Worship
A silence on the wooded slopes, a silence on the sea,
And would that heaven so were praised by such a peace in me.
I am a man, my heritage a curse of fire and sword,
While o'er my head the purple hills in silence praise the Lord.
From the old earth doth worship rise a hymn of ordered deeds,
But we have rent it into sects and coined it into creed.
His myriad phrases lift their hymns in ordered calm divine,
While we must struggle for a name and slaughter for a sign.
God's solemn rocks and sunny fells their hymns are still the same;
But we have strewn them with the dead we slaughtered in His name,
And while the sweet old nature song goes up from wood and hill,
The worshippers of mortal race are madly wrangling still.
And this is he; the lord of earth, the image of the Lord,
Whose worship blasteth as a curse and smiteth as a sword,
I grasp the rods and dare to claim an Eden-right divine,
To rule the living world that lifts a purer prayer than mine.
Yet lord he is, on every hand, his power is with his claim,
He rends the secret of the rocks and grasps the thunder-flame.
The cloudy confines of the earth as portals he unbars,
And tracks o'er all the silent heaven the purpose of the stars,
As a young child, mid birds and beasts with chiding and caress,
Subdues and sways their patient strength with mock imperiousness,
So mid the Titan powers of earth the child of Heaven lay,
Of wilder mood and frailer form, but loftier race than they,
While earth's mute forces blindly bent before the mystic throne,
Are conscious of a presence vague, adored but all unknown,
Man lifts a reckless gaze and strives o'er all the glimmering night,
To trace the vast unmeasured form, too awful for his sight.
Though nature's spirits lift their hymns without a doubt's alloy,
From field and hill, from flower and fruit, a psalm of ordered joy,
When far behind and far below their echoes fade and die,
Goes lonely up beyond the stars the bitter human cry.
There is a place of inner life where nature cannot come,
Where all her visions are a blank and all her voices dumb.
A deep of silent consciousness no bridge of thought can span,
Where in the lonely places meet the souls of God and man.
Aye, this is he, the lord of earth, though lone his doom and dire,
A wild-eyed, dual mystery, a strife of dust and fire,
A flame is set upon his brow, a sword within his hand,
And on his own wild way he goes, a waster of the land.
He stirred, a far-off germ of life, at old Creation's root,
Climbed ever, with a dawning will, the cycles of the brute.
Groped blindly through unconsciousness, sought out an unknown goal,
And found the vision of himself, the temple of his soul,
Within that shrine a secret lies where nature has no share,
Within that shrine for ever burns the mystic lamp of prayer,
In dreaming myth and frantic creed, in flame and battle-wrath,
In stormy flash and mystery, that secret goeth forth.
A glory round the wooded hills, a splendour of the sea,
And something of that sunset rest hath laid its hand on me.
Here, too, is peace, within, without, a praying world I scan
The fiery peace of eventide, the passion faith of man.
And would that heaven so were praised by such a peace in me.
I am a man, my heritage a curse of fire and sword,
While o'er my head the purple hills in silence praise the Lord.
From the old earth doth worship rise a hymn of ordered deeds,
But we have rent it into sects and coined it into creed.
His myriad phrases lift their hymns in ordered calm divine,
While we must struggle for a name and slaughter for a sign.
God's solemn rocks and sunny fells their hymns are still the same;
But we have strewn them with the dead we slaughtered in His name,
And while the sweet old nature song goes up from wood and hill,
The worshippers of mortal race are madly wrangling still.
And this is he; the lord of earth, the image of the Lord,
Whose worship blasteth as a curse and smiteth as a sword,
I grasp the rods and dare to claim an Eden-right divine,
To rule the living world that lifts a purer prayer than mine.
Yet lord he is, on every hand, his power is with his claim,
He rends the secret of the rocks and grasps the thunder-flame.
The cloudy confines of the earth as portals he unbars,
And tracks o'er all the silent heaven the purpose of the stars,
As a young child, mid birds and beasts with chiding and caress,
Subdues and sways their patient strength with mock imperiousness,
So mid the Titan powers of earth the child of Heaven lay,
Of wilder mood and frailer form, but loftier race than they,
While earth's mute forces blindly bent before the mystic throne,
Are conscious of a presence vague, adored but all unknown,
Man lifts a reckless gaze and strives o'er all the glimmering night,
To trace the vast unmeasured form, too awful for his sight.
Though nature's spirits lift their hymns without a doubt's alloy,
From field and hill, from flower and fruit, a psalm of ordered joy,
When far behind and far below their echoes fade and die,
Goes lonely up beyond the stars the bitter human cry.
There is a place of inner life where nature cannot come,
Where all her visions are a blank and all her voices dumb.
A deep of silent consciousness no bridge of thought can span,
Where in the lonely places meet the souls of God and man.
Aye, this is he, the lord of earth, though lone his doom and dire,
A wild-eyed, dual mystery, a strife of dust and fire,
A flame is set upon his brow, a sword within his hand,
And on his own wild way he goes, a waster of the land.
He stirred, a far-off germ of life, at old Creation's root,
Climbed ever, with a dawning will, the cycles of the brute.
Groped blindly through unconsciousness, sought out an unknown goal,
And found the vision of himself, the temple of his soul,
Within that shrine a secret lies where nature has no share,
Within that shrine for ever burns the mystic lamp of prayer,
In dreaming myth and frantic creed, in flame and battle-wrath,
In stormy flash and mystery, that secret goeth forth.
A glory round the wooded hills, a splendour of the sea,
And something of that sunset rest hath laid its hand on me.
Here, too, is peace, within, without, a praying world I scan
The fiery peace of eventide, the passion faith of man.
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