4
EVENING
From Wm. Blake[A]
Come, rosy angel, thy coronet donning
Of starry jewels, smile upon ev'ry bed,
And grant what each day-weary mortal,
Labourer or lover, asketh of thee.
Smile thou on our loves, enveloping the land
With dusky curtain: consider each blossom
That timely upcloseth, that opens
Her treasure of heavy-laden odours.
Now, while the west-wind slumbereth on the lake,
Silently dost thou with delicate shimmer
O'erbloom the frowning front of awful
Night to a glance of unearthly silver.
No hungry wild beast rangeth in our forest,
No tiger or wolf prowleth around the fold:
Keep thou from our sheepcotes the tainting
Invisible peril of the darkness.
5
POVRE AME AMOUREUSE
From Louise Labe, 1555
(Sapphics)
When to my lone soft bed at eve returning
Sweet desir'd sleep already stealeth o'er me,
My spirit flīeth to the fairy-land of
her tyrannous love.
Him then I think fondly to kiss, to hold him
Frankly then to my bosom; I that all day
Have lookèd forvhim suffering, repining,
yea many long days.
O blessèd sleep, with flatteries beguile me;
So,vif I ne'er mayvof a surety havevhim,
Grant to my poor soul amorous the dark gift
of this illusion.
6
THE FOURTH DIMENSION
(Hendecasyllables)
Truest-hearted of early friends, that Eton
Long since gáve to me,—Ah! 'tis all a life-time,—
With my faithfully festive auspication
Of Christmas merriment, this idle item.
Plato truly believ'd his archetypal
Idēas to possess the fourth dimension:
For since our solid is triple, but always
Its shade only double, solids as umbrae
Must lack equally one dimension also.
Could Platovhave avoided or denied it?{443}
So Saint Paul, when in argument opposing
To our earthly bodies bodies celestial,
Meant just those pretty Greek aforesaid abstracts
Of four Plātonical divine dimensions.
If this be not a holy consolation
More than plumpudding and a turkey roasted,
Whereto you but address a third dimension,
Try it, pray, as a pill to aid digestion:
I can't find anything better to send you.
7
JOHANNES MILTON, Senex
Scazons
Since I believe in God the Father Almighty,
Man's Maker and Judge, Overruler of Fortune,
'Twere strange should I praise anything and refuse Him praise,
Should love the creature forgetting the Crēator,
Nor unto Himvin suff'ring and sorrow turn me:
Nay how coud I withdraw me fromvHis embracing?
But since that I have seen not, and cannot know Him,
Nor in my earthly temple apprehend rightly
His wisdom and the heav'nly purpose ēternal;
Therefore will I be bound to no studied system
Nor argument, nor with delusion enslave me,
Nor seek to pléase Him in any foolish invention,
Which my spirit within me, that loveth beauty
And hateth evil, hath reprov'd as unworthy:
But I cherish my freedom in loving service,
Gratefully adoring for delight beyond asking
Or thinking, and in hours of anguish and darkness
Confiding always onvHis excellent greatness.
8
PYTHAGORAS
Seasons
Thou vainly, O Man, self-deceiver, exaltest
Thyself the king and only thinker of this world,
Where life aboundeth infinite to destroy thee.
Well-guided are thy forces and govern'd bravely,
But like a tyrant crūel or savage monster
Thou disregardest ignorantly all bēing
Save only thine own insubordinate ruling:
As if the flowër held not a happy pact with Spring;
As if the brutes lack'd reason and sorrow's torment;
Or ev'n divine love from the small atoms grew not,
Their grave affection unto thy passion mingling.
An truly were it nobler and better wisdom
To fear the blind thing blindly, lest it espy thee;
And scrupulously dovhonour to dumb creatures,
No one offending impiously, nor forcing
To service of vile uses; ordering rather
Thy slave to beauty, compelling lovingkindness.
So should desire, the only priestess of Nature
Divinely inspir'd, like a good monarch rule thee,
And lead thee onward in the consummate motion
Of life eternal unto heav'nly perfection.
Elegiacs
9
AMIEL
Why, O Maker of all, madest thou man with affections
Tender above thyself, scrupulous and passionate?
Nay, if compassionate thou art, why, thou lover of men,
Hidest thou thy face so pitilessly from us?
If thou in priesthoods and altar-glory delitest,
In torment and tears of trouble and suffering,
Then wert thou displeas'd looking on soft human emotion,
Thou must scorn the devout love of a sire to a son.
'Twas but vainly of old, Man, making Faith to approach thee,
Held an imagin'd scheme of providence in honour;
And, to redeem thy praise, judg'd himself cause, took upon him
Humbly the impossible burden of all misery.
Now casteth he away his books and logical idols
Leaveth again his cell of terrified penitence;
And that stony goddess, his first-born fancy, dethroning,
Hath made after his own homelier art another;
Made sweet Hope, the modest unportion'd daughter of anguish,
Whose brimming eye sees but dimly what it looketh on;
Dreaming a day when fully, without curse or horrible cross,
Thou wilt deign to reveal her vision of happiness.
10
Ah, what a change! Thou, who didst emptily thy happiness seek
In pleasure, art finding thy pleasure in happiness.
Slave to the soul, whom thou heldest in slavery, art thou?
Thou, that wert but a vain idol, adored a goddess?