O in a living stream to bathe
That runs its course from spring to sea!
And O to cast this aching mesh
Of iron bands that starkly swathe
Limbs that labour, neck to knee!
To feel the wind upon the flesh,
Wind that was before man was,
Blowing out of blue divine;
Feel the feet on morning grass
Lightly firm, and body bare
Over-showered with beams so fine
As cleanse the very heart of care!
Sages, had you found but this
For the mind, so it could use
What the body knows of bliss
When all thought it loves to lose
Merely poising in the sun,
Sure of powers a-spring within it
Rippling out to leap and run,—
Like for memory’s waiting ear
Silence, ere the music win it:—
When unreasoned joy alone
Brims the body, itself its own
Infinity unquestioning;
Careless, Life is O so near,
Death a legendary thing,
Breath and blood like bells that ring;—
Sages, had you art to find
Such a glory for the mind,
Not with eyes that are too wise
But the lover’s wonder-vision
Seeing far and seeing near
As within one radiant sphere
All things living, joined and whole,
Bloomed with light of Paradise;
Sages then—but who has taught
Such an end for labouring thought,
Such a nakedness of soul;—
What but probing, doubting, and division?
Hark, on iron iron’s endless clamour!
The hours, the hours, drive swifter than we strain—
Earth changes not, but who has changed us,
As if a Fury with a shadowy hammer
Nailed the nails into the fiery brain?
Who has estranged us?
What dark enemy within
Makes of Earth an enemy?
Is it not he who sought of old
Secrets of her wealth to win,
Hot with greed and overbold,
Aching to possess her? he,
Searching labyrinthine veins,
Thirsted for yet rarer gains,
And through patient nights perused
Each divided element,
Curious of that pregnant dust
Which with intent hand he bruised;
Crucibled in fire the grains
That should subtly be cajoled
In the end to yield his lust
Feasts of gold—a continent
Molten into dazzling gold!
(Were not heard the Sirens then
Deriding the poor dreams of men?)
Nay, but he would scrutinize
Even Night’s deep-ordered scheme,
And spell his own proud destinies
In scripture of the starry stream.
Coveting what power those skies
Might enthrone, he sought a charm
That should warp them and should woo.
To his use, and by such aid
To disimperil of one harm
This brief body, would undo
A universe. And he arrayed
In a constellated robe
His heaven-projected effigy,
Because his spirit was afraid
Of its nakedness, nor dared
Terrors of the truth to probe;
Rather chose itself to ensky
In a dream. But no night bared
To him her grandeur, swerved no spheres
To the wrench of human fears.
Earth and Night to crave of lust
Yield but fruitlessness and dust;
Dust to lust, to greed a weed!
Mockers rise from those forgotten years:
‘This is he, the self-dupe, still the same
Vaunter of a world of his defiling!
Claiming heavens, with only will to maim.
Who is this to own an earth’s empire,
In whose blood is mud, and this aviling
Squalor of desire?’
Lo, with feet on fiery ashes
Earth’s foiled master casts his eyes
Round his world-abode. Time’s heir,
Freed by blood of martyrs, wise
With myriad lives of thought and care,
Into Doubt’s dim future gropes,
Black with omen, lit with flashes!
Lo, beneath his heaven of hopes
Falling palaces of dream,
Proudly pillared; regions wreckt,
Peopled with stray flames that seem
Hot greeds from his burning brain
And the very earth infect.
Lo, like bodies for his fear
Shadowy shapes of force insane
Menacing in murk appear,
Primed with energy to kill,—
Engines of his intellect,
Incarnations of his will!
Those old siren-songs of air
Change into a song abhorred,
Chanting softly, Revel, Lord!
Triumph, Master! This you sought!
This your own proud hands have wrought!
Now the lover’s loathing taste
Comes on him for what he burned
So imperiously to clutch.
Where is now the bliss embraced,
Where the conquest? At a touch
All’s to desolation turned.
Is it he, or Earth, betrays?
She that seemed to sting him on
To possession, once possessed,
Dispossesses him. Her breast
Stony grows, and hard her gaze.
—Yet, oh, could she again be wooed
In her own, her chosen ways,
Shall she not transform her mood,
Glorify with truth his quest,
Give, as lovers give, entire
Body to body, mind to mind,
Ay, and more than these can find,—
Spirit to spirit? Beauty of Desire,
Beauty beyond possession still is breathing,
Beauty in us defaced!
O secret spring eternal, muddied here,
Soiled and sunken, troubled into seething!
Torrent of Desire, by greed and fear
Spilled into waste!