Part 9 (1/2)

THE SEEKER

THE creeds he wrought of dream and thought Fall from him at the touch of life, His old G.o.ds fail him in the strife-- Withdrawn, the heavens he sought!

Vanished, the miracles that led, The cloud at noon, the flame at night; The vision that he wing'd and sped Falls backward, baffled, from the height;

Yet in the wreck of these he stands Upheld by something grim and strong; Some stubborn instinct lifts a song And nerves him, heart and hands:

He does not dare to call it hope;-- It is not aught that seeks reward--

Nor faith, that up some sunward slope Runs aureoled to meet its lord;

It touches something elder far Than faith or creed or thought in man, It was ere yet these lived and ran Like light from star to star;

It touches that stark, primal need That from unpeopled voids and vast Fas.h.i.+oned the first crude, childish creed,-- And still shall fas.h.i.+on, till the last!

For one word is the tale of men: They fling their icons to the sod, And having trampled down a G.o.d They seek a G.o.d again!

Stripped of his creeds inherited, Bereft of all his sires held true, Amid the wreck of visions dead He thrills at touch of visions new....

He wings another Dream for flight....

He seeks beyond the outmost dawn A G.o.d he set there ... and, anon, Drags that G.o.d from the height!

But aye from ruined faiths and old That droop and die, fall bruised seeds; And when new flowers and faiths unfold They're lovelier flowers, they're kindlier creeds.

THE AWAKENING

THE steam, the reek, the fume, of prayer Blown outward for a million years, Becomes a mist between the spheres, And waking Sentience struggles there.

Prayer still creates the boon we pray; And G.o.ds we've hoped for, from those hopes Will gain sufficient form one day And in full G.o.dhood storm the slopes Where ancient Chaos, stark and gray, Already trembles for his sway.

When that the restless worlds would fly Their wish created rapid wings, But not till aeons had pa.s.sed by With dower of many idler things; And when dumb flesh demanded speech Speech struggled to the lips at last;-- Now the unpeopled Void, and vast,

Clean to that uttermost blank beach Whereto the boldest thought may reach That voyages from the vaguest past-- (Dim realm and ultimate of s.p.a.ce)-- Is vexed and troubled, stirs and shakes, In prescience of a G.o.d that wakes, Born of man's wish to see G.o.d's face!

The endless, groping, dumb desires,-- The climbing incense thick and sweet, The lovely purpose that aspires, The wraiths of vapor wing'd and fleet That rise and run with eager feet Forth from a myriad altar fires: All these become a mist that fills The vales and chasms nebular; A shaping Soul that moves and thrills The wastes between red star and star!

A SONG OF MEN

OUT of the soil and the slime, Reeking, they climb,

Out of the muck and the mire, Rank, they aspire;

Filthy with murder and mud, Black with shed blood,

l.u.s.t and pa.s.sion and clay-- Dying, they slay;

Stirred by vague hints of a goal, Seeking a soul!

Groping through terror and night Up to the light:

Life in the dust and the clod Sensing a G.o.d;

Flushed of the glamor and gleam Caught from a dream;

Stained of the struggle and toil, Stained of the soil,