A SMALL, swift planet, glimmering round a star, -- A molten drop with thinnest crusted shell Of lime and flint, roofed-in with azure air, -- A winding stair of life, from Trilobite And Saurian up to one who walks their king, Drawing the lime and flint up through themselves And kindling them to spirit, till on him, Whose limbs are clay, there flames a lambent crown Of fire from heaven, -- these make our world. What then Is this wild creature, wandering up and down, Seeking a thousand things, but keeping still A thought of God in his heart? Why is he here, Feet in the sod and thoughts among the stars, Bewildered for some watchword or command, As a battalion wavering on the field Without a leader? In the march of worlds Is Earth alone forgotten? Who are we, Clustered to-day with eyes and hands that clasp As by some secret oath of brotherhood, Out of the mass that jostles to and fro Forever, without aim or hope? We are pledged To UNDERSTAND, to live the truth we know, And help men so to live and understand. A handful 'gainst a host, we make our stand, Nailing this thesis on the golden gate Of the new Mammon-temples -- that the souls -- The striving, praying, hoping, human souls -- Alone on earth are valuable -- their end To will God's will, because their will belongs To him, the maker and the giver, so Dilating to the broader destiny Whose shadowy gateway opens from our world. Out of the wrinkled bosom of the Old, New England once was born; a rock-hewn race, Puritan pilgrims, splendidly pure and grim. Flint-set against all sham, they rose to say 'T was sunrise and the ghosts must vanish now Before the living Fact: that a king's crowned head Was but a man's head, and it must come off Like any beggar's, when it wrought a wrong. They freed society, the individual man We must emancipate; they stripped all masks, And knocked the fool's-caps off the venerable heads Of church and state, and tore their pompous robes To strings for children to fly kites with. Here Upon a coast whose calmer-blossoming surf Beats not with such an iron clang as theirs, We plant the Newer England; this our word, That man is no mere spider-like machine To spin out webs of railroads after him In all earth's corners, nor a crafty brain Made to knit cunning nets of politics Or sharpen down to insignificance On the grinding wheels of business, but a Soul, That travelling higher worlds in upper light Dips down through bodily contact into this; As a hand trails over a boat's side through the waves, And seems to the sea-creatures, eyed alone For their own element, a thing of the sea. Whether he wear the purple or the serge, Whether he worship under frescoed pomp Or bare-hewn rafters, it is still the man, The individual spirit, something far Beyond earth's chemistry, to whom all else Are only foot-lights, scene, accessory, Or nothing -- or a farce, a mockery. In this fair land, whose fields lie robed in bloom, A living poem bound in blue and gold, With azure flowers like little flecks of sky Fallen, tangled in the dew-drops, to the grass, And organe ones -- as if the wealth below Had blossomed up in beaten flakes of gold; Where all the baser elements of earth, Aspiring up through root, and stalk, and leaf, Stand stretching delicate petal-wings toward heaven, Poised on their slender feet for flying; here Nature, like amorous Cleopatra, plots To hold her Caesar, brimming every sense With perfume, song, and gorgeous coloring, Throws softly wooing winds about his neck, With sparkling air (as tho' not pearls alone, But diamonds were dissolved in it), still fires His brain to seek new dalliance, fresh delight, Forgetful of his throne beyond the Sea. Content with the golden Present, now, they say, We must pore in the past no longer; our old books, And antique, moss-grown system must give way To the new patent methods for the mind; New patent lives to lead, with no more dreams And superstitions, only practical work. A callow-winged philosophy breaks shell And cackles prematurely loud that we Are mummied, gone behind the times; no more Dead languages, nor cloister-life -- the lore That will not take the harness for their use, To weave, or grind, or burrow-out the mine, Smells mouldy to their noses -- Sophomores, And parvenus of the intellectual world! Who would brush down from heaven the olden stars, To set new, self-adjusting spangles there, Would mow the everlasting mountains off, And build up straight, right-angled ones instead. What is our training -- what do colleges give To men, which makes that feared and sneered-at thing, A culture through the classics? Do we dare Reveal the Eleusinian mysteries Which leave such impress on these white boy-brows, That the world, recognizing kingship, says, "Here is a soul that knows itself, has touched The centre, and radiates the broadening beams Of influence straight to the point he means"? We cannot, if we would, tell all; we hold Some things there are that never can be told. Articulate speech is but a coarse-woven sieve That drops the fine gold through; some subtile chords Of swift and ravishing music lurk between The written notes. This only we can tell: The boy, clear-eyed and beautiful-browed, is led To a quiet spot arched over by great trees, And this seal set upon him, -- for four years Sacred from all the tarnishing touch of men; Shut from the jangling of the brazen bells That strike the hours of the Present noisily, He is bid to listen -- and along the years Float up the echoes of the Past, the world's Birth-songs and marching-music, requiems and prayers. He learns the languages that we call "dead" (The only living ones, whose fire still glows Beneath the ash of every modern tongue), The scrolls that men have dabbled with heart's blood, Blotted with tears, are his, to learn that all Is accident and flying form except the soul. The outer husk, the crown, the robes, or rags Signify nothing; Roman, Greek, and Goth, Ate, slept, and dreamed, and died, like modern men. The audible word is nothing -- if the lips Prayed Zeus or Allah, Elohim or Lord, The heart said still the same. He learns to choose The changeless from the changing, as sole good. Only the trivial chaff is fanned away, As Time's broad wings go sweeping over earth. The futile acquisitions of to-day Tempt him but little, so the heart grow full With inner force and outward-burning fire. No surface buckling-on of glittering facts His mind would have, but weapons that can make The sinewy arm to wield them; for the sword And shield will moulder, but the sinewy arm Has many a field to fight beyond this earth. Stretched under some cathedral-roof of elm, Frescoed in flickering sunlights, with far eyes That watch and do not see the summer sky -- A cloudy opal, veined as when a wave Leaps up, and breaks, and leaves the milk-white foam Streaking its meshes over the blue sea -- Flat to the ground, where he can seem to feel The great earth heave beneath him like a ship Plunging its course along the tideless space, He whispers with his heart in thoughts like these: THE FUTURE What may we take into the vast Forever? That marble door Admits no fruit of all our long endeavor, No fame-wreathed crown we wore, No garnered lore. What can we bear beyond the unknown portal? No gold, no gains Of all our toiling, in the life immortal No hoarded wealth remains, Nor gilds, nor stains. Naked from out that far abyss behind us We entered here: No word came with our coming to remind us What wondrous world was near, No hope, no fear. Into the silent, starless Night before us, Naked we glide: No hand has mapped the constellations o'er us, No comrade at our side, No chart, no guide. Yet fearless toward that midnight, black and hollow, Our footsteps fare: The beckoning of a father's hand we follow, His love alone is there, No curse, no care. And so we learn our world, finding how time Is an illusion -- the perspective all But a mere trick of shadow, which can make That misty peak seem far beyond the hill In the foreground -- touch it, and you see 'T is all one whole: The Greek stands at our side, Toga and sandals shielding the same flesh That coat and shoes do now, the same hot brain Throbbing beneath the helmet as the hat. As one who hums a tune about his work, And hears a friend's voice from another room Strike in an alto, so we hear afar The sound of voices all along the past Chording with ours. 'T was only yesterday That Plato stood and talked with Socrates; 'T was last night Paul was here, and on the desk He left his letters, which the air has turned From parchment into paper for our use. In the next room they wait; 't is but a step Over the threshold to them there, yet since The shadow of the tree of life lies dark Across the doorway, like a faltering child We dread the passage through the cold dark hall, To where the Father calls, and they have gone. What is the visible, tangible world all worth, Except for symbols, somewhat coarse and large, Like the raised letters for the blind to feel? The shadowy domes serenely lifted up, The soundless depths that deepen down in thought, Make one small world draw dwindling to a point. The little earth! Think, that the same bright sun, Which rises there from the familiar hill And laughs its level joy straight to our eyes, Is wrapping half the globe in morning light, Kindling dew-diamonds on the tropic palm, Tipping the white gull's wing o'er Northern seas And striking frozen fire from the iceberg's towers At either pole. The brisk and dapper minds Are doubtless those which have had the practical And not the philosophic training, yet When the world wants a great man for great deeds, Who ever took the modern-fashioned one, Who had learned the useful only and eschewed Dead languages or dreaming in the woods? The great man ever has sought the sacred fire From olden books, or from the older stars In solitudes, away from the bustling streets And babbling men. Ah, who can speak of great Nor think of him who was our greatest one? Let us wait here, and lay a wreath of song Upon our grave. THE DEAD PRESIDENT WERE there no crowns on earth, No evergreen to wreathe a hero's wreath, That he must pass beyond the gates of death, Our hero, our slain hero, to be crowned? Could there on our unworthy earth be found Naught to befit his worth? The noblest soul of all! When was there ever, since our Washington, A man so pure, so wise, so patient -- one Who walked with this high goal alone in sight, To speak, to do, to sanction only Right, Though very heaven should fall! Ah, not for him we weep; What honor more could be in store for him? Who would have had him linger in our dim And troublesome world, when his great work was done -- Who would not leave that worn and weary one Gladly to go to sleep? For us the stroke was just; We were not worthy of that patient heart; We might have helped him more, not stood apart, And coldly criticised his works and ways -- Too late now, all too late -- our little praise Sounds hollow o'er his dust. Be merciful, O our God! Forgive the meanness of our human hearts, That never, till a noble soul departs, See half the worth, or hear the angel's wings Till they go rustling heavenward as he springs Up from the mounded sod. Yet what a deathless crown Of Northern pine and Southern orange-flower, For victory, and the land's new bridal-hour, Would we have wreathed for that beloved brow! Sadly upon his sleeping forehead now We lay our cypress down. O martyred one, farewell! Thou hast not left thy people quite alone, Out of thy beautiful life there comes a tone Of power, of love, of trust, a prophecy, Whose fair fulfilment all the earth shall be, And all the Future tell. ___________ Earth's greatest ones ever have gone so far Out on life's borderland, that they have caught The sound of an infinite ocean, far away, Rounding our island-world. But now appear These new philosophers, practical, well-informed, Assuring us there is no ocean-sound -- 'T is but the roaring in our feverish ears. They carry the glimmering lantern of conceit Swinging along their path, and see no Night, No fathomless, sombre glory of the dark, But their own shadows, that seem giant forms, Stalking across the fields and fences -- they That are stumbling pygmies! They will show you God And all his universe in a nutshell: see! Pinched in our little theory like a vice, We cleave the nut with a keen hypothesis, Whisk off the top -- there 't is convenient For logical handling. "Cannot see?" Oh, then You have spoiled your eyes with gazing at the sun. Hard, angular, and dry, they pish and pooh At all ideas they cannot measure off And pack into their iron-bound, narrow brain. They'll not admit the existence of a truth Which cannot be expressed in x and y, And solved by their quadratics. Well, they serve To show a new phenomenon in the world: That a mind, if taken in time, can be transformed To a machine of clockwork, cogs and wheels Wound up with useful facts, and set away On a shelf to go its narrow round of thought And tell us when 't is noon or supper time, If we get careless through abstraction. So All men, even these, have uses. Some to go Whirling around the circumference Spinning out sparks into the darkling space, While some sit staidly at the safe, slow hub And swear there are no radii and no rim, No winged steeds far at the chariot's pole, No Power that rides, triumphant, terrible. What has this new, pert century done for man, That it affords to sneer at all before, Because it rides its aimless jaunts by steam And blabs its trivial talk by telegraph? What of it? Are not babes born naked now, As ever, and go naked from the world? If I am the ape's cousin, what to me Are steam and harnessed lightning, art and law? If the night comes on so soon, what matters it If the short day be foul or fair -- if Fate Rain thunderbolts or roses on our heads? Yea, even 't were some satisfaction then To stand and take the thunderbolts, and think We are large enough at least to serve as marks For gods to hurl at. If there is no key, Why puzzle longer with the scribbled scroll We blur our eyes on? But, O merciful God, If our souls are immortal, O forgive That we still creep on dusty hands and knees, Face downward to the ground, when we might walk Erect, and face the heavens, and see thy stars! We gaze from our separate windows on the Night And find our own small faces imaged there In the glass, nor ever see the shadowy plain Stretching out through the dimness, on and on. Splendid beginners, still we toil and fill The vestibule of our lives with useless plans, With noise of hammer, scaffolding and dust And rubbish, building some imagined fane To worship in through years that never come. For life is like the legendary bird The Christ-child's hands were moulding out of clay: While we are shaping it with eager care, We look up startled, for the bird has flown! Ah, if the mind could sometimes be content To cease from its male madness, its desire To radiate outward, and in passive rest Receive from Nature's ever-waiting arms Energy, fire, and life! We blind ourselves With briny sweat-drops, even more than tears. Ever with burning haste we scorch our souls, And set their compass-needles whirring round So they can never keenly point to the pole. There's such a clash and jar kept up within, Hissing of nerve-steam, iron purposes Clanging on one another, who can hear The sweet, sweet silver voices from afar? Ah, let a man but listen! Have we not Two ears for silence, one small mouth for noise? Listen until we catch the key, and know Our note, and then chime in -- not rave and run, And shout our frantic orders, just as though We were the leader of the orchestra, Not little separate voices; could we wait, Each in his corner, conning quietly His part, the chords would be the sweeter for it. A PARADOX Haste, haste, O laggard -- leave thy drowsy dreams! Cram all thy brain with knowledge; clutch and cram! The earth is wide, the universe is vast: Thou hast infinity to learn. Oh, haste! Haste not, haste not, my soul! "Infinity"? Thou hast eternity to learn it in. Thy boundless lesson through the endless years Hath boundless leisure. Run not like a slave -- Sit like a king, and see the ranks of worlds Wheel in their cycles onward to thy feet. HOME I know a spot beneath three ancient trees, A solitude of green and grassy shade, Where the tall roses, naked to the knees, In that deep shadow wade, Whose rippled coolness drips from bough to bough, And bathes the world's vexation from my brow. The gnarled limbs spring upward airy-free, And from their perfect arch they scarcely swerve, Like spouted fountains from a dark, green sea So beautiful they curve, -- Motionless fountains, slumbering in mid-air, With spray of shadows falling everywhere. Here the Sun comes not like the king of day, To rule his own, but hesitant, afraid, Forbears his sceptre's golden length to lay Across the inviolate shade, And wraps the broad space like a darkened tent, With many a quivering shaft of splendor rent. Seclusion, as an island still and lone, Round which the ocean-world may ebb and flow, Unheeded, following fruitlessly the moon, And where the soul may go Naked of all its vanities and cares, To meet the bounteous grace that Nature bares. Here stretched at morn I watch the sunrise ray That sweeps across the earth like minstrel's hand, Waking from all the birds a song of day, Caught up from land to land, And earth is beautiful and hearts are brave, Ere busy Life has waked to claim her slave. Each day a pure and velvet-petal'd flower, Blooms fresh at dawn, with trembling light bedewn, But dull and tarnished at the mid-day hour -- The noisy, trampling noon, Its beauty soiled with handling. Ever choose The virgin morning for the soul to use. The wind comes hushing, hushing through the trees Like surf that breaks on an invisible beach And sends a spray of whispers down the breeze, Whispers that seem to reach From some far inner land where spirits dwell, And hint the secret which they may not tell. No garrulous company is here, but books -- Earth's best men taken at their best -- books used, With dark-edged paths, and penciled margin-strokes, Where friends have paused and mused, And here and there beneath the noticed lines, Faint zigzag marks like little trailing vines. Here what to me are all the childish cares That make a Bedlam of the busy world? Each hour that flies some quiet message bears Beneath its moments furled, Like a white dove, that, under her soft wings, Kind thoughts from far-off home and kindred brings. So let us live, not pent in noisy towns, But in calm places, watching all things fair -- The months following in waves across the fields, Each stranding there new flowery pearls and shells; The flocks of shadows nestled 'neath the trees; The laughing brooks, like mischievous children still Tangling the silver thread of the motherly moon. So shall Earth be no more a theatre, In which a tragic comedy is played -- A horrible farce with too real murder in it -- But a fair field where till the break of day Man wrestles with the Angel of his fate For an immortal blessing. If we knew, O Father, if we knew we die not, but Live on, we should live worthier of thy love: So help thy little ones to know and live: That as a shadow which goes reaching forth Longer and longer as the sun goes down, The soul may stretch forth toward the great Unseen, Until the sacred, solemn starlight comes Gathering our individual shadows in its own. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SORROWING LOVE by KATHERINE MANSFIELD DOMESDAY BOOK: WIDOW FORTELKA by EDGAR LEE MASTERS ODE WRITTEN IN [THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR] 1746 by WILLIAM COLLINS (1721-1759) TO MY FATHER by WILLIAM SYDNEY GRAHAM IPHIGENEIA AND AGAMEMNON, FR. THE HELLENICS by WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR THE RABBIT by ELIZABETH MADOX ROBERTS |