Part 5

Giver of spring, And song, and every young new thing! Thou only seest in me, so stripped and bare, The lyric secret waiting to be born, The patient term allowed Before it stretch and flutteringly unfold Its rumpled webs of amethyst-freaked, diaphanous gold. And what hard task abstracts me from delight, Filling with hopeless hope and dear despair The still-born day and parchèd fields of night, That my old way of song, no longer fair, For lack of serene care, Is grown a stony and a weed-choked plot, Thou only know’st aright, Thou only know’st, for I know not. How many songs must die that this may live! And shall this most rash hope and fugitive, Fulfilled with beauty and with might In days whose feet are rumorous on the air, Make me forget to grieve For songs which might have been, nor ever were? Stern the denial, the travail slow, The struggling wall will scantly grow: And though with that dread rite of sacrifice Ordained for during edifice, How long, how long ago! Into that wall which will not thrive I build myself alive, Ah, who shall tell me will the wall uprise? Thou wilt not tell me, who dost only know! Yet still in mind I keep, He which observes the wind shall hardly sow, He which regards the clouds shall hardly reap. Thine ancient way! I give, Nor wit if I receive; Risk all, who all would gain: and blindly. Be it so.

‘And blindly,’ said I?—No! That saying I unsay: the wings Hear I not in prævenient winnowings Of coming songs, that lift my hair and stir it? What winds with music wet do the sweet storm foreshow! Utter stagnation Is the solstitial slumber of the spirit, The blear and blank negation of all life: But these sharp questionings mean strife, and strife Is the negation of negation. The thing from which I turn my troubled look Fearing the gods’ rebuke; That perturbation putting glory on, As is the golden vortex in the West Over the foundered sun; That—but low breathe it, lest the Nemesis Unchild me, vaunting this— Is bliss, the hid, hugged, swaddled bliss! O youngling Joy carest! That on my now first-mothered breast Pliest the strange wonder of thine infant lip, What this aghast surprise of keenest panging, Wherefrom I blench, and cry thy soft mouth rest? Ah hold, withhold, and let the sweet mouth slip! So, with such pain, recoils the woolly dam, Unused, affrighted, from her yeanling lamb: I, one with her in cruel fellowship, Marvel what unmaternal thing I am.

Nature, enough! within thy glass Too many and too stern the shadows pass. 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 God 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 pass the frontier of all spheres, And voice which does my sight such wrong.

Not without fortitude I wait The dark majestical ensuit Of destiny, nor peevish rate Calm-knowledged Fate. I, that no part have in the time’s bragged way, And its loud bruit I, in this house so rifted, marred, So ill to live in, hard to leave; I, so star-weary, over-warred, That have no joy in this your day— Rather foul fume englutting, that of day Confounds all ray— But only stand aside and grieve; I yet have sight beyond the smoke, And kiss the gods’ feet, though they wreak Upon me stroke and again stroke; And this my seeing is not weak. The Woman I behold, whose vision seek All eyes and know not; t’ward whom climb The steps o’ the world, and beats all wing of rhyme, And knows not; ’twixt the sun and moon Her inexpressible front enstarred Tempers the wrangling spheres to tune; Their divergent harmonies Concluded in the concord of her eyes, And vestal dances of her glad regard. I see, which fretteth with surmise Much heads grown unsagacious-grey, The slow aim of wise-hearted Time, Which folded cycles within cycles cloak: We pass, we pass, we pass; this does not pass away, But holds the furrowing earth still harnessed to its yoke. The stars still write their golden purposes On heaven’s high palimpsest, and no man sees, Nor any therein Daniel; 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.

ANY SAINT

HIS shoulder did I hold Too high that I, o’erbold Weak one, Should lean thereon.

But He a little hath Declined His stately path And my Feet set more high;

That the slack arm may reach His shoulder, and faint speech Stir His unwithering hair.

And bolder now and bolder I lean upon that shoulder So dear He is and near:

And with His aureole The tresses of my soul Are blent In wished content.

Yes, this too gentle Lover Hath flattering words to move her To pride By His sweet side.

Ah, Love! somewhat let be! Lest my humility Grow weak When thou dost speak!

Rebate thy tender suit, Lest to herself impute Some worth Thy bride of earth!

A maid too easily Conceits herself to be Those things Her lover sings;

And being straitly wooed, Believes herself the Good And Fair He seeks in her.

Turn something of Thy look, And fear me with rebuke, That I May timorously

Take tremors in Thy arms, And with contrivèd charms Allure A love unsure.

Not to me, not to me, Builded so flawfully, O God, Thy humbling laud!

Not to this man, but Man,— Universe in a span; Point Of the spheres conjoint;

In whom eternally Thou, Light, dost focus Thee!— Didst pave The way o’ the wave;

Rivet with stars the Heaven, For causeways to Thy driven Car In its coming far

Unto him, only him; In Thy deific whim Didst bound Thy works’ great round

In this small ring of flesh; The sky’s gold-knotted mesh Thy wrist Did only twist

To take him in that net.— Man! swinging-wicket set Between The Unseen and Seen;

Lo, God’s two worlds immense, Of spirit and of sense, Wed In this narrow bed;

Yea, and the midge’s hymn Answers the seraphim Athwart Thy body’s court!

Great arm-fellow of God! To the ancestral clod Kin, And to cherubin;