Oh, I will rise again—I will shake off
This terror that outweighs the wrath of Jove!
Lo, prone in darkness I have gathered hope
From the great waters walking speaking by!
These unto me give mercy, thus forshown:
"We are the servants of a mightier Lord
Than Jupiter, who hath imprisoned thee.
We go forth at His bidding, laying bare
The sea's great floor and all the sheer abysms
That drop beneath the idle fathoms of man,
And shape the corner-stones, and lay thereon
The mighty base of unborn continents.
The old earth, when it hath fulfilled His will,
Is laid to rest, and mightier earths arise
And fuller life, and like unto God,
Fills the new races struggling on the globe.
"Profoundest change succeeds each boding calm,
And mighty order from the deep breaks up
In all her parts, and only Night remains
With all her starts that minister to God,
Who sits sublimely, shaping as He wills,
Creating always." These things do they speak.
"The mountain-peaks, that watch among the stars,
Bow down their heads and go like monks at dusk
To mournful cloisters of the under-world;
And then, long silence, while blind Chaos' self
Beats round the poles with wings of cloudy storm."
These things, and more, the waters say to me,
How this old earth shall change, and its life pass
And be renewed from fathomless within;
How other forms, and likelier to God,
Shall walk on earth and wing the peaks of cloud;
How holier men and maids, with comelier shapes,
In that far time, when He hath wrought His plan,
Shall the new globe inherit, and like us
Love, hope, and live, with bodies formed of ours—
Or of our dust again made animate.
These things to me; yet still his curse remains,
His burden presses on me. God! thou God!
Who wast before the dawn, give ear to me!
Thou wilt some day shake down like sifted dust
This monstrous burden Jove hath laid on me,
When the stars ripen like ripe fruit in heaven,
And the earth crumbles, plunging to the void
With all its shrieking peoples!—Let it fall!
Let it be sown as ashes underneath
The base of all the continents to be
Forever, if so rent I shall be freed!
Shall I not wait? Shall I despair now Hope
On the horizon spreads her dawn-white wings?
Ah, sometimes now I feel earth moved within
Through all its massive frame, and know His hand
Again doth labor shaping out His plan.
Oh, I shall have all patience, trust and calm,
Foreknowing that the centuries shall bring,
On their broad wings, release from this deep hell,
And that I shall have life yet upon earth,
Yet draw the morning sunlight in my breath,
And meet the living races face to face.
NOON IN KENTUCKY
[From the same]
All day from the tulip-poplar boughs
The chewink's voice like a gold-bell rings,
The meadow-lark pipes to the drowsy cows,
And the oriole like a red rose swings,
And clings, and swings,
Shaking the noon from his burning wings.
A flash of purple within the brake
The red-bud burns, where the spice-wood blows,
And the brook laughs low where the white dews shake,
Drinking the wild-haw's fragrant snows,
And flows, and goes
Under the feet of the wet, wood-rose.