| II | What am I, Life? A thing of watery salt Held in cohesion by unresting cells Which work they know not why, which never halt, Myself unwitting where their master dwells. I do not bid them, yet they toil, they spin; A world which uses me as I use them, Nor do I know which end or which begin, Nor which to praise, which pamper, which condemn. So, like a marvel in a marvel set, I answer to the vast, as wave by wave The sea of air goes over, dry or wet, Or the full moon comes swimming from her cave, Or the great sun comes north, this myriad I Tingles, not knowing how, yet wondering why. |
| III | If I could get within this changing I, This ever altering thing which yet persists, Keeping the features it is reckoned by, While each component atom breaks or twists; If, wandering past strange groups of shifting forms, Cells at their hidden marvels hard at work, Pale from much toil, or red from sudden storms, I might attain to where the Rulers lurk; If, pressing past the guards in those grey gates, The brain's most folded, intertwisted shell, I might attain to that which alters fates, The King, the supreme self, the Master Cell; Then, on Man's earthly peak, I might behold The unearthly self beyond, unguessed, untold. |
| IV | Ah, we are neither heaven nor earth, but men; Something that uses and despises both, That takes its earth's contentment in the pen, Then sees the world's injustice and is wroth, And flinging off youth's happy promise, flies Up to some breach, despising earthly things, And, in contempt of hell and heaven, dies Rather than bear some yoke of priests or kings. Our joys are not of heaven nor earth, but man's, A woman's beauty, or a child's delight, The trembling blood when the discoverer scans The sought-for world, the guessed-at satellite; The ringing scene, the stone at point to blush For unborn men to look at and say 'Hush.' |
| V | Roses are beauty, but I never see Those blood drops from the burning heart of June Glowing like thought upon the living tree Without a pity that they die so soon, Die into petals, like those roses old, Those women, who were summer in men's hearts Before the smile upon the Sphinx was cold Or sand had hid the Syrian and his arts. O myriad dust of beauty that lies thick Under our feet that not a single grain But stirred and moved in beauty and was quick For one brief moon and died nor lived again; But when the moon rose lay upon the grass Pasture to living beauty, life that was. |
| VI | I went into the fields, but you were there Waiting for me, so all the summer flowers Were only glimpses of your starry powers; Beautiful and inspired dust they were. I went down by the waters, and a bird Sang with your voice in all the unknown tones Of all that self of you I have not heard, So that my being felt you to the bones. I went into the house, and shut the door To be alone, but you were there with me; All beauty in a little room may be, Though the roof lean and muddy be the floor. Then in my bed I bound my tired eyes To make a darkness for my weary brain; But like a presence you were there again, Being and real, beautiful and wise, So that I could not sleep, and cried aloud, 'You strange grave thing, what is it you would say?' The redness of your dear lips dimmed to grey, The waters ebbed, the moon hid in a cloud. |