The Nuts of Knowledge | Page 5

my brow.
Oh, I am so old, meseems?I am next of kin to Time,?The historian of her dreams?From the long forgotten prime.
You have come a path of flowers.?What a way was mine to roam!?Many a fallen empire's towers,?Many a ruined heart my home.
No, there is no comfort, none;?All the dewy tender breath?Idly falls when life is done?On the starless brow of death.
Though the dream of love may tire,?In the ages long agone?There were ruby hearts of fire--?Ah, the daughters of the dawn!
Though I am so feeble now,?I remember when our pride?Could not to the Mighty bow;?We would sweep His stars aside.
Mix thy youth with thoughts like those--?It were but to wither thee,?But to graft the youthful rose?On the old and flowerless tree.
Age is no more near than youth?To the sceptre and the crown.?Vain the wisdom, vain the truth;?Do not lay thy rapture down.
THE MEMORY OF EARTH
In the wet dusk silver-sweet,?Down the violet scented ways,?As I moved with quiet feet?I was met by mighty days.
On the hedge the hanging dew?Glassed the eve and stars and skies;?While I gazed a madness grew?Into thundered battle cries.
Where the hawthorn glimmered white,?Flashed the spear and fell the stroke--?Ah, what faces pale and bright?Where the dazzling battle broke!
There a hero-hearted queen?With young beauty lit the van.?Gone! the darkness flowed between?All the ancient wars of man.
While I paced the valley's gloom?Where the rabbits pattered near,?Shone a temple and a tomb?With the legend carven clear:
'Time put by a myriad fates?That her day might dawn in glory.?Death made wide a million gates?So to close her tragic story.'
BY THE MARGIN OF THE GREAT DEEP
When the breath of twilight blows to flame the misty skies, All its vaporous sapphire, violet glow, and silver gleam, With their magic flood me through the gateway of the eyes; I am one with the twilight's dream.
When the trees and skies and fields are one in dusky mood, Every heart of man is wrapt within the mother's breast: Full of peace and sleep and dreams in the vasty quietude, I am one with their hearts at rest.
From our immemorial joys of hearth and home and love?Strayed away along the margin of the unknown tide,?All its reach of soundless calm can thrill me far above Word or touch from the lips beside.
Aye, and deep and deep and deeper let me drink and draw, From the olden fountain more than light or peace or dream, Such primeval being as o'erfills the heart with awe,?Growing one with its silent stream.
THREE COUNSELLORS
It was the fairy of the place,?Moving within a little light,?Who touched with dim and shadowy grace?The conflict at its fever height.
It seemed to whisper 'Quietness,'?Then quietly itself was gone:?Yet echoes of its mute caress?Were with me as the years went on.
It was the warrior within?Who called 'Awake, prepare for fight:?Yet lose not memory in the din:?Make of thy gentleness thy might:
'Make of thy silence words to shake?The long-enthroned kings of earth:?Make of thy will the force to break?Their towers of wantonness and mirth.'
It was the wise all-seeing soul?Who counselled neither war nor peace:?'Only be thou thyself that goal?In which the wars of time shall cease.'
DESIRE
With thee a moment! Then what dreams have play!?Traditions of eternal toil arise,?Search for the high austere and lonely way?The Spirit moves in through eternities.?Ah, in the soul what memories arise!?And with what yearning inexpressible,?Rising from long forgetfulness I turn?To Thee, invisible, unrumoured, still:?White for Thy whiteness all desires burn.?Ah, with what longing once again I turn!
THE PLACE OF REST
'The soul is its own witness and its own refuge'
Unto the deep the deep heart goes,?It lays its sadness nigh the breast:?Only the Mighty Mother knows?The wounds that quiver unconfessed.
It seeks a deeper silence still;?It folds itself around with peace,?Where thoughts alike of good or ill?In quietness unfostered cease.
It feels in the unwounding vast?For comfort for its hopes and fears:?The Mighty Mother bows at last;?She listens to her children's tears.
Where the last anguish deepens--there?The fire of beauty smites through pain:?A glory moves amid despair,?The Mother takes her child again.
SACRIFICE
Those delicate wanderers,?The wind, the star, the cloud,?Ever before mine eyes,?As to an altar bowed,?Light and dew-laden airs?Offer in sacrifice.
The offerings arise:?Hazes of rainbow light,?Pure crystal, blue, and gold,?Through dreamland take their flight;?And 'mid the sacrifice?God moveth as of old.
In miracles of fire?He symbols forth his days;?In gleams of crystal light?Reveals what pure pathways?Lead to the soul's desire,?The silence of the height.
RECONCILIATION
I begin through the grass once again to be bound to the Lord; I can see, through a face that has faded, the face full of rest Of the Earth, of the Mother, my heart with her heart in accord: As I lie mid the cool green tresses that mantle her breast I begin with the grass once again to be bound to the Lord.
By the hand of a child I am led to the throne of