The Singing Man | Page 8

grass ...?Brook!--
_You, Four Walls,?Wall not in my heart!?When the lovely night-time falls?All so welcomely,?Blinding, sweet hearth-fire,?Light of heart's desire,?Blind not, blind not me!?Unto them that weep apart,--?While you glow, within,?Wreckt, despairing kin,--?Dark with misery:?--Do not blind my heart!_
_You, close Heart!?Never hide from mine?Worlds that I divine?Through thy human dearness.?O belovèd Nearness,?Hallow all I understand?With thy hand-in-hand;--?All the lights I seek,?With thy cheek-to-cheek;?All the loveliness I loved apart._
_You, heart's Home!--?Wall not in my heart._
CANTICLE OF THE BABE
I
Over the broken world, the dark gone by,?Horror of outcast darkness torn with wars;?And timeless agony?Of the white fire, heaped high by blinded Stars,?Unfaltering, unaghast;--?Out of the midmost Fire?At last,--at last,--?Cry! ...?O darkness' one desire,--?O darkness, have you heard?--?Black Chaos, blindly striving towards the Word??--The Cry!
Behold thy conqueror, Death!?Behold, behold from whom?It flutters forth, that triumph of First-Breath,?Victorious one that can but breathe and cling,--?This pulsing flower,--this weaker than a wing,?Halcyon thing!--?Cradled above unfathomable doom.
II
Under my feet, O Death,?Under my trembling feet!?Back, through the gates of hell, now give me way.?I come.--I bring new Breath!?Over the trampled shards of mine own clay,?That smoulder still, and burn,?Lo, I return!?Hail, singing Light that floats?Pulsing with chorused motes:--?Hail to thee, Sun, that lookest on all lands!?And take thou from my weak undying hands,?A precious thing, unblemished, undefiled:--?Here, on my heart uplift,?Behold the Gift,--?Thy glory and my glory, and my child!
III
(_And our eyes were opened; eyes that had been holden.?And I saw the world, and the fruits thereof.?And I saw their glories, scarlet-stained and golden,?All a crumbled dust beneath the feet of Love.?And I saw their dreams, all of nothing worth;?But a path for Love, for Him to walk above,?And I saw new heaven, and new earth._)
IV
The grass is full of murmurs;?The sky is full of wings;
The earth is full of breath.?With voices, choir on choir?With tongues of fire,?They sing how Life out-sings--
Out-numbers Death.
V
Who are these that fly;?As doves, and as doves to the windows??Doves, like hovering dreams round Love that slumbereth;?Silvering clouds blown by,?Doves and doves to the windows,--?Warm through the radiant sky their wings beat breath.?They are the world's new-born:?Doves, doves to the windows!?Lighting, as flakes of snow;?Lighting, as flakes of flame;?Some to the fair sown furrows;?Some to the huts and burrows?Choked of the mire and thorn,--?Deep in the city's shame.?Wind-scattered wreaths they go,?Doves, and doves, to the windows;?Some for worshipping arms, to shelter and fold, and shrine; Some to be torn and trodden,?Withered and waste, and sodden;?Pitiful, sacred leaves from Life's dishonored vine.
VI
O Vine of Life, that in these reaching fingers,?Urges a sunward way!?Hold here and climb, and halt not, that there lingers?So far outstripped, my halting, wistful clay.?Make here thy foothold of my rapturous heart,--?Yea, though the tendrils start?To hold and twine!?I am the heart that nursed?Thy sunward thirst.--?A little while, a little while, O Vine,?My own and never mine,?Feed thy sweet roots with me?Abundantly.?O wonder-wildness of the pushing Bud?With hunger at the flood,?Climb on, and seek, and spurn.?Let my dull spirit learn?To follow with its longing, as it may,?While thou seek higher day.--?But thou, the reach of my own heart's desire,?Be free as fire!?Still climb and cling; and so?Outstrip,--outgrow.
O Vine of Life, my own and not my own,?So far am I outgrown!?High as I may, I lift thee, Soul's Desire.?--Lift thou me higher.
_And thou, Wayfaring Woman, whom I meet?On all the highways,--every brimming street,?Lady Demeter, is it thou, grown gaunt?With work and want??At last, and with what shamed and stricken eyes,?I see through thy disguise?Of drudge and Exile,--even the holy boon?That silvers yonder in the Harvest-moon;--?That dimly under glows?The furrows of thy worn immortal face,?With mother-grace._
_O Queen and Burden-bearer, what of those?To whom thou gavest the lily and the rose?Of thy far youth?... For whom,?Out of the wondrous loom?Of thine enduring body, thou didst make?Garments of beauty, cunningly adorned,?But only for Death's sake!?Largess of life, but to lie waste and scorned.--?Could not such cost of pain,?Nor daily utmost of thy toil prevail?--?But they must fade, and pale,?And wither from thy desolated throne?--?And still no Summer give thee back again?Thine own?_
_Lady of Sorrows,--Mother,--Drudge august.?Behold me in the dust._
GLADNESS
Unto my Gladness then I cried:
'I will not be denied!?Answer me now; and tell me why?Thou dost not fall, as a broken star?Out of the Dark where such things are,?And where such bright things die.?How canst thou, with thy fountain dance?Shatter clear sight with radiance?--?How canst thou reach and soar, and fling,?Over my heart's dark shuddering,?Unearthly lights on everything??What dost thou see? What dost thou know?'?My Gladness said to me, bowed below,?'Gladness I am: created so.'
'And dare'st thou, in my mortal veins?Sing, with the Spring's descending rains??While in this hour, and momently,?Forth of myself I look, and see?Torn treasure of my heart's Desire;?And human glories in the mire,?That should make glad some paradise!--?The childhood strewn in foulest place,?The girlhood, plundered of its grace;?The eyelids shut upon spent eyes?That