The Ascetic
A WILD wind blows from out the angry sky
And all the clouds are tossed like thistle-down
Above the groaning branches of the trees;
For on this steel-cold night the earth is stirred
To shake away its rottenness; the leaves
Are shed like secret unremembered sins
In the great scourge of the great love of God....
Ere I was learned in the ways of love
I looked for it in green and pleasant lands,
In apple orchards and the poppy fields,
And peered among the silences of woods,
And meditated the shy notes of birds
But found it not.
Oh, many a goodly joy
Of grace and gentle beauty came to me
On many a clear and cleansing night of stars.
But when I sat among my happy friends
(Singing their songs and drinking of their ale,
Warming my limbs before their kindly hearth)
My loneliness would seize me like a pain,
A hunger strong and alien as death.
No comfort stays with such a man as I,
No resting place amid the dew and dusk,
Whose head is filled with perilous enterprise
The endless quest of my wild fruitless love.
But these can tell how they have heard His voice,
Have seen His face in pure untroubled sleep,
Or when the twilight gathered on the hills
Or when the moon shone out beyond the sea!
Have I not seen them? Yet I pilgrimage
In desolation seeking after peace,
Learning how hard a thing it is to love.
There is a love that men find easily,
Familiar as the latch upon the door,
Dear as the curling smoke above the thatch —
But I have loved unto the uttermost
And know love in the desperate abyss,
In dereliction and in blasphemy!
And fly from God to find him, fill my eyes
With road-dust and with tears and starry hopes,
Ere I may search out Love unsearchable,
Eternal Truth and Goodness infinite,
And the ineffable Beauty that is God.
Empty of scorn and ceasing not to praise
The meanest stick and stone upon the earth,
I strive unto the stark Reality,
The Absolute grasped roundly in my hands.
Bitter and pitiless it is to love,
To feel the darkness gather round the soul,
Love's abnegation for the sake of love,
To see my Templed symbols' slow decay
Become of every ravenous weed the food,
Where bats beat hideous wings about the arch
And ruined roof, where ghosts of tragic kings
And sleek ecclesiastics come and go
Upon the shattered pavements of my creed.
Yet Mercy at the last shall lead me in,
The Bride immaculate and mystical
Tenderly guide my wayward feet to peace,
And show me love the likeness of a Man,
The Slave obedient unto death, the Lamb
Slain from the first foundations of the world,
The Word made flesh, the tender new-born Child
That is the end of all my heart's desire.
Then shall my spirit, naked of its hopes,
Stripped of its love unto the very bone,
Sink simply into Love's embrace and be
Made consummate of all its burning bliss.
And all the clouds are tossed like thistle-down
Above the groaning branches of the trees;
For on this steel-cold night the earth is stirred
To shake away its rottenness; the leaves
Are shed like secret unremembered sins
In the great scourge of the great love of God....
Ere I was learned in the ways of love
I looked for it in green and pleasant lands,
In apple orchards and the poppy fields,
And peered among the silences of woods,
And meditated the shy notes of birds
But found it not.
Oh, many a goodly joy
Of grace and gentle beauty came to me
On many a clear and cleansing night of stars.
But when I sat among my happy friends
(Singing their songs and drinking of their ale,
Warming my limbs before their kindly hearth)
My loneliness would seize me like a pain,
A hunger strong and alien as death.
No comfort stays with such a man as I,
No resting place amid the dew and dusk,
Whose head is filled with perilous enterprise
The endless quest of my wild fruitless love.
But these can tell how they have heard His voice,
Have seen His face in pure untroubled sleep,
Or when the twilight gathered on the hills
Or when the moon shone out beyond the sea!
Have I not seen them? Yet I pilgrimage
In desolation seeking after peace,
Learning how hard a thing it is to love.
There is a love that men find easily,
Familiar as the latch upon the door,
Dear as the curling smoke above the thatch —
But I have loved unto the uttermost
And know love in the desperate abyss,
In dereliction and in blasphemy!
And fly from God to find him, fill my eyes
With road-dust and with tears and starry hopes,
Ere I may search out Love unsearchable,
Eternal Truth and Goodness infinite,
And the ineffable Beauty that is God.
Empty of scorn and ceasing not to praise
The meanest stick and stone upon the earth,
I strive unto the stark Reality,
The Absolute grasped roundly in my hands.
Bitter and pitiless it is to love,
To feel the darkness gather round the soul,
Love's abnegation for the sake of love,
To see my Templed symbols' slow decay
Become of every ravenous weed the food,
Where bats beat hideous wings about the arch
And ruined roof, where ghosts of tragic kings
And sleek ecclesiastics come and go
Upon the shattered pavements of my creed.
Yet Mercy at the last shall lead me in,
The Bride immaculate and mystical
Tenderly guide my wayward feet to peace,
And show me love the likeness of a Man,
The Slave obedient unto death, the Lamb
Slain from the first foundations of the world,
The Word made flesh, the tender new-born Child
That is the end of all my heart's desire.
Then shall my spirit, naked of its hopes,
Stripped of its love unto the very bone,
Sink simply into Love's embrace and be
Made consummate of all its burning bliss.
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