Volume Ii Part 10 (1/2)

Divinely thrilled was the man, exultingly full, As quick well-waters that come of the heart of earth, Ere yet they dart in a brook are one bubble-pool To light and sound, wedding both at the leap of birth.

The soul of light vivid shone, a stream within stream; The soul of sound from a musical sh.e.l.l outflew; Where others hear but a hum and see but a beam, The tongue and eye of the fountain of life he knew.

IX

He knew the Hours: they were round him, laden with seed Of hours bestrewn upon vapour, and one by one They winged as ripened in fruit the burden decreed For each to scatter; they flushed like the buds in sun, Bequeathing seed to successive similar rings, Their sisters, bearers to men of what men have earned: He knew them, talked with the yet unreddened; the stings, The sweets, they warmed at their bosoms divined, discerned.

X

Not unsolicited, sought by diligent feet, By riddling fingers expanded, oft watched in growth With brooding deep as the noon-ray's quickening wheat, Ere touch'd, the pendulous flower of the plants of sloth, The plants of rigidness, answered question and squeeze, Revealing wherefore it bloomed, uninviting, bent, Yet making harmony breathe of life and disease, The deeper chord of a wonderful instrument.

XI

So pa.s.sed he luminous-eyed for earth and the fates We arm to bruise or caress us: his ears were charged With tones of love in a whirl of voluble hates, With music wrought of distraction his heart enlarged.

Celestial-s.h.i.+ning, though mortal, singer, though mute, He drew the Master of harmonies, voiced or stilled, To seek him; heard at the silent medicine-root A song, beheld in fulfilment the unfulfilled.

XII

Him Phoebus, lending to darkness colour and form Of light's excess, many lessons and counsels gave, Showed Wisdom lord of the human intricate swarm, And whence prophetic it looks on the hives that rave, And how acquired, of the zeal of love to acquire, And where it stands, in the centre of life a sphere; And Measure, mood of the lyre, the rapturous lyre, He said was Wisdom, and struck him the notes to hear.

XIII

Sweet, sweet: 'twas glory of vision, honey, the breeze In heat, the run of the river on root and stone, All senses joined, as the sister Pierides Are one, uplifting their chorus, the Nine, his own.

In stately order, evolved of sound into sight, From sight to sound inters.h.i.+fting, the man descried The growths of earth, his adored, like day out of night, Ascend in song, seeing nature and song allied.

XIV

And there vitality, there, there solely in song, Resides, where earth and her uses to men, their needs, Their forceful cravings, the theme are: there is it strong, The Master said: and the studious eye that reads, (Yea, even as earth to the crown of G.o.ds on the mount), In links divine with the lyrical tongue is bound.

Pursue thy craft: it is music drawn of a fount To spring perennial; well-spring is common ground.

XV

Melampus dwelt among men: physician and sage, He served them, loving them, healing them; sick or maimed, Or them that frenzied in some delirious rage Outran the measure, his juice of the woods reclaimed.

He played on men, as his master, Phoebus, on strings Melodious: as the G.o.d did he drive and check, Through love exceeding a simple love of the things That glide in gra.s.ses and rubble of woody wreck.

LOVE IN THE VALLEY

Under yonder beech-tree single on the greensward, Couched with her arms behind her golden head, Knees and tresses folded to slip and ripple idly, Lies my young love sleeping in the shade.

Had I the heart to slide an arm beneath her, Press her parting lips as her waist I gather slow, Waking in amazement she could not but embrace me: Then would she hold me and never let me go?

Shy as the squirrel and wayward as the swallow, Swift as the swallow along the river's light Circleting the surface to meet his mirrored winglets, Fleeter she seems in her stay than in her flight.

Shy as the squirrel that leaps among the pine-tops, Wayward as the swallow overhead at set of sun, She whom I love is hard to catch and conquer, Hard, but O the glory of the winning were she won!

When her mother tends her before the laughing mirror, Tying up her laces, looping up her hair, Often she thinks, were this wild thing wedded, More love should I have, and much less care.