New Poems | Page 7

deeds?
Which but to
sing, if it may be,
In worship-warranting moiety,
So I would win

In such a song as hath within
A smouldering core of mystery,

Brimm-ed with nimbler meanings up
Than hasty Gideons in their
hands may sup;--
Lo, my suit pleads
That thou, Isaian coal of fire,

Touch from yon altar my poor mouth's desire,
And the relucent
song take for thy sacred meeds.
To thine own shape
Thou round'st the chrysolite of the grape,

Bind'st thy gold lightnings in his veins;
Thou storest the white garners
of the rains.
Destroyer and preserver, thou
Who medicinest sickness,
and to health
Art the unthank-ed marrow of its wealth;
To those
apparent sovereignties we bow
And bright appurtenances of thy brow!

Thy proper blood dost thou not give,
That Earth, the gusty Maenad,
drink and dance?
Art thou not life of them that live?
Yea, in glad
twinkling advent, thou dost dwell
Within our body as a tabernacle!


Thou bittest with thine ordinance
The jaws of Time, and thou dost
mete
The unsustainable treading of his feet.
Thou to thy spousal
universe
Art Husband, she thy Wife and Church;
Who in most dusk
and vidual curch,
Her Lord being hence,
Keeps her cold sorrows by
thy hearse.
The heavens renew their innocence
And morning state

But by thy sacrament communicate:
Their weeping night the
symbol of our prayers,
Our darkened search,
And sinful vigil
desolate.
Yea, biune in imploring dumb,
Essential Heavens and
corporal Earth await,
The Spirit and the Bride say: Come!
Lo, of
thy Magians I the least
Haste with my gold, my incenses and myrrhs,

To thy desired epiphany, from the spiced
Regions and odorous of
Song's traded East.
Thou, for the life of all that live
The victim
daily born and sacrificed;
To whom the pinion of this longing verse

Beats but with fire which first thyself did give,
To thee, O Sun--or is't
perchance, to Christ?
Ay, if men say that on all high heaven's face
The saintly signs I trace

Which round my stol-ed altars hold their solemn place,
Amen,
amen! For oh, how could it be,--
When I with wing-ed feet had run

Through all the windy earth about,
Quested its secret of the sun,

And heard what thing the stars together shout,--
I should not heed
thereout
Consenting counsel won:-
'By this, O Singer, know we if
thou see.
When men shall say to thee: Lo! Christ is here,
When men
shall say to thee: Lo! Christ is there,
Believe them: yea, and this--then
art thou seer,
When all thy crying clear
Is but: Lo here! lo there!--ah
me, lo everywhere!'
{1} The earth.
NEW YEAR'S CHIMES.

What is the song the stars sing?
(And a million songs are as song of
one.)
This is the song the stars sing:
Sweeter song's none.

One to set, and many to sing,
(And a million songs are as song of
one),
One to stand, and many to cling,
The many things, and the
one Thing,
The one that runs not, the many that run.
The ever new weaveth the ever old
(And a million songs are as song
of one).
Ever telling the never told;
The silver saith, and the said is
gold,
And done ever the never done.
The chase that's chased is the Lord o' the chase
(And a million songs
are as song of one),
And the pursued cries on the race;
And the
hounds in leash are the hounds that run.
Hidden stars by the shown stars' sheen;
(And a million suns are but as
one);
Colours unseen by the colours seen,
And sounds unheard
heard sounds between,
And a night is in the light of the sun.
An ambuscade of light in night,
(And a million secrets are but as one),

And a night is dark in the sun's light,
And a world in the world man
looks upon.
Hidden stars by the shown stars' wings,
(And a million cycles are but
as one),
And a world with unapparent strings
Knits the simulant
world of things;
Behold, and vision thereof is none.
The world above in the world below
(And a million worlds are but as
one),
And the One in all; as the sun's strength so
Strives in all
strength, glows in all glow
Of the earth that wits not, and man
thereon.
Braced in its own fourfold embrace
(And a million strengths are as
strength of one),
And round it all God's arms of grace,
The world,
so as the Vision says,
Doth with great lightning-tramples run.
And thunder bruiteth into thunder,
(And a million sounds are as
sound of one),
From stellate peak to peak is tossed a voice of wonder,


And the height stoops down to the depths thereunder,
And sun
leans forth to his brother-sun.
And the more ample years unfold
(With a million songs as song of
one),
A little new of the ever old,
A little told of the never told,

Added act of the never done.
Loud the descant, and low the theme,
(A million songs are as song of
one);
And the dream of the world is dream in dream,
But the one Is
is, or nought could seem;
And the song runs round to the song begun.
This is the song the stars sing,
(Ton-ed all in time);
Tintinnabulous,
tuned to ring
A multitudinous-single thing,
Rung all in rhyme.
FROM THE NIGHT OF FOREBEING.
An ode after Easter.
In the chaos of preordination,