Classic Poem

Wind of the wide world's mantled thought,
About the vague vast blowing;
This truth my wayward heart hath caught,
That being hath more doors than thought,
And life is more than knowing.

That creeds of darkness or of mind
Are but the scaly bark
That slips from off the centuried rind,
While inward works the impulse blind,
Amid the crannied dark.

And deeper than the builded theme
Of priest or book or seer,
There lies that life, that subtle dream
That rules the sunny warmth and gleam
That wakes the upward year.

And greater than all thoughts that fall
From wisdom's page or poet's song,
That dim impulse behind it all,
Flame from the ages' granite wall,
That finds no written tongue.

But speaks alike to mighty throngs
Or alien life apart;
That lifts whole races from their wrongs,
Or gives to one poor ploughman songs
That sing the whole world's heart.

This impulse in each being rife,
Deep hidden in each man;
This inward, mystic flame of life
Behind the passion or the strife,
The blessing or the ban.

Behind that fierceness none can tame,
Behind the ego dense,
It stands in some dim cell aflame,
Beyond all human thought or name,
A part of the immense.

Though science reads the cabined mind,
The wheeling stars and sun,
This mystic, veilèd flame behind
Its barriers dread, shows her more blind
Than winds of night that run;

And search the hollow hills of sleep,
And beat with phantom hands;
But know not of the dreams that creep,
Or of the haunting ghosts that sweep
Athwart the haggard lands.

It is the master of all thought,
All impulse and all dream,
And builds or ruins, base or not,
The fabric of the common lot,
The blackness or the gleam.

It gives through some weird inward need
The centuries' impulse birth;
And weaves in subtle dream or deed,
Of those who burn or those who bleed,
All tragedies of earth.

Behind the mighty mind of Greece,
The Titan force of Rome,
It bade earth's battles rage or cease,
And reared those splendid dreams of peace,
In column, plinth and dome.

Behind the artist when he wrought
Earth's beauty's rarest dream,
Or nature's poet when he caught
The melodies of morning fraught
With summer's azure gleam.

It kindled Homer's golden song
Of elemental man,
And lurks behind the fateful throng,
That stairway dread, of earth's weird wrong
From Christ to Caliban.

It is that greater self behind
All earth's confusèd gleam,
That leads men up by stairways blind
Of blackness, where they grope to find
The heaven of their dream.

At all earth's altars it hath knelt,
Sought God 'mid stars and dew,
Wherever life by plain or veldt
Hath down the craving ages felt
The agony of the few.

All sorrows, passions, all delights,
All hopings, all despairs,
All earth's old splendors, all her blights,
Her agony of wrongs and rights,
Her ruined starward stairs;

Her songs, her battles, her grim blades
Forged in her caves of dream,
Her woe that cowers or upbraids;
Yea, all that glories, all that fades,
Was cradled in its gleam.

And every hero-heart who stood
Alone in some dread hour
(When man faced man for ill or good,
And history wrote her page in blood)
Was governed by its power.

Greater than mightiest thought of mind,
That measures life by rule,
It soars by stars or crannies blind,
In those dread dreams of God, behind
The Plato or the fool.

. . . . . . .

Wind of the wide world's mantled thought
About the vague vast blowing;
Beyond our little “is” and “not,”
Beyond the curtains of our thought,
Life's mighty tides are flowing.

In every common hour of life,
In every flame that glows,
In every breath of being rife
With aspiration or of strife
Man feels more than he knows.

Earth's child of science counts the stars
Upon God's garment's hem;
He plumbs the seas, the heavens' bars,
Chains Jove's fierce thunders to her cars,
Rebuilds her rarest gem.

But blind as night to that within,
That demon, god, or elf,
That weird impulse to soar or sin,
That universe of dreams that spin,
That heaven or hell in “self.”

That something subtle that outweighs
The mightiest lore of man;
That master of his dreams and days,
Invisible in some weird haze
Behind his bliss or ban.

Which lifted Shakespeare from the clod,
Yet spake in Caliban;
That god in man, or man in god,
That dreamed all music from the sod
Since melody began.

That outsoared Shelley's lark in flight,
Beyond all dreams we know;
That knew with Milton music's might,
Or that exquisite dream delight
Of Paganini's bow.

That same dim impulse Saxon, Celt,
Mohawk or Tartar knew;
Earth's mightiest power to move or melt,
That in old Shylock's agony felt
The tragedy of the Jew.

This demon force that moves a world,
Hath breathed a simple flower,
With tendrils milky-white upcurled,
And with demoniac power hath hurled,
Earth's might in one short hour.

Hath burgeoned beauty from the blind,
Deep earthy woodland's heart;
This inward flame that wings the wind,
Great in comparison to mind
As nature unto art.

. . . . . . . .

Wind of the wide world's winnowed dream,
About the vague vast blowing;
Beyond our futile taper-gleam
Of priestly creed and poet's theme,
God's tides of might are flowing.

Man feels the present, feels the past,
As one born blind may know
The sun, the earth, the rain or blast,
Or those dread phantom shadows cast,
His brother men who go.

But round about the dreams we are,
In caves of wind and fire,
Where mind is cabined; soul afar,
Doth rise eternal, star to star,
To heights of God's desire.