The Singing Man | Page 8

tremble for your hill-born liberty
So
bright to see!--
Your shadow-dappled way, unthwarted yet,
And the
high hills whence all your dearness bubbled;--
You, never to possess!

For let her dip but once--O fair and fleet,--
Here in your shallows,
yes,
Here in your silverness
Her two blithe feet,--
O Brook of
mine, how shall your heart be troubled!
The heart, the bright unmothering heart of you,
That never knew.--

(O never, more than mine of long ago.
How could we know?--)
For
who should guess
The shock and smiting of that perfectness?--
The
lily-thrust of those ecstatic feet
Unpityingly sweet?--
Sweet beyond
all the blurred blind dreams that grope
The upward paths of hope?

And who could guess
The dulcet holiness,
The lilt and gladness of
those jocund feet,
Unpityingly sweet?
Ah, for your coolness that
shall change and stir
With every glee of her!--
Under the fresh
amaze

That drips and glistens from her wiles and ways;
When the
endearing air
That everywhere
Must twine and fold and follow her,
shall be
Rippled to ring on ring of melody,--
Music, like shadows
from the joy of her,
Small starry Reveller!--
When from her
triumphings,--
All frolic wings--
There soars beyond the glories of
the height,
The laugh of her delight!
And it shall sound, until
Your heart stand still;
Shaken to human
sight;
Struck through with tears and light;
One with the one desire


Unto that central Fire
Of Love the Sun, whence all we lighted are

Even from clod to star.
And all your glory, O most swift and sweet!--
And all your exultation
only this;
To be the lowly and forgotten kiss
Beneath those feet.
You that must ever pass,--
You of the same wild way,--
The
silver-bright good-bye without a look!--
You that would never stay,

For the beseeching 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