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In the City

Back at my house, where the village ends
And the furrowed land begins,
God is a music of cello-tones
And satiny violins.

But here, in this maelstrom of opposites,
This passion of splendors and slimes,
The factory chimneys are organ-pipes
And the engine-bells are chimes.

And which is dearer I cannot tell—
My blossomy symphony,
Or the thundering organ that breaks my heart
And sunders my soul from me.

Daedalon

Aye, I am foolish for I know
That I shall sadden when you go,
And I am blind because I see
That you were more than God to me:
A brighter sun than Heaven's shone
When I was with you, Daedalon.

Can I find strength enough to stand
The last slight pressure of your hand;
Can I find fortitude to bear
The knowledge that you are not there,
Then turn my Book of Life upon
The memory of Daedalon

Remember you! No, no, I'll shut
The Book, or from its pages cut
The image of you graven there,
The dingy tangle of your hair,

The Forge

The forge is dark
The better to show
The birth of the spark
And the Iron's glow.
The forge is dark
That the smith may know
When to strike the blow
On the luminous arc
As he shapes the shoe.

The bellows blows on the dampened slack,
The coal now glows in the heart of the black.
The smith no longer his arm need raise
To the chain of the bellows that makes the blaze.
I see him search where the blue flames are
In the heart of the fire to find the bar,
With winking grooves from elbow to wrist

Havened

Come, Flower of Life, and lay thy beauty's rose
Upon the breast that storm and thee divide;
And like true knights whose queen no laggard knows,
Forth gently shall my love-bid fancies ride
To serve thy heart, and bring thy wishes in;
And shuttling rhyme a web shall make thee then
Whilst thou dost gaze, nor thy poor weaver chide.

Sweet wonder lay upon my opening eyes
That showed me in a gracious court of trees
Whose leaves were clouds that caught and lost sunrise,
And fell in mist upon a twirling breeze

Penseur, Le

Warm in this marble, that is stone no more,
Life at wound-pause lifts ear to woundless mind;
Backward the ages their slow clew unwind,
And step by step, and star by star, lead o'er
The trail again, where eyeless passion tore
Its red way to a soul. Mist-bound and blind
No more, the thinker waits, and God grown kind
Flashes a foot-print where He goes before.

Not to be followed! Falls the cloud again;
Folds the stern form around the striving doubt,
And curve betrays to curve the silent birth
That shall be voice to later times and men;

The Temple bell

The temple bell
is ringing low this evening
Come now and
chant your sutras for the
budding peach blossoms in my hair

This hot tide of blood
beneath soft skin and you don't
even brush it with a fingertip
Aren't you lonely then
you who preach the Way?
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