Miscellany of Poetry | Page 2

and alive:--?Before the Planets, Seven;?Before these fingers, Five!
You that are globed and single,?Crystal virgins, and you that part,?Melt, and again mingle!?We have hoisted sail in the night?On the oceans that you chart:?Dark winds carry us onward, on;?But you are there before us, silent Answers,?Beyond the bounds of the sun.?You body yourselves in the stars, inscrutable dancers,?Native where we are none.
O inhuman Numbers!?All things change and glide,?Corrupt and crumble, suffer wreck and decay,?But, obstinate dark Integrities, you abide,?And obey but them who obey.?All things else are dyed?In the colours of man's desire:?But you no bribe nor prayer?Avails to soften or sway.?Nothing of me you share,?Yet I cannot think you away.?And if I seek to escape you, still you are there?Stronger than caging pillars of iron?Not to be passed, in an air?Where human wish and word?Fall like a frozen bird.
Music asleep?In pulses of sound, in the waves!?Hidden runes rubbed bright!?Dizzy ladders of thought in the night!?Are you masters or slaves--?Subtlest of man's slaves,--?Shadowy Numbers?
In a vision I saw?Old vulture Time, feeding?On the flesh of the world; I saw?The home of our use undated--?Seasons of fruiting and seeding?Withered, and hunger and thirst?Dead, with all they fed on:?Till at last, when Time was sated,?Only you persisted,?D?dal Numbers, sole and same,?Invisible skeleton frame?Of the peopled earth we tread on--?Last, as first.
Because naught can avail?To wound or to tarnish you;?Because you are neither sold nor bought,?Because you have not the power to fail?But live beyond our furthest thought,?Strange Numbers, of infinite clue,?Beyond fear, beyond ruth,?You strengthen also me?To be in my own truth.
THE CHILDREN DANCING
Away, sad thoughts, and teasing?Perplexities, away!?Let other blood go freezing,?We will be wise and gay;?For here is all heart-easing,?An ecstasy at play!
The children dancing, dancing,?Light upon happy feet,?Both eye and heart entrancing,?Mingle, escape, and meet,?Come joyous-eyed advancing?And floatingly retreat.
Now slow, now swifter treading?Their paces timed and true,?An instant poised, then threading?A maze of printless clue,?The music smoothly wedding?To motions ever new.
They launch in chime, and scatter?In looping ripples; they?Are Music's airy matter,?And their feet move, the way?The raindrops shine and patter?On tossing flowers in May.
As if those flowers were singing?For joy of the bright air,?As if you saw them springing?To dance the breeze--so fair?The lissom bodies swinging,?So light the flung-back hair.
And through the mind enchanted?A happy river goes,?By its own young carol haunted?And bringing, where it flows,?What all the world has wanted?But who in this world knows?

F. V. BRANFORD
FAREWELL TO MATHEMATICS
I laboured on the anvil of my brain?And beat a metal out of pageantry.?Figure and form I carry in my train?To load the scaffolds of Eternity.?Where the masters are?Building star on star;?Where, in solemn ritual,?The great Dead Mathematical?Wait and wait and wait for me.
To the deliberate presence of the Sun?(Bright cynosure of every darkling sign,?Wherein all numbers consummate in One,)?Poised on the bolt of an Un-finite line,?As one whose spirit's state,?Is unafraid but desperate,?Through far unfathomed fears,?Through Time to timeless years,?I soar, through Shade to Shine.
They say that on a night there came to Euler,?As eager-eyed he stared upon a star,?And fought the far infinitude, a toiler?Like to himself and me, for things that are?Buried from the eyes alone?Of men whose sight is made of stone,?And led him out in ecstasy,?Over the dim boundary?By the pale gleam of a scimitar.
Then Euler, mindful of thy lesser need,?Be thou my pilot in this treacherous hour,?That I be less unworth thy greater meed,?O my strong brother in the halls of power;?For here and hence I sail?Alone beyond the pale.?Where square and circle coincide,?And the parallels collide,?And perfect pyramids flower.
RETURN
The hearts of the mountains were void,?The sea spake foreign tongues,?From the speed of the wind I gat me no breath,?And the temples of Time were as sepulchres.?I walked about the world in the midnight,?I stood under water, and over stars,?I cast Life from me,?I handled Death,?I walked naked into lightning,?I had so great a thirst for God.

The heart of the Mountain overfloweth,?The sea speaketh clear words,?The Ark is brought to the Tabernacle.?Lightnings, that withered in the sky,?Are become great beacons roaring in a wind?I see Death, lying in the arms of Life,?And, in the womb of Death, I see Joy.?I had said 'The spirit of the Earth is white,?But lo! He is red with joy.?He devoureth the meat of many nations,?He absorbeth a vintage of scarlet.?Though my head be with the stars,?All the flowers of Earth are singing in mine ears.?Though my foot be planted on the sea-bed.?Yet is it shod with the thunder.?Sorrow for Earth Transient is passed away,?Pain of martyr'd splendour is no more.?They have left a fair child in my lap--?A lusty infant shouting to the dawn.
The Ogre of midnight hath perished.?He shivered in the glare of the mountain,?He screamed upon the sea-swords,?His bowels rushed out upon the lances of the Wind.?I shall look through the eye of Mountain,?I shall set in my