The Singing Man | Page 4

and dust forever blowing._)
Highway, shrill with murderous pride,?Highway, of the swarming tide!?Why should my way lead me deeper??I am not my Brother's keeper.
II
Byway, ambushed with the dark,?Byway, where the ears may hark;?Live and fierce when day is done,?You, that do without the Sun:--?What's this game you bring to nought?--?Muttering like a thing distraught,?Reckoning like a simpleton??(Since the hearing must be brief,--?Living or a dying thief!)?Cobbled with the anguished stones?That the thoroughfare disowns;?Stones they gave you for your bread?Of the disinherited!?Where the Towers of Hunger loom,?Crowding in the dregs of doom;?Where the lost sky peering through?Sees no more the grudging grass,--?Only this mud-mirrored blue,?Like some shattered looking-glass.
(_Under, with the sorry reaping!?Underneath the stones of weeping,?For the Dark to have in keeping._)
Byway, you, so foully marred;?You, whose sodden walls and scarred,?See no light, but only where?Fevered lamps are set to stare?In the eyes of such despair!?Tell me--as a Byway can--?Was this Beggar once a Man??'Rich man--Poor man--Beggar man--Thief!'?Like and lost as leaf and leaf.?Stammering out your wrongs and shames,?Must you cry their very names??Must you sob your shame, your grief??--'Poor man--Poor man!--Beggar--Thief.'
III
Highway, where the Sun is wide;?Byway, where the lost ones hide,?Byway, where the Soul must hark,?Byway, dreadful with the Dark:
Can you nothing do with Man??Doctor, Lawyer, Merchant, Chief,?Learns he nothing, even of grief??Must it still be all his wonder?Some men soar, while some go under??He has heard, and he has seen:?Make him know the thing you mean.?He has prayed since time began,--?He's so curious of the Plan!?He will pray you till he die,?For the Whence and for the Why;?Mad for wisdom--when 'tis cheaper!?'_Why should my way lead me deeper??Am I, then, my Brother's keeper?_'
Show him, Byway, if you can;?Lest he end as he began,?Rich and poor,--this beggar, Man.
_But we did walk in Eden,?Eden, the garden of God;--?There, where no beckoning wonder?Of all the paths we trod,?No choiring sun-filled vineyard,?No voice of stream or bird,?But was some radiant oracle?And flaming with the Word!_
_Mine ears are dim with voices;?Mine eyes yet strive to see?The black things here to wonder at,?The mirth,--the misery.?Beloved, who wert with me there,?How came these shames to be?--?On what lost star are we?_
_Men say: The paths of gladness?By men were never trod!--?But we have walked in Eden,?Eden, the garden of God._
THE FOUNDLING
Beautiful Mother, I have toiled all day;
And I am wearied. And the day is done.?Now, while the wild brooks run?Soft by the furrows--fading, gold to gray,?Their laughters turned to musing--ah, let me?Hide here my face at thine unheeding knee,?Beautiful Mother; if I be thy son.
The birds fly low. Gulls, starlings, hoverers,
Along the meadows and the paling foam,?All wings of thine that roam?Fly down, fly down. One reedy murmur blurs?The silence of the earth; and from the warm?Face of the field the upward savors swarm?Into the darkness. And the herds are home.
All they are stalled and folded for their rest,
The creatures: cloud-fleece young that leap and veer;?Mad-mane and gentle ear;?And breath of loving-kindness. And that best,--?O shaggy house-mate, watching me from far,?With human-aching heart, as I a star--?Tempest of plumèd joys, just to be near!
So close, so like, so dear; and whom I love
More than thou lovest them, or lovest me.?So beautiful to see,?Ah, and to touch! When those far lights above?Scorch me with farness--lights that call and call?To the far heart, and answer not at all;?Save that they will not let the darkness be.
And what am I? That I alone of these
Make me most glad at noon? That I should mark?The after-glow go dark??This hour to sing--but never have--heart's-ease!?That when the sorrowing winds fly low, and croon?Outside our happy windows their old rune,?Beautiful Mother, I must wake, and hark?
Who am I? Why for me this iron Must?
Burden the moon-white ox would never bear;?Load that he cannot share,?He, thine imperial hostage of the dust.?Else should I look to see the god's surprise?Flow from his great unscornful, lovely eyes--?The ox thou gavest to partake my care.
Yea, all they bear their yoke of sun-filled hours.
I, lord at noon, at nightfall no more free,?Take on more heavily?The yoke of hid, intolerable Powers.?--Then pushes here, in my forgetful hand,?This near one's breathless plea to understand.?Starward I look; he, even so, at me!
And she who shines within my house, my sight
Of the heart's eyes, my hearth-glow, and my rain,?My singing's one refrain--?Are there for her no tidings from the height??For her, my solace, likewise lost and far,?Islanded with me here, on this lone star?Washed by the ceaseless tides of dark and light.
What shall it profit, that I built for her
A little wayside shelter from the stark?Sky that we hear, and mark??Lo, in her eyes all dreams that ever were!?And cheek-to-cheek with me she shares the quest,?Her heart, as mine for her, sole tented rest?From light to light of day; from dark--till Dark.
Yea, but for her, how should I greatly care
Whither and whence? But that