Astrophel and Other Poems | Page 4

of thine hands and the ways of thy feet,
Is hot with the fire of the breath of thy life, and dear As hope that
shrivels or shrinks not for frost or heat.
Thee, thee the supreme dim godhead, approved afar,
Perceived of the
soul and conceived of the sense of man, We scarce dare love, and we
dare not fear: the star
We call the sun, that lit us when life began
To
brood on the world that is thine by his grace for a span, Conceals and
reveals in the semblance of things that are Thine immanent presence,
the pulse of thy heart's life, Pan.
The fierce mid noon that wakens and warms the snake
Conceals thy
mercy, reveals thy wrath: and again
The dew-bright hour that
assuages the twilight brake
Conceals thy wrath and reveals thy mercy:
then
Thou art fearful only for evil souls of men
That feel with
nightfall the serpent within them wake, And hate the holy darkness on
glade and glen.
Yea, then we know not and dream not if ill things be,
Or if aught of

the work of the wrong of the world be thine. We hear not the footfall of
terror that treads the sea, We hear not the moan of winds that assail the
pine:
We see not if shipwreck reign in the storm's dim shrine; If death
do service and doom bear witness to thee
We see not,--know not if
blood for thy lips be wine.
But in all things evil and fearful that fear may scan, As in all things
good, as in all things fair that fall, We know thee present and latent, the
lord of man;
In the murmuring of doves, in the clamouring of winds
that call And wolves that howl for their prey; in the midnight's pall, In
the naked and nymph-like feet of the dawn, O Pan,
And in each life
living, O thou the God who art all.
Smiling and singing, wailing and wringing of hands,
Laughing and
weeping, watching and sleeping, still
Proclaim but and prove but thee,
as the shifted sands
Speak forth and show but the strength of the sea's
wild will That sifts and grinds them as grain in the storm-wind's mill. In
thee is the doom that falls and the doom that stands: The tempests utter
thy word, and the stars fulfil.
Where Etna shudders with passion and pain volcanic
That rend her
heart as with anguish that rends a man's, Where Typho labours, and
finds not his thews Titanic,
In breathless torment that ever the flame's
breath fans, Men felt and feared thee of old, whose pastoral clans Were
given to the charge of thy keeping; and soundless panic Held fast the
woodland whose depths and whose heights were Pan's.
And here, though fear be less than delight, and awe
Be one with
desire and with worship of earth and thee, So mild seems now thy
secret and speechless law,
So fair and fearless and faithful and
godlike she,
So soft the spell of thy whisper on stream and sea,
Yet
man should fear lest he see what of old men saw
And withered: yet
shall I quail if thy breath smite me.
Lord God of life and of light and of all things fair,
Lord God of ravin
and ruin and all things dim,
Death seals up life, and darkness the

sunbright air,
And the stars that watch blind earth in the deep night
swim Laugh, saying, "What God is your God, that ye call on him?
What is man, that the God who is guide of our way should care If day
for a man be golden, or night be grim?"
But thou, dost thou hear? Stars too but abide for a span, Gods too but
endure for a season; but thou, if thou be God, more than shadows
conceived and adored of man,
Kind Gods and fierce, that bound him
or made him free, The skies that scorn us are less in thy sight than we,
Whose souls have strength to conceive and perceive thee, Pan, With
sense more subtle than senses that hear and see.
Yet may not it say, though it seek thee and think to find One soul of
sense in the fire and the frost-bound clod, What heart is this, what spirit
alive or blind,
That moves thee: only we know that the ways we trod

We tread, with hands unguided, with feet unshod,
With eyes
unlightened; and yet, if with steadfast mind, Perchance may we find
thee and know thee at last for God.
Yet then should God be dark as the dawn is bright,
And bright as the
night is dark on the world--no more. Light slays not darkness, and
darkness absorbs not light; And the labour of evil and good from the
years of yore Is even as the labour of waves on a sunless shore.
And
he who is first and last, who is depth and height, Keeps