Mystery of Dawn, ere yet the glory streams
Risen over earth, and pauses in that hush
When far, as from an ecstasy, clouds flush,
And hills lift up their pureness into dreams
Of light that not yet colours the cold flower,
And the earth-clasping, heaven-desiring tree
Trembles in virginal expectancy—
What breath of the unknown Power
Is this that, spirit to spirit, as with a spousal kiss
Comes seeking us, even us, through shadow and dew,—
Seeking in this soiled flesh what undiscovered world
Beyond tears, beyond bliss, beyond wisdom, beyond
Time? what recaptured harmony of earth and heaven?
What world made new?
A world so strange, the spirit thrills to flame,
Transfigured in a wonder of release!
A world so near, it has no other name
Than light and breath! Where lost we, then, this peace?
Wanting what charm to cleanse
Our eyes? To see; is this the last of gifts,
That, as the scales drop, the heart so uplifts?
O world where no possession is of men’s,
Where the will rages not with fever to destroy
Differing wills, or warp another life to its use,
But each lives in the light of its own joy!
In one wide vision all have share, and we in all,
Infinitely companioned with the stars, the dust,
Beasts of the field, and stones, and flowers that fall!
This body that we use seems in that air
Marvellous; secret from ourselves; a power
Without which were no speech, nor deed done anywhere,
Nor could thought range and tower,
Nor seed be sown for the unborn time to reap;
Whose natural motion was ordained to be
Beautiful as a wave out of a sea
Boundless as mind asleep;
So passionately shaped, in every part perfect,
Universes are wounded in its abasement,
Crying from stone to star;
The unimagined height, the immeasurable deep,
Hungers, abysses, heavens, millions of ghosts from far
Meet in this body born to laugh and weep.
Weep; not for the endured, ancestral ill,
Perils and plagues, that ambush all our ways,
Time’s injury, and pain’s deep-wandered maze;
These need not eyes to see, but only flesh to feel.
But of the eternal vision to partake,
And see what we have done, and what refused,
To what accepted blindness we grow used,
And what marred shapes of one another make,
This is to weep such tears as no flesh-throes have cost,
Weep for our loves, our loves, that we ourselves have slain,
The powers of loveliness that we have left forlorn.
Eyes we had and saw not, ears and we did not hear!
Ah, when the heart, full-visioned, breaks in shame and pain,
Then is the world’s hope born.
The cry of desolation turns to praise.
If falsehood first enchant the eager mind,
And if desire be cruel, being blind,
Each by its own infirmity betrays,
And some profounder, more imperious need
Drives through all smart, whatever world to lose,
The pure vision to choose,
And tho’ Truth kill, there in the end be freed.
Open, open, gates of deliverance, open!
See, liberated spirits, see, victorious ones,
For testimony of us from homes of glory shine,
Vindicators of this brief flesh, they mingle us,—
Soiled and despoiled,—with beauty and with felicity,
And sting us from afar with the Divine.
Hands of men stretched out in so dark a craving!
Baffled heart, clouded vision; filled with ache
To know you have maimed the world you sought to make
Your instrument and minister, enslaving
Powers of earth and air—Hands that have wrought
So glorious things, the thoughts of joy to house!
Heart that has pulsed so ardent for its vow’s
Accomplishment,—O heart so hardly taught!
O stretched-out hands! of you Eternity has need.
Give but your sacred passion and your shaping art,
The hunger of Eternity is there,—
Barren else, barren: chaos and a wilderness
Of feud and everlasting greed devouring greed,
The unshapen dream’s despair!
Spirit of Man, dear spirit, sore opprest
With self-estrangement, and mis-choosing will,
And all satiety of gainful skill,—
Possession that was never yet possessed,—
You that have been so great a lover, giving
In innocency all for sacrifice;
Whom neither Time nor earth’s regions suffice—
You too are sought, where still your dream is living.
Over the secret oceans of uncharted mind
Who knows what voyagers, what sails invisibly
Press on, for all the lost, the foundered hopes untrue?
Who knows, through ignorant mists and storm upon that sea
What Lover, what unweariable Adventurer,
Makes still his quest of you?
O world that is within us, yet must still
Out of the eternal mystery be wooed
Ere it be ours and, breathing in the blood,
Live in its beauty, as the miracle
Of the divine colour of flowers in night
Was not, and is not of themselves alone
Nor of the dawn-beam, but of both made one,—
A marriage-mystery of earth and light!
O undiscovered world that all about us lies
When spirit to Spirit surrenders, and like young Love sees
Heaven with human eyes!
World of radiant morning! Joy’s untravelled region!
Why lies it solitary? and O why tarry we?
Why daily wander out from Paradise?