The days go down that street, the troops of days
Dark and bright, tramping to tread the earth.
Ever, with trumpets and tumult, rigor or laughter,
They pass saluting, to press upon the world,
Regiment after regiment unnumbered.
Your beauty is a balcony hung with banners
To wave them on. The foremost have sent your name
Echoing rearward to hearten new battalions.
Your beauty is the sunset's streaming flag,
It is the vivid standard of the dawn
Flapping over dazed dream-voyagers
That kneel on new sun-pooled, mysterious strands.
It wasted the moon to pallor, set the sun
Pulsing with burning blood—it shattered the mind
Of heaven into stars.
The beauty of your spirit has sent the winds
Eternally sighing, and sharpened the cold ache
Of the heart-broken, incessantly-sobbing sea.
It has scattered its sparks in the hearts of silken flowers
And has raised the frozen fury of glaciers against the North
And has permeated the South with its elusive fragrance.
Auroral over East and West it dances.
You are a crystal goblet of such wine
Set in a niche of night
That when Death quaffs you he must glow to life
Flushed with eternity.
O proud Love, so humble and human,
Yet beyond the gods to exalt—
O quiet Love, couching with the curled might and majesty
Of tawny leopards!
O tamed tiger, Love, whose golden eyes
Weep for the thrift of angels!
Thou pinnacled pain of the midnight,
Rose-strewer of daylit mire,
Transfiguration of our futile lives,
Dazzler into the secret courts of heaven—
Thou whose passion is written in all men's blood and tears
And in silver letters upon the books of God—
Make me to stand erect, and walk with danger,
And strive like a flame!
For Thou and I are struck as cymbals of God's exultation
In Life, His song!
TO PURITY
God knows that you are beautiful as Death
Chanced on in some hot, sunlit forest-clearing
Where—burst from tangled thickets, with desperate breath—
My outlawed heart might gasp at him appearing
So sudden and dazzling upon my rage and fearing,—
Such pale announcement, such quietude should endue
Tall, proud, grave Death, with noble footsteps nearing!
Immortal goddess, thus beautiful are you!
God knows that you are passionate as Life,
On rhythmic curves of bosom and limb attending,—
Sweet as clear water, and acid as a knife
Thrust through fresh fruit wherewith the bough is bending,—
Yet rule the riotous blood to Man's befriending,—
Yea, hush his ghastly tears the midnight through,
To flesh of flesh your ageless mystery lending.
Ah, holy goddess, thus terrible are you!
God knows that you are hated as men hate
Only the highest and the uttermost presence,
For in your eyes is anger to break fate
And life's too blissful sweet is all your essence.
Your glory seethed the suns to incandescence,
You are flame—flame! Our creeds your orb unto
Are but thin shadowy demilunes and crescents,—
Immortal goddess, so infinite are you!
Infinite in range of life, the worm you quicken
From crashing suns…. "Let there be light!" you said.
Light was, and life,—Man rose, and Man fell stricken
By your relentless power that through him sped;
And again Man rose, halt like the walking dead,
Dragging these heavy laws you never knew
Till you recoiled from him astonishèd,—
Ah, holy goddess, so wonderful were you!