How came the entombèd tree a light-bearer, Though sunk in lightless lair? Friend of the forgers of earth, Mate of the earthquake and thunders volcanic, Clasped in the arms of the forces Titanic Which rock like a cradle the girth Of the ether-hung world; Swart son of the swarthy mine, When flame on the breath of his nostrils feeds How is his countenance half-divine, Like thee in thy sanguine weeds? Thou gavest him his light, Though sepulchred in night Beneath the dead bones of a perished world; Over his prostrate form Though cold, and heat, and storm, The mountainous wrack of a creation hurled.
Who made the splendid rose Saturate with purple glows; Cupped to the marge with beauty; a perfume-press Whence the wind vintages Gushes of warmèd fragrance richer far Than all the flavorous ooze of Cyprus' vats? Lo, in yon gale which waves her green cymar, With dusky cheeks burnt red She sways her heavy head, Drunk with the must of her own odorousness; While in a moted trouble the vexed gnats Maze, and vibrate, and tease the noontide hush. Who girt dissolvèd lightnings in the grape? Summered the opal with an Irised flush? Is it not thou that dost the tulip drape, And huest the daffodilly, Yet who hast snowed the lily; And her frail sister, whom the waters name, Dost vestal-vesture 'mid the blaze of June, Cold as the new-sprung girlhood of the moon Ere Autumn's kiss sultry her cheek with flame? Thou sway'st thy sceptred beam O'er all delight and dream; Beauty is beautiful but in thy glance: And, like a jocund maid In garland-flowers arrayed, Before thy ark Earth keeps her sacred dance.
And now, O shaken from thine antique throne, And sunken from thy cœrule empery, Now that the red glare of thy fall is blown In smoke and flame about the windy sky, Where are the wailing voices that should meet From hill, stream, grove, and all of mortal shape Who tread thy gifts, in vineyards as stray feet Pulp the globed weight of juiced Iberia's grape? Where is the threne o' the sea? And why not dirges thee The wind, that sings to himself as he makes stride Lonely and terrible on the Andéan height? Where is the Naiad 'mid her sworded sedge? The Nymph wan-glimmering by her wan fount's verge? The Dryad at timid gaze by the wood-side? The Oread jutting light On one up-strainèd sole from the rock-ledge? The Nereid tip-toe on the scud o' the surge, With whistling tresses dank athwart her face, And all her figure poised in lithe Circean grace? Why withers their lament? Their tresses tear-besprent, Have they sighed hence with trailing garment-hem? O sweet, O sad, O fair, I catch your flying hair, Draw your eyes down to me, and dream on them!
A space, and they fleet from me. Must ye fade— O old, essential candours, ye who made The earth a living and a radiant thing— And leave her corpse in our strained, cheated arms? Lo ever thus, when Song with chorded charms Draws from dull death his lost Eurydice, Lo ever thus, even at consummating, Even in the swooning minute that claims her his, Even as he trembles to the impassioned kiss Of reincarnate Beauty, his control Clasps the cold body, and foregoes the soul! Whatso looks lovelily Is but the rainbow on life's weeping rain. Why have we longings of immortal pain, And all we long for mortal? Woe is me, And all our chants but chaplet some decay, As mine this vanishing—nay, vanished Day. The low sky-line dusks to a leaden hue, No rift disturbs the heavy shade and chill, Save one, where the charred firmament lets through The scorching dazzle of Heaven; 'gainst which the hill, Out-flattened sombrely, Stands black as life against eternity. Against eternity? A rifting light in me Burns through the leaden broodings of the mind: O blessèd Sun, thy state Uprisen or derogate Dafts me no more with doubt; I seek and find.
If with exultant tread Thou foot the Eastern sea, Or like a golden bee Sting the West to angry red, Thou dost image, thou dost follow That King-Maker of Creation, Who, ere Hellas hailed Apollo, Gave thee, angel-god, thy station; Thou art of Him a type memorial. Like Him thou hang'st in dreadful pomp of blood Upon thy Western rood; And His stained brow did veil like thine to-night, Yet lift once more Its light, And, risen, again departed from our ball, But when It set on earth arose in Heaven. Thus hath He unto death His beauty given: And so of all which form inheriteth The fall doth pass the rise in worth; For birth hath in itself the germ of death, But death hath in itself the germ of birth. It is the falling acorn buds the tree, The falling rain that bears the greenery, The fern-plants moulder when the ferns arise. For there is nothing lives but something dies, And there is nothing dies but something lives. Till skies be fugitives, Till Time, the hidden root of change, updries, Are Birth and Death inseparable on earth; For they are twain yet one, and Death is Birth.
AFTER-STRAIN
Now with wan ray that other sun of Song Sets in the bleakening waters of my soul: One step, and lo! the Cross stands gaunt and long 'Twixt me and yet bright skies, a presaged dole.
Even so, O Cross! thine is the victory. Thy roots are fast within our fairest fields; Brightness may emanate in Heaven from thee, Here thy dread symbol only shadow yields.
Of reapèd joys thou art the heavy sheaf Which must be lifted, though the reaper groan; Yea, we may cry till Heaven's great ear be deaf, But we must bear thee, and must bear alone.
Vain were a Simon; of the Antipodes Our night not borrows the superfluous day. Yet woe to him that from his burden flees, Crushed in the fall of what he cast away.