Thou wilt remember what I lately wrote—
The feet of him who bears that letter speed,
As sped Pheidippides—"All inspired Scripture
Is given of God;" for nothing beautiful
Lives but by breathing of the Holy Ghost.
Force is of Satan; Art the child of God;
And they, who like this foredoomed Babylon
Build citadels cemented by men's blood,
Are numbered with the damned!
Do I not know?
Am I not Paul, the prisoner of Christ?
Creators of sweet sounds and lovely forms
Care not for Babylon; they seek the hills,
And know God in the thunders of the seas;
They find Him where pomegranate and the pine
Are passionate with pleading of all souls
That are with dross of earth unsatisfied.
This have I learned from the Athenian
Who sings the song of Sappho unto Paul.
Gone are the gold and scarlet from the west;
Night falls; and Rome is like the Galaxy—
Indefinite with stars. A myriad
Of tiny flames are flaring on the hills;
And in those evening fires the souls of men
Are manifested—souls that upward burn
In emulation of the beautiful:
For the invisible, pure things of Him
From the creation of the world are seen
And understood by what is made. One God,
One Law, one Hope, one Faith, and one Desire,
Are in the impulse of creative hands,
And on the lips that sing—as sings the lad
To Paul the prisoner, great Sappho's song!
DIVES IN TORMENT
Out of the gulf of a grief that is flame,
Spent with the storm of an æon of tears,
Call I at last the Ineffable Name—
Thou Who art throned o'er the flood of the years
Dim are the depths of the City of Dis
Where Thou hast plunged me; an infinite pain
Harries me on to its lowest abyss,
Beats on my head in a torment of rain.
Shapes that are dreadful with uttermost hate
Follow me down, and a Voice follows after:
Stay! thou dost flee from the furies of Fate!
Hell trembles with their demoniac laughter.