21
O Truth, that moves upon the water’s face!
O Truth, that cleaves the fire and cloud to be!
Help me with single eye thy form to trace,
In every form of flower and web and tree;
Help me to find thee in the cores of waves,
In every face that dreams into my ken;
Help me to see thee in the man that braves
The condemnation of his fellow men!
O shining Truth, sweeping across these fields,
Calm on the water’s surface, or in storm,
Help me to find thee in the harvest yields,
In cloistered rooms and in the market’s swarm!
Help me to find thee in the name of Sin,
The immortal shape of Woe that walks alone;
Help me to hear thy subtle lesson in
The negative, the dirge, the monotone!
Help me to know thee in the sturdy Mind
That holds its vision straight across the dark,
That dares to blaze a trail for all mankind
Yet wins no high serene nor earthly mark!
Help me to find thee behind solemn doors
Where men declare for finer, nobler codes;
Help me to find thee on the rainy moors,
And on the wanderings of these rutted roads!
22
The days are warm all Indian Summer through,
Placid and mild with dreaming full content;
Beach plums and grapes glimmer with frosty dew,
Rabbits career from hunter provident;
Mellow and hazy blurs the moorland scene,
Placid and still on dreamy tides of noon;
The fishing fleet comes silver laden in,
And over haystacks floats the harvest moon.
23
Horizoned moon, so round and thin and strange,
Great mellow bowl of gold September brew,
Diaphanous rolling over rolling range
Of solemn hills that part to let thee through.
Thou last great Toy of Summer, yellow boon,
All honey filled, lambent with creamy light,
Hardly a gazer of us but will croon
Some childish nonsense to thy disk tonight!
24
Upon a night of stars, the grave old Mill
Spreads out its fans upon a scudding sky;
The crescent harbor’s ebony is still,
Studded with plangent lights trailed silvery.
Here is true self, once more with hand on lip,
Trying to read the night’s deep graven lines,
Watching the shadow of some late come ship,
Or muffling darkness of the blotted pines.