Poems of the Past and the Present | Page 9

unchain.
Till airs from the needle-thicks brought me
A low lamentation,
As 'twere of a tree-god disheartened,
Perplexed, or in pain.

And, heeding, it awed me to gather
That Nature herself there
Was breathing in aerie accents,
With dirgeful refrain,
Weary plaint that Mankind, in these late days,
Had grieved her by holding
Her ancient high fame of perfection
In doubt and disdain . . .
0. "I had not proposed me a Creature (She soughed) so excelling All
else of my kingdom in compass
0. And brightness of brain
"As to read my defects with a god-glance,
Uncover each vestige
Of old inadvertence, annunciate
Each flaw and each stain!
"My purpose went not to develop
Such insight in Earthland;
Such potent appraisements affront me,
And sadden my reign!
"Why loosened I olden control here
To mechanize skywards,
Undeeming great scope could outshape in
A globe of such grain?
"Man's mountings of mind-sight I checked not,
Till range of his vision
Has topped my intent, and found blemish
Throughout my domain.

"He holds as inept his own soul-shell -
My deftest achievement -
Contemns me for fitful inventions
Ill-timed and inane:
"No more sees my sun as a Sanct-shape,
My moon as the Night-queen,
My stars as august and sublime ones
That influences rain:
"Reckons gross and ignoble my teaching,
Immoral my story,
My love-lights a lure, that my species
May gather and gain.
"'Give me,' he has said, 'but the matter
And means the gods lot her,
My brain could evolve a creation
More seemly, more sane.'
0. "If ever a naughtiness seized me To woo adulation From creatures
more keen than those crude ones
0. That first formed my train -
"If inly a moment I murmured,
'The simple praise sweetly,
But sweetlier the sage'--and did rashly
Man's vision unrein,
"I rue it! . . . His guileless forerunners,
Whose brains I could blandish,
To measure the deeps of my
mysteries

Applied them in vain.
"From them my waste aimings and futile
I subtly could cover;
'Every best thing,' said they, 'to best purpose
Her powers preordain.' -
"No more such! . . . My species are dwindling,
My forests grow barren,
My popinjays fail from their tappings,
My larks from their strain.
"My leopardine beauties are rarer,
My tusky ones vanish,
My children have aped mine own slaughters
To quicken my wane.
"Let me grow, then, but mildews and mandrakes,
And slimy distortions,
Let nevermore things good and lovely
To me appertain;
"For Reason is rank in my temples,
And Vision unruly,
And chivalrous laud of my cunning
Is heard not again!"
"I SAID TO LOVE"
I said to Love,
"It is not now as in old days
When men adored thee
and thy ways
All else above;
Named thee the Boy, the Bright, the One
Who
spread a heaven beneath the sun,"

I said to Love.
I said to him,
"We now know more of thee than then;
We were but
weak in judgment when,
With hearts abrim,
We clamoured thee that thou would'st please

Inflict on us thine agonies,"
I said to him.
I said to Love,
"Thou art not young, thou art not fair,
No faery darts,
no cherub air,
Nor swan, nor dove
Are thine; but features pitiless,
And iron
daggers of distress,"
I said to Love.
"Depart then, Love! . . .
- Man's race shall end, dost threaten thou?

The age to come the man of now
Know nothing of? -
We fear not such a threat from thee;
We are too
old in apathy!
Mankind shall cease.--So let it be,"
I said to Love.
A COMMONPLACE DAY
The day is turning ghost,
And scuttles from the kalendar in fits and
furtively,
To join the anonymous host
Of those that throng oblivion; ceding his
place, maybe,
To one of like degree.
I part the fire-gnawed logs,
Rake forth the embers, spoil the busy
flames, and lay the ends

Upon the shining dogs;
Further and further from the nooks the
twilight's stride extends,
And beamless black impends.
Nothing of tiniest worth
Have I wrought, pondered, planned; no one
thing asking blame or praise,
Since the pale corpse-like birth
Of this diurnal unit, bearing blanks in
all its rays -
Dullest of dull-hued Days!
Wanly upon the panes
The rain slides as have slid since morn my
colourless thoughts; and yet
Here, while Day's presence wanes,
And over him the sepulchre-lid is
slowly lowered and set,
He wakens my regret.
Regret--though nothing dear
That I wot of, was toward in the wide
world at his prime,
Or bloomed elsewhere than here,
To die with his decease, and leave a
memory sweet, sublime,
Or mark him out in Time . . .
--Yet, maybe, in some soul,
In some spot undiscerned on sea or land,
some impulse rose,
Or some intent upstole
Of that enkindling ardency from whose
maturer glows
The world's amendment flows;
But which, benumbed at birth
By momentary chance or wile, has

missed its hope to be
Embodied on the earth;
And undervoicings of this loss to man's
futurity
May wake regret in me.
AT A