Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode | Page 3

plague-strike air?Leave the last bone of all the carrion bare.
And hope the high song taught him: hope whose eyes?Can sound the seas unsoundable, the skies?Inaccessible of eyesight; that can see?What earth beholds not, hear what wind and sea?Hear not, and speak what all these crying in one?Can speak not to the sun.?For in her sovereign eyelight all things are?Clear as the closest seen and kindlier star?That marries morn and even and winter and spring?With one love's golden ring.?For she can see the days of man, the birth?Of good and death of evil things on earth?Inevitable and infinite, and sure?As present pain is, or herself is pure.?Yea, she can hear and see, beyond all things?That lighten from before Time's thunderous wings?Through the awful circle of wheel-winged periods,?The tempest of the twilight of all Gods:?And higher than all the circling course they ran?The sundawn of the spirit that was man.
And fear the song too taught him; fear to be?Worthless the dear love of the wind and sea?That bred him fearless, like a sea-mew reared?In rocks of man's foot feared,?Where nought of wingless life may sing or shine.?Fear to wax worthless of that heaven he had?When all the life in all his limbs was glad?And all the drops in all his veins were wine?And all the pulses music; when his heart,?Singing, bade heaven and wind and sea bear part?In one live song's reiterance, and they bore:?Fear to go crownless of the flower he wore?When the winds loved him and the waters knew,?The blithest life that clove their blithe life through?With living limbs exultant, or held strife?More amorous than all dalliance aye anew?With the bright breath and strength of their large life,?With all strong wrath of all sheer winds that blew,?All glories of all storms of the air that fell?Prone, ineluctable,?With roar from heaven of revel, and with hue?As of a heaven turned hell.?For when the red blast of their breath had made?All heaven aflush with light more dire than shade,?He felt it in his blood and eyes and hair?Burn as if all the fires of the earth and air?Had laid strong hold upon his flesh, and stung?The soul behind it as with serpent's tongue,?Forked like the loveliest lightnings: nor could bear?But hardly, half distraught with strong delight,?The joy that like a garment wrapped him round?And lapped him over and under?With raiment of great light?And rapture of great sound?At every loud leap earthward of the thunder?From heaven's most furthest bound:?So seemed all heaven in hearing and in sight,?Alive and mad with glory and angry joy,?That something of its marvellous mirth and might?Moved even to madness, fledged as even for flight,?The blood and spirit of one but mortal boy.
So, clothed with love and fear that love makes great,?And armed with hope and hate,?He set first foot upon the spring-flowered ways?That all feet pass and praise.?And one dim dawn between the winter and spring,?In the sharp harsh wind harrying heaven and earth?To put back April that had borne his birth?From sunward on her sunniest shower-struck wing,?With tears and laughter for the dew-dropt thing,?Slight as indeed a dew-drop, by the sea?One met him lovelier than all men may be,?God-featured, with god's eyes; and in their might?Somewhat that drew men's own to mar their sight,?Even of all eyes drawn toward him: and his mouth?Was as the very rose of all men's youth,?One rose of all the rose-beds in the world:?But round his brows the curls were snakes that curled,?And like his tongue a serpent's; and his voice?Speaks death, and bids rejoice.?Yet then he spake no word, seeming as dumb,?A dumb thing mild and hurtless; nor at first?From his bowed eyes seemed any light to come,?Nor his meek lips for blood or tears to thirst:?But as one blind and mute in mild sweet wise?Pleading for pity of piteous lips and eyes,?He strayed with faint bare lily-lovely feet?Helpless, and flowerlike sweet:?Nor might man see, not having word hereof,?That this of all gods was the great god Love.
And seeing him lovely and like a little child?That wellnigh wept for wonder that it smiled?And was so feeble and fearful, with soft speech?The youth bespake him softly; but there fell?From the sweet lips no sweet word audible?That ear or thought might reach:?No sound to make the dim cold silence glad,?No breath to thaw the hard harsh air with heat;?Only the saddest smile of all things sweet,?Only the sweetest smile of all things sad.
And so they went together one green way?Till April dying made free the world for May;?And on his guide suddenly Love's face turned,?And in his blind eyes burned?Hard light and heat of laughter; and like flame?That opens in a mountain's ravening mouth?To blear and sear the sunlight from the south,?His mute mouth opened, and his first word came:?'Knowest thou me now by name?'?And all his stature waxed immeasurable,?As of one shadowing