Classic Poem

I sing the battle of the soul:

At moon-wane, in furious foam-flecked seas, eddies and spouts and spirals,
The dreaming soul, a wave of flesh, whipped, wandering, tossing on hilly waters,
Becomes aware of itself ...

The bellbuoys clang longings for freedom,
And the sea like innumerable bells takes up the song, and goes pealing with it,
And the waking soul rolls like a bell clanging for liberation ...

" I am a child, " sings the soul,
" I am a child and a slave ... "
" I am a child of two mothers ... "

For the soul finds now a sea within the sea,
It finds the surface sea of the waves of flesh clashing and shouting around it,
It finds the under sea profound, the depths, deep and soundless ...
Outer sea and inner sea,
And only a wall of flesh like a strip of sand between the waters ...
Only a wall of flesh between the two engulfing mothers ...

And the soul, whipped, wandering, tossing on hilly waters,
Water itself gliding through water,
Sport of the monstrous currents, the divine-demonic tides,
Takes soundings in the depths and learns its law ...

The song of the outer sea is a loud song,
But the song of the inner sea is a still small song ...
And the inner sea sings: " All seas conquer their slaves,
But to the conqueror of seas all seas bring gifts ...
Shoreward, O soul, shoreward, be free ... "

Now there is a wrestler in the sea:
He wrestles with the deep sea and the sea of waves:
He sinks: he rises: he puts out strokes toward the shore: he is sucked back:
Giddily he whirls, spitting the brine from his mouth, and laughs wildly, and is water slapping to and fro ...

And there comes upon him languor, and hate of the clashing waves, and disgust of motion, and weariness of effort,
He is tired of small-sized devils and gods,
Fatigued with crowds ...
And into his ears now the deep still sea intones a siren song ...

" In, " it sings, " under ... come down, my child ...
Out of restlessness, rest,
Out of pain, peace ...
There are memories with gentle ghosts, beloved shapes forgotten, in the depths;
Mother is there when the child comes home,
She shall croon to you: she shall take you to her bosom ...
And deeper than memory is Eden,
And Mother Eve and your Father God walking on the grass when the lilacs blossom
And beneath God, the float of eternal peace ... "
The soul listens, and sinks ...
Sinks into the arms of the Mother ...
Sinks through a layer of terror, through the terrible creeds and prohibiting bans of life ...
Breaks the law of being, which is struggle,
And finds peace and enfolding death. ...

And the soul must now choose: life or death,
Reality or Nirvana ...
I sing not of those who, in living death, are sealed in themselves,
But I sing the battle of the soul,
Which dashes away from its lips the much-loved cup of dream,
And with birth-throes breaks open the Mother and flounders out on the swirling floods,
And, strong with the depths, strikes shoreward again ...

Many Satans entangle this swimmer and wrestler ...
And a sunset song and a sunrise song ring in his ears and allure him ...
" Power, Power, Power, " the sunrise song repeats,
" Love, Love, Love, " comes singing from the sunset ...

Out of the sunrise, mirage of conquerors ...
" Be the highest wave, " is the shout ...
" For about the highest wave the cry of fame goes circling,
And the highest wave that rises over the shoulders of the lesser waves,
That goes up by trampling down,
Shall be as a rider of the sea, stern with the joy of mastery ...
Get above the sea, by climbing over it, " is the song of the visionary conquerors ...

Old song and terrible ...
The soul essays the task, and his height is only a slippery pushing of the lesser waves about him,
And his is the serfdom and the slavery of height ...
Who can stay high, who refuses to obey the low?

But out of the sunset the song of love comes alluring,
Over the crimson and melting tide the beautiful waves come trooping,
White hands, white hands are stretched to the wanderer,
Faces glide out of shadow and back,
Golden breasts are soft in sunset,
Youth sings to youth ...

There is a song of little children in the song of love,
There is a song of fireside and the nest sheltered from the blast,
A song of mother and father and home ...
" Why do you wander, " it sings, " and why do you strive for the unattainable?
What use is there in icy, lonely freedom?
What comfort on the peak?
Power is bitterness: solitude is madness:
Give yourself to the common ways, the homely ways, the folk ways:
Come into this cove of the ocean sheltered from time and tumult ...
Forget the depths and the heights — but while there is yet life, live,
Live on from day to day, with many soft arms around you ... "

This song is the most subtle temptation of the soul,
This sunset song ...
But I sing the battle of the soul
Which wrestles with the weakness of love, which is self-love,
And the meshes of melting pity, which is self-pity ...

Now the soul comes to a knowledge of itself,
And finds, in horror, that all the evils of the world,
Yes, all the evils of the two seas,
Are of itself, tangled with itself,
That the public evil of the outer sea
And the cosmic evil of the inner sea
Are woven like threads into itself ...
So it ceases now to wrestle with other souls,
And begins to wrestle with its own soul ...
In itself to push out the slave and the tyrant, the beast and the saint, the devil and god ...

Yea, it goes up even against its beautiful gods,
Its adored Jesus, pure-browed Mary, and revered Jehovah,
And trembling with superstitious fear, breaks their images ...

And the soul cries: " I have been water in water,
What I thought was self was my mingling in others,
Imitation of Christ, imitation of heroes, imitation of this teacher, that;
But now I will put all out of me though I am stripped and husked like an ear of corn
And find in the end, mildew and withered kernels ...
I shall win myself though myself is the thinnest of shadows,
The tiniest of seeds ...
I will become lonely, in order to be born ... "

Bitter are the waters of November,
Bleak is the cold snow-pitted air that whirls over the barren sea,
And the gray clouds that massively fold black shadows, while the sea's song is a dirge, a threnody,
And there is no life on the deep, but the mechanical sloping of breakers ...
Barren, endless, and bitter the sea rides,
A few gulls wheel, the air is a flight of shadows ...

O loneliness, who has sung your song, who has known your dark music?
Only the stripped soul knows you, only the naked self has tasted your salt ...

As by a miracle the soul, wrestling only with itself, draws to the shore,
And that grey day breaks when it stands shivering and naked on the sand,
And looking about, sees that it is alone,
And that the sea is warmer than the winter air,
And that comfort is only in the sea ...

Like a child, the soul weeps ...
" I am separated from all things, " it whimpers,
" I am sundered from all fires, and aloof from comfort ...
I am naked, and have become little ...
O the unbearableness of littleness,
O the pain of being only human and little ... "

And now comes the temptation of the return ...
But I sing the battle of the soul
Which, lonely as in death, straightens up in all nakedness,
Takes the North wind and the terrible view of emptiness,
And the dying of all old ways of comfort and mightiness,
And the being cut off from the face of Man and the face of God ...

I sing of the soul that has won self out of the clutch of the seas,
Self, but a bitter little fruit to win,
But conquered and kept ...

The day dies, the night is still ...
In a few dark hours a long season passes,
And in the darkness before dawn on the land the song of meadowlarks is heard,
And the smell of lilacs comes down to mix with the sea-smell ...

A new song is on the sea,
A softer and clearer song, a music of the south and the homing bluebirds,
And in the heart, a new song ...

" Spring has come ...
What grass blades pierce the loam of the spirit?
What leaves open their crumpled baby hands?
And where is loneliness now with sea and earth and the shining cities of men
Singing about me?
And where is bitterness now and barrenness, with the golden light
Shallowing along the uneven sea and dropping from the blue heavens?
And what is this in my being that bubbles upward unhindered and free,
Is it understanding? Has love come? "

Now the soul chants the chant of freedom
And the miracle of separation ...
Now it glories in being human, and is glad of littleness ...
Now the soul resists the depths no longer, and wrestles no longer with gods and demons,
For, behold, it is at one with the depths...

Soul and sea sing the song of reconciliation ...
For he who is engulfed in the sea is a slave of the sea,
But to the conqueror of the sea, the sea brings gifts ...
Yea, the monster sea now becomes the comrade of the soul,
And sea and soul move as married ...

The soul sings: " Because I am myself and not the sea, nor in it,
Now I can work with the sea ...
The sea has mighty currents and tides of destiny,
And I, born of the sea, must give myself to my doom,
Accept the destiny the depths allot me,
The destiny I make my own through my own need, my own willingness ...
And working with the sea, I shall work out my life ... "

Dreams, phantasies, imaginings ...
Bubbling of the depths, the risen visionary billows of the sea of the spirit,
In the night breaking on the shores of consciousness
And the soul resisting like sand and rock, and so writing crooked lines of dream,
Yea, the soul and the sea between them writing crooked lines of dream ...

On the shore at the break of day the soul walks
And examines the crooked lines, and deciphers this writing,
And learns its law ... the law of the marriage or sea and soul ...
And obeying this law, is free ...

Not inland the soul goes, not seaward ...
But along its jagged shore — its own fate, given by self and the sea ...

There is a mystery here, inexpressible:
And however the books describe it,
Only he who has won himself may understand ...
Only the lover knows love, only the sorrower sorrow,
Only the free soul freedom. . . .

I sing the battle of the soul
Which even when free longs back at times for bondage,
And often is lured by the white hands under
And swallowed again in the sea,
And again he battles, and again he must win his freedom ...