Astrophel and Other Poems | Page 3

mystery of light and of heat that seem To clasp and pierce dark earth, and enkindle dust,?Shall a man's faith say what it is? or a man's guess deem?
Sleep lies not heavier on eyes that have watched all night Than hangs the heat of the noon on the hills and trees. Why now should the haze not open, and yield to sight?A fairer secret than hope or than slumber sees??I seek not heaven with submission of lips and knees, With worship and prayer for a sign till it leap to light: I gaze on the gods about me, and call on these.
I call on the gods hard by, the divine dim powers?Whose likeness is here at hand, in the breathless air, In the pulseless peace of the fervid and silent flowers, In the faint sweet speech of the waters that whisper there. Ah, what should darkness do in a world so fair??The bent-grass heaves not, the couch-grass quails not or cowers; The wind's kiss frets not the rowan's or aspen's hair.
But the silence trembles with passion of sound suppressed, And the twilight quivers and yearns to the sunward, wrung With love as with pain; and the wide wood's motionless breast Is thrilled with a dumb desire that would fain find tongue And palpitates, tongueless as she whom a man-snake stung, Whose heart now heaves in the nightingale, never at rest Nor satiated ever with song till her last be sung.
Is it rapture or terror that circles me round, and invades Each vein of my life with hope--if it be not fear??Each pulse that awakens my blood into rapture fades,?Each pulse that subsides into dread of a strange thing near Requickens with sense of a terror less dread than dear. Is peace not one with light in the deep green glades?Where summer at noonday slumbers? Is peace not here?
The tall thin stems of the firs, and the roof sublime?That screens from the sun the floor of the steep still wood, Deep, silent, splendid, and perfect and calm as time,?Stand fast as ever in sight of the night they stood, When night gave all that moonlight and dewfall could. The dense ferns deepen, the moss glows warm as the thyme: The wild heath quivers about me: the world is good.
Is it Pan's breath, fierce in the tremulous maidenhair, That bids fear creep as a snake through the woodlands, felt In the leaves that it stirs not yet, in the mute bright air, In the stress of the sun? For here has the great God dwelt: For hence were the shafts of his love or his anger dealt. For here has his wrath been fierce as his love was fair, When each was as fire to the darkness its breath bade melt.
Is it love, is it dread, that enkindles the trembling noon, That yearns, reluctant in rapture that fear has fed, As man for woman, as woman for man? Full soon,?If I live, and the life that may look on him drop not dead, Shall the ear that hears not a leaf quake hear his tread, The sense that knows not the sound of the deep day's tune Receive the God, be it love that he brings or dread.
The naked noon is upon me: the fierce dumb spell,?The fearful charm of the strong sun's imminent might, Unmerciful, steadfast, deeper than seas that swell,?Pervades, invades, appals me with loveless light,?With harsher awe than breathes in the breath of night. Have mercy, God who art all! For I know thee well,?How sharp is thine eye to lighten, thine hand to smite.
The whole wood feels thee, the whole air fears thee: but fear So deep, so dim, so sacred, is wellnigh sweet.?For the light that hangs and broods on the woodlands here, Intense, invasive, intolerant, imperious, and meet?To lighten the works 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