sound, a little sound? My curious ear
Is dinned with flying noises, and the tree
Goes — whisper, whisper, whisper silently
Till all its whispers spread into the sound
Of a dull roar. Lie closer to the ground,
The shade is deep and He may pass us by,
We are so very small, and His great eye,
Customed to starry majesties, may gaze
Too wide to spy us hiding in the maze:
Ah, misery ! the sun has not yet gone
And we are naked: He will look upon
Our crouching shame, may make us stand upright
Burning in terror — O, that it were night!
He may not come . . . what? listen, listen, now —
He is here! lie closer . . . Adam, where art thou?
The Hill of Vision [1912]
A sound, a little sound? My curious ear
Is dinned with flying noises, and the tree
Goes — whisper, whisper, whisper silently
Till all its whispers spread into the sound
Of a dull roar. Lie closer to the ground,
The shade is deep and He may pass us by,
We are so very small, and His great eye,
Customed to starry majesties, may gaze
Too wide to spy us hiding in the maze:
Ah, misery ! the sun has not yet gone
And we are naked: He will look upon
Our crouching shame, may make us stand upright
Burning in terror — O, that it were night!
He may not come . . . what? listen, listen, now —
He is here! lie closer . . . Adam, where art thou?
The Hill of Vision [1912]
The Breath of Life
(To Elizabeth Bloxham)
And while they talked and talked, and while they sat
Changing their base minds into baser coin;
And telling — they! how truth and beauty join,
And how a certain this was good, but that
Was baser than the viper or the toad,
Or the blind beggar glaring down the road.
I turned from them in fury, and I ran
To where the moon shone out upon the height,
Down the long reaches of a summer night,
Stretching slim fingers, and the starry clan
Grew thicker than the flowers that we see
Clustered in quiet fields of greenery.
Around me was the night-time sane and cold,
The clouds that knew no care and no restraint
Swung through the silences, or drifted faint
To pale horizons, wreathing fold on fold,
The moon's sharp edge, each rolling cloud a sea,
A foam of silver shining gloriously.
The quietudes that sunder star from star,
The hazy distances of loneliness,
Where never eagle's wing or timid press
Of lark or wren could venture, and the far
Profundities untravelled and unstirred
By any act of man or thought or word.
These held me with amazement and delight:
I yearned up through the spaces of the sky,
Beyond the rolling clouds, beyond the high
And delicate white moon, and up the height,
And past the rocking stars, and out to where
The ether failed in spaces sharp and bare.
The breath that is the very breath of life
Throbbed close to me: I heard the pulses beat,
That lift the universes into heat:
The slow withdrawal, and the deeper strife
Of His wide respiration, like a sea
It ebbed and flooded through immensity.
His breath alone in wave on mighty wave !
O moon and stars swell to a raptured song !
Ye mountains toss the harmony along !
O little men with little souls to save
Swing up glad chantings, ring the skies above,
With boundless gratitude for boundless love!
Probing the ocean to its steepest drop;
Rejoicing in the viper and the toad,
And the blind beggar glaring down the road;
And they who talk and talk and never stop
Equally quickening; with a care to bend
The gnat's slant wing into a swifter end.
Searching the quarries of all life, the deep
Low crannies and shy places of the world,
To warm the smallest insect that is curled
In a deep root, or on the sun to heap
Fiercer combustion, spending love on all
In equal share, the mighty and the small.
* * * * *
The silence clung about me like a gift,
The tender night-time folded me around
Protectingly, and in a peace profound
The clouds drooped slowly backward drift on drift
Into the darkness, and the moon was gone,
And soon the stars had vanished every one.
But on the sky, a handsbreadth in the west,
A faint cold brightness crept and soared and spread,
Until the rustling heavens overhead,
And the gray trees and grass were manifest:
Then through the chill a golden spear was hurled,
And the big sun tossed laughter on the world.
The Hill of Vision [1912]
And while they talked and talked, and while they sat
Changing their base minds into baser coin;
And telling — they! how truth and beauty join,
And how a certain this was good, but that
Was baser than the viper or the toad,
Or the blind beggar glaring down the road.
I turned from them in fury, and I ran
To where the moon shone out upon the height,
Down the long reaches of a summer night,
Stretching slim fingers, and the starry clan
Grew thicker than the flowers that we see
Clustered in quiet fields of greenery.
Around me was the night-time sane and cold,
The clouds that knew no care and no restraint
Swung through the silences, or drifted faint
To pale horizons, wreathing fold on fold,
The moon's sharp edge, each rolling cloud a sea,
A foam of silver shining gloriously.
The quietudes that sunder star from star,
The hazy distances of loneliness,
Where never eagle's wing or timid press
Of lark or wren could venture, and the far
Profundities untravelled and unstirred
By any act of man or thought or word.
These held me with amazement and delight:
I yearned up through the spaces of the sky,
Beyond the rolling clouds, beyond the high
And delicate white moon, and up the height,
And past the rocking stars, and out to where
The ether failed in spaces sharp and bare.
The breath that is the very breath of life
Throbbed close to me: I heard the pulses beat,
That lift the universes into heat:
The slow withdrawal, and the deeper strife
Of His wide respiration, like a sea
It ebbed and flooded through immensity.
His breath alone in wave on mighty wave !
O moon and stars swell to a raptured song !
Ye mountains toss the harmony along !
O little men with little souls to save
Swing up glad chantings, ring the skies above,
With boundless gratitude for boundless love!
Probing the ocean to its steepest drop;
Rejoicing in the viper and the toad,
And the blind beggar glaring down the road;
And they who talk and talk and never stop
Equally quickening; with a care to bend
The gnat's slant wing into a swifter end.
Searching the quarries of all life, the deep
Low crannies and shy places of the world,
To warm the smallest insect that is curled
In a deep root, or on the sun to heap
Fiercer combustion, spending love on all
In equal share, the mighty and the small.
* * * * *
The silence clung about me like a gift,
The tender night-time folded me around
Protectingly, and in a peace profound
The clouds drooped slowly backward drift on drift
Into the darkness, and the moon was gone,
And soon the stars had vanished every one.
But on the sky, a handsbreadth in the west,
A faint cold brightness crept and soared and spread,
Until the rustling heavens overhead,
And the gray trees and grass were manifest:
Then through the chill a golden spear was hurled,
And the big sun tossed laughter on the world.
The Hill of Vision [1912]
Eve
Long ago in ages gray,
I was fashioned out of clay:
Builded with the sun and moon,
Kneaded to a holy tune;
And there came to me a breath
From the House of Life and Death.
Then the sun roared into fire,
And the moon with swift desire
Leaped among the starry throng
Singing on her journey long;
And I climbed up from the sod,
Holding to the hand of God.
In a garden fair and wide
Looking down a mountain side,
Prone I lay and felt the press
Of Immensity's caress,
There a space I lived and knew
What the Power meant to do.
Till upon a day there came
Down to me a voice of flame,
"Thou the corner-stone of man,
Rise and set about my plan,
Nothing doubting, for a guide
I have quickened in thy side."
From the garden wide and fair,
From the pure and holy air,
Down the mountain side I crept
Stumbling often, ill-adept;
Feeling pangs of woeful bliss
Rounding from the primal kiss.
Then from out my straining side
Came the son who is my guide :
Him I nursed through faithful days
Till I faltered at his gaze,
Staring boldly when he saw
I was woman, life, and law.
Life and law and dear delight:
I the moon upon the night
All alluring: I the tree
Growing nuts of mystery:
I the tincture and the dew
That the apple reddens through.
I desirable and sweet:
I of fruitfulness complete:
I the promise and the threat
Which the gods may not forget :
I the Weaver spinning blind
Destinies for humankind.
Lifting, lifting ever up
Till I reach the golden cup:
Groping down and ever down
Till I find the buried crown:
I the Searcher sent to bring
Plumes for the Almighty's Wing.
Weaving Life and Death I go:
Building what I do not know:
Planting tho' in sore distress,
Gardens in the wilderness:
Palaces too big to scan
By the little eye of man.
Knowing surely this is true,
That the thing I have to do,
Has been ordered by the breath
From the House of Life and Death:
It no wind of chance or wide
Cloud of doubt may set aside.
Still the sun roars out in fire,
And the moon with pale desire
Keeps the path appointed her
In the starry theatre:
Sun and moon and I are true,
To the work we have to do.
The Hill of Vision [1912]
I was fashioned out of clay:
Builded with the sun and moon,
Kneaded to a holy tune;
And there came to me a breath
From the House of Life and Death.
Then the sun roared into fire,
And the moon with swift desire
Leaped among the starry throng
Singing on her journey long;
And I climbed up from the sod,
Holding to the hand of God.
In a garden fair and wide
Looking down a mountain side,
Prone I lay and felt the press
Of Immensity's caress,
There a space I lived and knew
What the Power meant to do.
Till upon a day there came
Down to me a voice of flame,
"Thou the corner-stone of man,
Rise and set about my plan,
Nothing doubting, for a guide
I have quickened in thy side."
From the garden wide and fair,
From the pure and holy air,
Down the mountain side I crept
Stumbling often, ill-adept;
Feeling pangs of woeful bliss
Rounding from the primal kiss.
Then from out my straining side
Came the son who is my guide :
Him I nursed through faithful days
Till I faltered at his gaze,
Staring boldly when he saw
I was woman, life, and law.
Life and law and dear delight:
I the moon upon the night
All alluring: I the tree
Growing nuts of mystery:
I the tincture and the dew
That the apple reddens through.
I desirable and sweet:
I of fruitfulness complete:
I the promise and the threat
Which the gods may not forget :
I the Weaver spinning blind
Destinies for humankind.
Lifting, lifting ever up
Till I reach the golden cup:
Groping down and ever down
Till I find the buried crown:
I the Searcher sent to bring
Plumes for the Almighty's Wing.
Weaving Life and Death I go:
Building what I do not know:
Planting tho' in sore distress,
Gardens in the wilderness:
Palaces too big to scan
By the little eye of man.
Knowing surely this is true,
That the thing I have to do,
Has been ordered by the breath
From the House of Life and Death:
It no wind of chance or wide
Cloud of doubt may set aside.
Still the sun roars out in fire,
And the moon with pale desire
Keeps the path appointed her
In the starry theatre:
Sun and moon and I are true,
To the work we have to do.
The Hill of Vision [1912]
Wind and Tree
To Æ
"A woman is a branchy tree
And man a singing wind,
And from her branches carelessly
He takes what he can find:
Then man and wind go far away
While winter comes with loneliness,
With cold and rain and slow decay
On woman and on tree till they
Droop down unto the ground and be
A withered woman, a withered tree;
While wind and man woo undismayed
Another tree, another maid."
The Hill of Vision [1912]
"A woman is a branchy tree
And man a singing wind,
And from her branches carelessly
He takes what he can find:
Then man and wind go far away
While winter comes with loneliness,
With cold and rain and slow decay
On woman and on tree till they
Droop down unto the ground and be
A withered woman, a withered tree;
While wind and man woo undismayed
Another tree, another maid."
The Hill of Vision [1912]
The End of the Road
To Æ
This is a thing is true,
Everything comes to an end:
The loving of me and you,
The walking of friend and friend.
Shall I weep the beauty I knew,
Or the greatness gathered away
Or the truth that is only true,
As the things that a man will say?
The child and the mother will die,
The wife and the husband sever,
The sun will go out of the sky,
And the rain will be falling for ever.
For ever until the waves rear
To the skies with a terrible tune,
And cover the earth and air,
And climb up the beach of the moon.
Then go, for all things must end,
And this is true as I say —
A friend will be leaving a friend,
And a man will be going away.
The Hill of Vision [1912]
This is a thing is true,
Everything comes to an end:
The loving of me and you,
The walking of friend and friend.
Shall I weep the beauty I knew,
Or the greatness gathered away
Or the truth that is only true,
As the things that a man will say?
The child and the mother will die,
The wife and the husband sever,
The sun will go out of the sky,
And the rain will be falling for ever.
For ever until the waves rear
To the skies with a terrible tune,
And cover the earth and air,
And climb up the beach of the moon.
Then go, for all things must end,
And this is true as I say —
A friend will be leaving a friend,
And a man will be going away.
The Hill of Vision [1912]
Afterwards
Maidenhood, maidenhood, whither art
thou gone away from me? Never again
will I come to thee, never again. — Sappho.
Am I a bride?
I scarce can think it, I
Who yesterday was quick to blush and hide
Behind my mother's skirts, and often cried —
(Foolish to be so shy)
When strangers came and mother was not nigh.
Strange, I am wed!
Wife to be held and kissed 1
And no one chides his head beside my head,
Nor cries, "Thou bad thing, fie!" but all instead
Smile blessingly. I wist
It is a wonder tale . . . yet something dear is missed.
No longer free.
Love's captive I am ta'en.
Now whither art thou gone away from me
Dear maidenhood? "O, I am so far from thee.
And howso thou complain,
I never more may come to thee again."
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thou gone away from me? Never again
will I come to thee, never again. — Sappho.
Am I a bride?
I scarce can think it, I
Who yesterday was quick to blush and hide
Behind my mother's skirts, and often cried —
(Foolish to be so shy)
When strangers came and mother was not nigh.
Strange, I am wed!
Wife to be held and kissed 1
And no one chides his head beside my head,
Nor cries, "Thou bad thing, fie!" but all instead
Smile blessingly. I wist
It is a wonder tale . . . yet something dear is missed.
No longer free.
Love's captive I am ta'en.
Now whither art thou gone away from me
Dear maidenhood? "O, I am so far from thee.
And howso thou complain,
I never more may come to thee again."
The Hill of Vision [1912]
Ora Pro Nobis
A bird is singing now;
Merrily
Sings he
Of his mate on the bough,
And her eggs in the tree;
But yonder a hawk
Swoops down from the blue
And the bird's song is finished
— Is this story true?
God now have mercy on me and on you.
The Hill of Vision [1912]
Merrily
Sings he
Of his mate on the bough,
And her eggs in the tree;
But yonder a hawk
Swoops down from the blue
And the bird's song is finished
— Is this story true?
God now have mercy on me and on you.
The Hill of Vision [1912]
The Tree
Ballad! I have a message you must bear
Unto a certain tree : I may not tell
Where she abides, only, she is more fair
Than any tree that grows down in the dell,
Or on the mountain top, or by the well,
Or as a lovely sentinel beside
The roaming stream. No words can speak her well,
Nor lyric sing enough her arms so wide,
Her grace, her peace, her innocence, her happy pride.
Come quickly, Ballad, back to me again,
After you have delivered to the tree
My humble service, and if she will deign
To trust you with a message back, then see
Most strictly you forget no word that she
Shall speak to you, no lightest yes or no:
And what she looked like when she spoke of me,
And if she begged you stay or bade you go,
Or hesitated ere she said — what you shall know.
Say — I will come before the day is done,
When the cool evening trembles to the dark
And one ray only of the dying sun
Rests on her topmost branches, when the lark
Dips steeply to the grasses in the park
And only now and then sends from below
Her sleepy song: then, swift as to the mark
An arrow flies, so swiftly I will go
Nor stay until her branches wide I halt below.
There is a crow, a fowl of evil fame,
Whom one day by the grace of God I'll slay,
Because he has adventured to my dame
And in her bosom hides himself away:
A wicked, curious crow, all hoary-gray;
He listens to her heart that throbs so fleet
Along the trunk and by the slender way
Of her young veins whereat the branches meet:
A curious, bad, old, wicked crow and indiscreet.
Most Beautiful! of every tree the queen!
About her feet the grasses wave for glee,
About her feet the forest folk are seen;
The timid nymph bends down a ready knee,
And mighty Pan himself, unwillingly,
Yet all perforce, must stoop before her grace,
And round about in a wild ecstasy
The light- foot satyrs (stayed from an embrace)
Stare shamefully and dance and mince with antic pace.
Fortress of melody! well hidden heart!
Deep bosomed lady whom I love so well !
Dear solitude of singers without art!
Sweet shadiness wherein I long to dwell,
Enrapt and comforted from any spell
Of thought or care or woefulness or sin;
Or trouble which a man may not foretell;
Or slothful ease which it is death to win;
Or fear which cometh at the last and creepeth in.
If you among her little leaves will fly
And what they whisper bring to me again,
Dear Ballad, I will write your history
Upon a sheepskin with a golden pen;
It shall be read by women and by men:
Each youth will sing it to his paramour
As they go roving in the evening when
All joy is innocence and love is lore,
And you and youth and love will live for evermore.
Rapture and joy and ecstasy and pain!
The windy trumpets of the void shall soar
Over the sky. The Morning Stars again
Will sing together joyous as of yore:
The sea shall tramp with banners on the shore :
The little hills skip merrily along
The forest leave its field and with a roar
Stride down the pathway shouting out a song,
And everything be happy as the day is long.
Envoi
Ballad, farewell! go tell her how I burn,
Say I am dead until her face I see:
And I will wait and sigh till you return,
And plague the god of love and life to favour me.
The Hill of Vision [1912]
Unto a certain tree : I may not tell
Where she abides, only, she is more fair
Than any tree that grows down in the dell,
Or on the mountain top, or by the well,
Or as a lovely sentinel beside
The roaming stream. No words can speak her well,
Nor lyric sing enough her arms so wide,
Her grace, her peace, her innocence, her happy pride.
Come quickly, Ballad, back to me again,
After you have delivered to the tree
My humble service, and if she will deign
To trust you with a message back, then see
Most strictly you forget no word that she
Shall speak to you, no lightest yes or no:
And what she looked like when she spoke of me,
And if she begged you stay or bade you go,
Or hesitated ere she said — what you shall know.
Say — I will come before the day is done,
When the cool evening trembles to the dark
And one ray only of the dying sun
Rests on her topmost branches, when the lark
Dips steeply to the grasses in the park
And only now and then sends from below
Her sleepy song: then, swift as to the mark
An arrow flies, so swiftly I will go
Nor stay until her branches wide I halt below.
There is a crow, a fowl of evil fame,
Whom one day by the grace of God I'll slay,
Because he has adventured to my dame
And in her bosom hides himself away:
A wicked, curious crow, all hoary-gray;
He listens to her heart that throbs so fleet
Along the trunk and by the slender way
Of her young veins whereat the branches meet:
A curious, bad, old, wicked crow and indiscreet.
Most Beautiful! of every tree the queen!
About her feet the grasses wave for glee,
About her feet the forest folk are seen;
The timid nymph bends down a ready knee,
And mighty Pan himself, unwillingly,
Yet all perforce, must stoop before her grace,
And round about in a wild ecstasy
The light- foot satyrs (stayed from an embrace)
Stare shamefully and dance and mince with antic pace.
Fortress of melody! well hidden heart!
Deep bosomed lady whom I love so well !
Dear solitude of singers without art!
Sweet shadiness wherein I long to dwell,
Enrapt and comforted from any spell
Of thought or care or woefulness or sin;
Or trouble which a man may not foretell;
Or slothful ease which it is death to win;
Or fear which cometh at the last and creepeth in.
If you among her little leaves will fly
And what they whisper bring to me again,
Dear Ballad, I will write your history
Upon a sheepskin with a golden pen;
It shall be read by women and by men:
Each youth will sing it to his paramour
As they go roving in the evening when
All joy is innocence and love is lore,
And you and youth and love will live for evermore.
Rapture and joy and ecstasy and pain!
The windy trumpets of the void shall soar
Over the sky. The Morning Stars again
Will sing together joyous as of yore:
The sea shall tramp with banners on the shore :
The little hills skip merrily along
The forest leave its field and with a roar
Stride down the pathway shouting out a song,
And everything be happy as the day is long.
Envoi
Ballad, farewell! go tell her how I burn,
Say I am dead until her face I see:
And I will wait and sigh till you return,
And plague the god of love and life to favour me.
The Hill of Vision [1912]
What the Devil Said
It was the night time, God the Father Good,
Weary of praises, on a sudden stood
Up from His throne and leaned upon the sky,
For He had heard a sound, a little cry,
Thin as a whisper climbing up the steep.
And so he looked to where the Earth asleep
Rocked with the moon, He saw the whirling sea
Swing round the world in surgent energy,
Tangling the moonlight in its netted foam,
And nearer saw the white and fretted dome
Of the ice-capped pole spin back a larded ray
To whistling stars, bright as a wizard's day.
But these He passed with eyes intently wide,
Till closer still the mountains He espied
Squatting tremendous on the broad-backed Earth ;
Each nursing twenty rivers at a birth.
And then minutely sought He for the cry
Had climbed the slant of space so hugely high.
He found it in a ditch outside a town,
A tattered, hungry woman crouching down
By a dead Babe — so there was nought to do,
For what is done is done, and back He drew
Sad to His Heaven of ivory and gold;
And as He sat, all suddenly there rolled
From where the woman wept upon the sod
Satan's deep voice, "O, thou unhappy God!"
The Hill of Vision [1912]
Weary of praises, on a sudden stood
Up from His throne and leaned upon the sky,
For He had heard a sound, a little cry,
Thin as a whisper climbing up the steep.
And so he looked to where the Earth asleep
Rocked with the moon, He saw the whirling sea
Swing round the world in surgent energy,
Tangling the moonlight in its netted foam,
And nearer saw the white and fretted dome
Of the ice-capped pole spin back a larded ray
To whistling stars, bright as a wizard's day.
But these He passed with eyes intently wide,
Till closer still the mountains He espied
Squatting tremendous on the broad-backed Earth ;
Each nursing twenty rivers at a birth.
And then minutely sought He for the cry
Had climbed the slant of space so hugely high.
He found it in a ditch outside a town,
A tattered, hungry woman crouching down
By a dead Babe — so there was nought to do,
For what is done is done, and back He drew
Sad to His Heaven of ivory and gold;
And as He sat, all suddenly there rolled
From where the woman wept upon the sod
Satan's deep voice, "O, thou unhappy God!"
The Hill of Vision [1912]
The Fairy Boy
A little Fairy in a tree
Wrinkled his wee face at me:
And he sang a song of joy
All about a little boy,
Who upon a winter night,
On a midnight long ago,
Had been wrapt away from sight
Of the world and all its woe:
Wrapt away,
Snapt away
To a place where children play
In the sunlight every day.
Where the winter is forbidden,
Where no child may older grow,
Where a flower is never hidden
Underneath a pall of snow;
Dancing gaily
Free from sorrow,
Under dancing summer skies,
Where no grim mysterious morrow
Ever comes to terrorize.
This I told a priest and he
Spoke a word of mystery,
And with candle, book and bell,
Tolling Latin like a knell,
Ruthless he
From the tree,
Sprinkling holy water round,
Drove the Fairy down to hell,
There in torment to be bound.
So the tree is withered and
There is sorrow on the land:
But the devils milder grow
Dancing gay
Every day
In that kinder land below:
There the devils dance for joy
And love that little wrinkled boy.
The Hill of Vision [1912]
Wrinkled his wee face at me:
And he sang a song of joy
All about a little boy,
Who upon a winter night,
On a midnight long ago,
Had been wrapt away from sight
Of the world and all its woe:
Wrapt away,
Snapt away
To a place where children play
In the sunlight every day.
Where the winter is forbidden,
Where no child may older grow,
Where a flower is never hidden
Underneath a pall of snow;
Dancing gaily
Free from sorrow,
Under dancing summer skies,
Where no grim mysterious morrow
Ever comes to terrorize.
This I told a priest and he
Spoke a word of mystery,
And with candle, book and bell,
Tolling Latin like a knell,
Ruthless he
From the tree,
Sprinkling holy water round,
Drove the Fairy down to hell,
There in torment to be bound.
So the tree is withered and
There is sorrow on the land:
But the devils milder grow
Dancing gay
Every day
In that kinder land below:
There the devils dance for joy
And love that little wrinkled boy.
The Hill of Vision [1912]
Treason
He ran unto us in the little field,
Out from the bordering trees sprang grimacing:
He swung his hand
To the darkened land,
And when he tried to speak to us he squealed;
His voice curled from him like a frightened thing
That had no sense, he fell down on the ground
Laughing and weeping, then, uncouthly grim,
He told a tale to us who stood around;
And when his tale was told we fled from him.
"O, we are lost," said he, "there is no hope,
I say there is not any hope at all;
We are betrayed,
The prayers we prayed,
Our very tears, our love, our hands that grope
Tremblingly skyward, and our knees that fall
Down to adore them, all our hopes and fears,
Our tremblings and our raptures are a joke,
Poor follies for the laughter and the sneers
Of those black demons and the shining folk.
"I saw the radiant gods, a multitude
Who flew down quickly to a place I know;
A meadow fair,
I will not tell you where:
And from behind the moon a blacker brood
Drove steeply down to where the gods below,
(A white assembly; circling vast around,)
Stood rank on rank in orderly array,
And in the center on a higher ground
Was one more beautiful than tongue can say.
"I cried — alas, the good ones do not see
These demons come to take them in a snare —
My cudgel I
Heaved shoulder-high
And ran to aid them, ran so furiously
My heart nigh broke, in running to get there,
Nigh broke I say in pity as I ran:
My heart ! ah, gods, what laughter ye had made
Of this poor foolish loving-blinded man
If he had died in running to your aid.
"But I was late, ere I could reach the place
The demons had descended to the ground :
Each pointed wing
A moment fluttering,
And then the demons ran to an embrace
With those white-shining ones, and made a sound
Of joy and brotherhood, and gripped each hand,
And laughed for merriment and danced for glee,
And shouted salutation band to band,
And held and kissed each other lovingly.
"After a little time I stole away,
I scarce could steal away for crazy pain:
I heard them plan
Of time and space and man,
And what to do each in a different way
And far apart, and when they'd meet again.
Alas, we are betrayed ! the devils are
Blood-brothers of the gods, where shall we see
But in each other now a guiding star?
Ah comrades, do ye also fly from me?"
The Hill of Vision [1912]
Out from the bordering trees sprang grimacing:
He swung his hand
To the darkened land,
And when he tried to speak to us he squealed;
His voice curled from him like a frightened thing
That had no sense, he fell down on the ground
Laughing and weeping, then, uncouthly grim,
He told a tale to us who stood around;
And when his tale was told we fled from him.
"O, we are lost," said he, "there is no hope,
I say there is not any hope at all;
We are betrayed,
The prayers we prayed,
Our very tears, our love, our hands that grope
Tremblingly skyward, and our knees that fall
Down to adore them, all our hopes and fears,
Our tremblings and our raptures are a joke,
Poor follies for the laughter and the sneers
Of those black demons and the shining folk.
"I saw the radiant gods, a multitude
Who flew down quickly to a place I know;
A meadow fair,
I will not tell you where:
And from behind the moon a blacker brood
Drove steeply down to where the gods below,
(A white assembly; circling vast around,)
Stood rank on rank in orderly array,
And in the center on a higher ground
Was one more beautiful than tongue can say.
"I cried — alas, the good ones do not see
These demons come to take them in a snare —
My cudgel I
Heaved shoulder-high
And ran to aid them, ran so furiously
My heart nigh broke, in running to get there,
Nigh broke I say in pity as I ran:
My heart ! ah, gods, what laughter ye had made
Of this poor foolish loving-blinded man
If he had died in running to your aid.
"But I was late, ere I could reach the place
The demons had descended to the ground :
Each pointed wing
A moment fluttering,
And then the demons ran to an embrace
With those white-shining ones, and made a sound
Of joy and brotherhood, and gripped each hand,
And laughed for merriment and danced for glee,
And shouted salutation band to band,
And held and kissed each other lovingly.
"After a little time I stole away,
I scarce could steal away for crazy pain:
I heard them plan
Of time and space and man,
And what to do each in a different way
And far apart, and when they'd meet again.
Alas, we are betrayed ! the devils are
Blood-brothers of the gods, where shall we see
But in each other now a guiding star?
Ah comrades, do ye also fly from me?"
The Hill of Vision [1912]
The Merry Policeman
I was appointed guardian by
The Power that frowns along the sky,
To watch the tree and see that none
Plucked of the fruit that grew thereon.
There was a robber in the tree,
Who climbed as high as ever he
Was able, at the top he knew
The apple of all apples grew.
The night was dark, the branch was thin,
In every wind he heard the din
Of angels calling — "Guardian, see
That no one climbs upon the tree."
And when he saw me standing there
He shook with terror and despair,
But I said to him — "Be at rest,
The best to him who wants the best."
So I was sacked, but I have got
A job in hell to keep me hot.
The Hill of Vision [1912]
The Power that frowns along the sky,
To watch the tree and see that none
Plucked of the fruit that grew thereon.
There was a robber in the tree,
Who climbed as high as ever he
Was able, at the top he knew
The apple of all apples grew.
The night was dark, the branch was thin,
In every wind he heard the din
Of angels calling — "Guardian, see
That no one climbs upon the tree."
And when he saw me standing there
He shook with terror and despair,
But I said to him — "Be at rest,
The best to him who wants the best."
So I was sacked, but I have got
A job in hell to keep me hot.
The Hill of Vision [1912]
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