A fierce unrest seethes at the core
Of all existing things:
It was the eager wish to soar
That gave the gods their wings.
From what flat wastes of cosmic slime,
And stung by what quick fire,
Sunward the restless races climb!—
Men risen out of mire!
There throbs through all the worlds that are
This heart-beat hot and strong
And shaken systems, star by star,
Awake and glow in song.
But for the urge of this unrest
These joyous spheres are mute;
But for the rebel in his breast
Had man remained a brute.
When baffled lips demanded speech,
Speech trembled into birth—
(One day the lyric word shall reach
From earth to laughing earth.)—
When man’s dim eyes demanded light,
The light he sought was born—
His wish, a Titan, scaled the height
And flung him back the morn!
From deed to dream, from dream to deed,
From daring hope to hope,
The restless wish, the instant need,
Still lashed him up the slope!
· · · · · ·
I sing no governed firmament,
Cold, ordered, regular—
I sing the stinging discontent
That leaps from star to star!
_John Erskine_
John Erskine was born in New York City, October 5, 1879. He
graduated from Columbia University, receiving his A.M. in 1901 and
Ph.D. in 1903. He has taught English since 1903, first at Amherst
College, and (beginning in 1909) at Columbia.
Although most of Erskine’s works have been performed in the capacity
of editor and essayist, he has written two volumes of excellent
verse. _Actæon and Other Poems_ (1906) is little more than an
introduction to _The Shadowed Hour_ (1917), which contains such keen
verses as “Satan” and “Ash-Wednesday” in which philosophy and poetry
are interknit.