Here and there, evermore,
Since first lifted a prime,
And mortal with him,
Father Hazy, old Time,
Untokened and dim,
From the brood-mists of yore,
His chief breather was bore;
Craving and unsated still,
Feedeth the War.
On one hand, the God-will,
On the other, the Man’s,
Bounden a chooser, or liege to the chance?
Who shall assign it? Each where it fall?
Prove the parts from the Whole?
How may they plead—Doer, and deed?
Response, ’gainst the Call?
Is there a name for the appeal and the claim,
From the shaping to Shaper,
The Judger that scans,
While dim Fates yet fulfill,
Exalting ordain,
Thro’ the stress and the pain,
That high something, the Will,
Bid it rise to the answer,
Tho’ one with the Plan’s?
Ay,—shall the soul not be held to the vast reply?
Or, shall its dower of light,
Widowed of wonder, sad mate with the Night,
Like what fierce-flaunting Sun’s,
When its pomp is done,
Fail him and die?
Be the soul, its selfhood a dream,
But some phantom-fed gleam?
Past yon torches that burn,
Unbarred may no high suit go?
But beggared, unmorrowed, never to know,
Unvisioned etern,
Behold not, with humbled, tho’ how larger eyes,
The Fountains that rise?
CLIO.
From out my tossed and wayward page,
Where yet to prompt it, broad and clear,
God and demon struggling wage—
Thoughts of hope gainst things of Fear—
Something lifts: How should I know
Why or whence, save that in light,
Above my monitors of boding Night—
Tally-hands that warning draw,
With my good Augurs, joint indite,
Checked, but sure, the founded law—
It gently calls in thy behoof,
Rounding my unfinished verse,
Clinching, as from pith of proof,
What the lines but faint rehearse,
While, to deep tho’ far-off chords,
It voiceth low these simple words:
“Trust no foul, to frame best end,
Lest some taint the high Stars rue,
Dark infect all fresher True,
Subtly foil its yet portend;
And, twice blind with brute unheed,
Life’s close cypher harder read:
Lest unto all after time,
With the burden of my rhyme,
The unholy jar do foully blend,
Grudge and mar its noblest chime:
Burden, with whose nameless Deep,
Tho’ sad paths dim courses keep,
Yet repeats, invoking still,
Anthemed, the responsive will,
Suffered federate with the Prime.”
“Have thy ways confess me just,
Lest the Fate, whose hand unfolds
Devious what the world-lust holds,
Shut out all bound twixt thee and dust:
Lest large things, that she did write,
Tricked of faith and worthy scope—
Hence, unmusicked of the Hope—
Juggling blot my tablet’s white;
Nay, in her despair to shape the Soul,
She report ye foul, and tear my Scroll.”
AVE PAX.
From forth the hidden, brooding heart of Nature lifts a sigh,
A wordless, dim beseech, as if of tremulous Life,
A heave that groaning speaks, withal: “And what am I,
And all my stars, and myriad thing, and Breath arife
As with some doom that hears not, some blind call to be?
Shall my mute yearning ever rend the pall of Night?
This bond be lifted, and those wills be free?
My heart swell holy t’ward some only Light?”
“And shall my pains unburden, some glad voice be mine?
The feuds surcease them—the brutal onset and the bitter stress?
This chalice sweeten, flow with heavenly wine?
My brood uncurse me, who how fain would bless,
Till, O, some angeled Pity from these bowels leap,
A sweeter wisdom of all ills make ease,
And those dreams fulfil them that fond-haunt my sleep:
Shall ever on my sore, o’erwatched brow sit promised Peace?”