Part 9

I wonder, like the maid who found, And knelt to lift, the lyre supreme Of Orpheus from the Thracian stream. She dreams on its sealed past profound; On a deep future sealed I dream.

She bears it in her wanderings Within her arms, and has not pressed Her unskilled fingers, but her breast Upon those silent sacred strings; I, too, clasp mystic strings at rest.

For I, i' the world of lands and seas, The sky of wind and rain and fire, And in man's world of long desire-- In all that is yet dumb in these-- Have found a more mysterious lyre.

THE POET SINGS TO HER POET

THE MOON TO THE SUN

As the full moon shining there To the sun that lighteth her Am I unto thee for ever, O my secret glory-giver! O my light, I am dark but fair, Black but fair.

Shine, Earth loves thee! And then shine And be loved through thoughts of mine. All thy secrets that I treasure I translate them at my pleasure. I am crowned with glory of thine. Thine, not thine.

I make pensive thy delight, And thy strong gold silver-white. Though all beauty of nine thou makest, Yet to earth which thou forsakest I have made thee fair all night, Day all night.

A POET'S SONNET

If I should quit thee, sacrifice, forswear, To what, my art, shall I give thee in keeping? To the long winds of heaven? Shall these come sweeping My songs forgone against my face and hair?

Or shall the mountain streams my lost joys bear, My past poetic pain in the rain be weeping? No, I shall live a poet waking, sleeping, And I shall die a poet unaware.

From me, my art, thou canst not pass away; And I, a singer though I cease to sing, Shall own thee without joy in thee or woe.

Through my indifferent words of every day, Scattered and all unlinked the rhymes shall ring And make my poem; and I shall not know.

THE MODERN POET

A SONG OF DERIVATIONS

I come from nothing; but from where Come the undying thoughts I bear? Down, through long links of death and birth, From the past poets of the earth. My immortality is there.

I am like the blossom of an hour. But long, long vanished sun and shower Awoke my breath i' the young world's air. I track the past back everywhere Through seed and flower and seed and flower.

Or I am like a stream that flows Full of the cold springs that arose In morning lands, in distant hills; And down the plain my channel fills With melting of forgotten snows.

Voices, I have not heard, possessed My own fresh songs; my thoughts are blessed With relics of the far unknown. And mixed with memories not my own The sweet streams throng into my breast.

Before this life began to be, The happy songs that wake in me Woke long ago and far apart. Heavily on this little heart Presses this immortality.

AFTER A PARTING

Farewell has long been said; I have forgone thee; I never name thee even. But how shall I learn virtues and yet shun thee? For thou art so near Heaven That heavenward meditations pause upon thee.

Thou dost beset the path to every shrine; My trembling thoughts discern Thy goodness in the good for which I pine; And if I turn from but one sin, I turn Unto a smile of thine.

How shall I thrust thee apart Since all my growth tends to thee night and day-- To thee faith, hope, and art? Swift are the currents setting all one way; They draw my life, my life, out of my heart.

RENOUNCEMENT

I must not think of thee; and, tired yet strong, I shun the thought that lurks in all delight-- The thought of thee--and in the blue Heaven's height, And in the sweetest passage of a song.

Oh, just beyond the fairest thoughts that throng This breast, the thought of thee waits, hidden yet bright; But it must never, never come in sight; I must stop short of thee the whole day long.

But when sleep comes to close each difficult day, When night gives pause to the long watch I keep, And all my bonds I needs must loose apart,