Part 12 (1/2)
Break, elemental children, break ye loose From the strict frosty rule Of grey-beard Winter's school.
Vault, O young winds, vault in your tricksome courses Upon the snowy steeds that reinless use In coerule pampas of the heaven to run, Foaled of the white sea-horses, Washed in the lambent waters of the sun.
Let even the slug-abed snail upon the thorn Put forth a conscious horn!
Mine elemental co-mates, joy each one; And ah, my foster-brethren, seem not sad-- No, seem not sad, That my strange heart and I should be so little glad.
Suffer me at your leafy feast To sit apart, a somewhat alien guest, And watch your mirth, Unsharing in the liberal laugh of earth; Yet with a sympathy, Begot of wholly sad and half-sweet memory-- The little sweetness making grief complete; Faint wind of wings from hours that distant beat, When I, I too, Was once, O wild companions, as are you, Ran with such wilful feet.
Hark to the _Jubilate_ of the bird For them that found the dying way to life!
And they have heard, And quicken to the great precursive word; Green spray showers lightly down the cascade of the larch; The graves are riven, And the Sun comes with power amid the clouds of heaven!
Before his way Went forth the trumpet of the March; Before his way, before his way Dances the pennon of the May!
O earth, unchilded, widowed Earth, so long Lifting in patient pine and ivy-tree Mournful belief and steadfast prophecy, Behold how all things are made true!
Behold your bridegroom cometh in to you, Exceeding glad and strong.
Raise up your eyes, O raise your eyes abroad!
No more shall you sit sole and vidual, Searching, in servile pall, Upon the hieratic night the star-sealed sense of all: Rejoice, O barren, and look forth abroad!
Your children gathered back to your embrace See with a mother's face.
Look up, O mortals, and the portent heed; In every deed, Washed with new fire to their irradiant birth, Reintegrated are the heavens and earth!
From sky to sod, The world's unfolded blossom smells of G.o.d.
My little-worlded self! the shadows pa.s.s In this thy sister-world, as in a gla.s.s, Of all processions that revolve in thee: Not only of cyclic Man Thou here discern'st the plan, Not only of cyclic Man, but of the cyclic Me.
Not solely of Mortality's great years The reflex just appears, But thine own bosom's year,--still circling round In ample and in ampler gyre Toward the far completion, wherewith crowned, Love unconsumed shall chant in his own furnace-fire.
How many trampled and deciduous joys Enrich thy soul for joys deciduous still, Before the distance shall fulfil Cyclic unrest with solemn equipoise!
Happiness is the shadow of things past, Which fools still take for that which is to be!
And not all foolishly: For all the past, read true, is prophecy, And all the firsts are hauntings of some Last, And all the springs are flash-lights of one Spring.
Then leaf, and flower, and fall-less fruit Shall hang together on the unyellowing bough; And silence shall be Music mute For her surcharged heart. Hush thou!
These things are far too sure that thou should'st dream Thereof, lest they appear as things that seem.
Nature, enough! within thy gla.s.s Too many and too stern the shadows pa.s.s.
In this delighted season, flaming For thy resurrection-feast, Ah, more I think the long ensepulture cold, Than stony winter rolled From the unsealed mouth of the holy East; The snowdrop's saintly stoles less heed Than the snow-cloistered penance of the seed.
'Tis the weak flesh reclaiming Against the ordinance Which yet for just the accepting spirit scans.
Earth waits, and patient heaven, Self-bonded G.o.d doth wait Thrice-promulgated bans Of his fair nuptial-date.
And power is man's, With that great word of ”wait,”
To still the sea of tears, And shake the iron heart of Fate.
In that one word is strong An else, alas, much-mortal song; With sight to pa.s.s the frontier of all spheres, And voice which does my sight such wrong.
Not without fort.i.tude I wait The dark majestical ensuit Of destiny, nor peevish rate Calm-knowledged Fate.
I do hear From the revolving year A voice which cries: ”All dies; Lo, how all dies! O seer, And all things too arise: All dies, and all is born; But each resurgent morn, behold, more near the Perfect Morn.”
Firm is the man, and set beyond the cast Of Fortune's game, and the iniquitous hour, Whose falcon soul sits fast, And not intends her high sagacious tour Or ere the quarry sighted; who looks past To slow much sweet from little instant sour, And in the first does always see the last.
A COUNSEL OF MODERATION
On him the unpet.i.tioned heavens descend, Who heaven on earth proposes not for end; The perilous and celestial excess Taking with peace, lacking with thankfulness.
Bliss in extreme befits thee not, until Thou'rt not extreme in bliss; be equal still: Sweets to be granted think thyself unmeet Till thou have learned to hold sweet not too sweet.
This thing not far is he from wise in art Who teacheth; nor who doth, from wise in heart.
_From_ ”a.s.sUMPTA MARIA”