MEDITATIVE O DE
The cool bright fingers of the winter sun
Shape the clear hills to beauty, where the breeze
Coils his slow, shining side,
Basks in cold light at ease:
Basks, till the feathered woods
Sleep on their rocky nests, where hide
Their tender broods
Of naked saplings, voiceless every one.
Voiceless: for Silence treads her padded way:
No sound, but sunbeam's gently weeping ray,
— That, and worms sighing three full inches deep,
— That, and fish singing in their winter sleep
To charm away the frost:
And yet, to my sprite ear
Across these earthy noises ringing clear
As music up the wind there come sad tones
Unsounded: voices: melancholy
Harmonious: sounds, and bells, and melancholy
More beautiful than stones
Or cry of mountains in the fearful moonlight lost.
Whence do they come?
I cannot tell.
Where do they dwell?
I do not say,
For at the door doth Vision stand
With burning coal in her left hand
To seal the lips. In every way
Three-headed Vision lies across the gate,
Darting this way and that.
Naked of words alone we pass:
We hang our names upon a tree,
Pile epithets upon the grass
In useless heaps: our restless verbs
We chain — they stalk uneasy.
Naked of words we enter in
Where formless beauties walk in threes,
And soundless music stirs no trees,
And thoughtless knowledge bursts no mind,
And uneyed senses thin as wind
Swim on the darkness with no fin,
No light wing-fall;
And speechless Joy in Sorrow's arms
Engenders Nothing: and the hours
Flatten, and shine like pigments on the wall.
Naked we passed the door;
Naked we passed the door;
Naked return
Beauties wreathless of all Name,
And with no hue of shame:
Like unicorns for joy
We leap: we burn, we burn
Like eyes grown large as stars ...
Then the cold breath of matter stirs
And joy falls steep as tears:
Then ecstasy lies still,
Soul shudders, sprite grows chill
For shelter of a word,
Till I fling Richard round my shoulders, gird
Hughes decently across my loins.
Others I see on that dun plain
Gaze with memorial eyes.
Brother, was yours this pain?
Come: in ironic idleness, let's play
With words as children do with bricks:
That one's a Loveliness, that a Melody,
(Rough, unlovely, unmelodious!)
Let's sit in the sand
And recall our Giocondas with round sea-pebbles.
Three sticks, and some green moss: there's the Greek Fleet!
A swan's feather, dog-rose petal, wisp of yellow metal
Found in the mud: there's Helen for you!
It's true, children? Say you see it, or I'll scratch your eyes out
And then my own! — You see it?
Fools! That's not Helen! Not the ships she launched!
Only my sticks and mud. I'll grind it up,
Such pain is on me: fling the husky words
For swine to feed on.
Listen, children, I will tell
A tale. I am a king — queen — priest — god:
I was touched by the most ethereal fingers
Of an unbelievable Loveliness.
Had she a name? Well, if she had a name, you'd laugh to hear it:
Why should she have a name?
Perhaps it's in that pile somewhere: but I can't reach it.
The frozen hills reflect the winter sun
Unshivering: never a breeze stirs,
Never a tree whispers;
Head aches, and the veins run
Slow, unheeded. — Oh, to be free
Of formless beauty! To make a jewelry,
To write with sweet meticulous ease
Of barn-door fowl, pattering chestnut:
Or conjure scent of lime-flowers on the breeze:
Or tell what Irony hid in a shepherd's hut,
What Passion solved itself in the pond's ooze:
So, to be saved: to be no soul forlorn,
But without soul to lose:
To win some ease:
Yet, sitting, and musing, there is something
Grows in my ribs with the terrible force of an acorn,
The visible speed of lightning:
And he is a god,
And with finger and thumb
Has burst my heart like a pod of peas.
The cool bright fingers of the winter sun
Shape the clear hills to beauty, where the breeze
Coils his slow, shining side,
Basks in cold light at ease:
Basks, till the feathered woods
Sleep on their rocky nests, where hide
Their tender broods
Of naked saplings, voiceless every one.
Voiceless: for Silence treads her padded way:
No sound, but sunbeam's gently weeping ray,
— That, and worms sighing three full inches deep,
— That, and fish singing in their winter sleep
To charm away the frost:
And yet, to my sprite ear
Across these earthy noises ringing clear
As music up the wind there come sad tones
Unsounded: voices: melancholy
Harmonious: sounds, and bells, and melancholy
More beautiful than stones
Or cry of mountains in the fearful moonlight lost.
Whence do they come?
I cannot tell.
Where do they dwell?
I do not say,
For at the door doth Vision stand
With burning coal in her left hand
To seal the lips. In every way
Three-headed Vision lies across the gate,
Darting this way and that.
Naked of words alone we pass:
We hang our names upon a tree,
Pile epithets upon the grass
In useless heaps: our restless verbs
We chain — they stalk uneasy.
Naked of words we enter in
Where formless beauties walk in threes,
And soundless music stirs no trees,
And thoughtless knowledge bursts no mind,
And uneyed senses thin as wind
Swim on the darkness with no fin,
No light wing-fall;
And speechless Joy in Sorrow's arms
Engenders Nothing: and the hours
Flatten, and shine like pigments on the wall.
Naked we passed the door;
Naked we passed the door;
Naked return
Beauties wreathless of all Name,
And with no hue of shame:
Like unicorns for joy
We leap: we burn, we burn
Like eyes grown large as stars ...
Then the cold breath of matter stirs
And joy falls steep as tears:
Then ecstasy lies still,
Soul shudders, sprite grows chill
For shelter of a word,
Till I fling Richard round my shoulders, gird
Hughes decently across my loins.
Others I see on that dun plain
Gaze with memorial eyes.
Brother, was yours this pain?
Come: in ironic idleness, let's play
With words as children do with bricks:
That one's a Loveliness, that a Melody,
(Rough, unlovely, unmelodious!)
Let's sit in the sand
And recall our Giocondas with round sea-pebbles.
Three sticks, and some green moss: there's the Greek Fleet!
A swan's feather, dog-rose petal, wisp of yellow metal
Found in the mud: there's Helen for you!
It's true, children? Say you see it, or I'll scratch your eyes out
And then my own! — You see it?
Fools! That's not Helen! Not the ships she launched!
Only my sticks and mud. I'll grind it up,
Such pain is on me: fling the husky words
For swine to feed on.
Listen, children, I will tell
A tale. I am a king — queen — priest — god:
I was touched by the most ethereal fingers
Of an unbelievable Loveliness.
Had she a name? Well, if she had a name, you'd laugh to hear it:
Why should she have a name?
Perhaps it's in that pile somewhere: but I can't reach it.
The frozen hills reflect the winter sun
Unshivering: never a breeze stirs,
Never a tree whispers;
Head aches, and the veins run
Slow, unheeded. — Oh, to be free
Of formless beauty! To make a jewelry,
To write with sweet meticulous ease
Of barn-door fowl, pattering chestnut:
Or conjure scent of lime-flowers on the breeze:
Or tell what Irony hid in a shepherd's hut,
What Passion solved itself in the pond's ooze:
So, to be saved: to be no soul forlorn,
But without soul to lose:
To win some ease:
Yet, sitting, and musing, there is something
Grows in my ribs with the terrible force of an acorn,
The visible speed of lightning:
And he is a god,
And with finger and thumb
Has burst my heart like a pod of peas.