Chapter IV

Poor timid mind, so agile to defend
Your own misgiving, patient to put out
The light of hope within us and without,
Your own best lover and your own worst friend--
While over us the faithful heavens bend,
While through our veins the justling life-streams shout
Triumph and joy, still pondering the old doubt--
Anxious and unpersuaded to the end!

If it be truth indeed that life through you,
Who are the front of her emergent will,
Waking, asks for an answer and, denied,
Resumes the primal sleep--if this be true,
Dark is the truth. But we are greater still
Than our own thoughts and wiser than our pride.

THE WOVEN DOOM

We are all woven of the one weaving, Flower and bird and beast and tree-- The gray kingfisher and the trout, The toad that spreads a tiny hand On the earth’s carpet quietly-- Heaven, shaken with storm and thunder, Clouds and great waters, winds and snows, The starry firmament, the grieving Heart of man; through earth and sea, The moth, the tiger, and the rose, Flower and planet--strand on strand-- The wandering threads wind in and out, With warp and woof, over and under, Weaving the ancient unity.

We are all woven in one Story; One Legend like a sorrow runs Through creeds and crowns and buried wars, Prophets and saviours crucified, Great fortresses, and cities, once Crowded, now crumbled and forsaken, Captains and kings of old that spread Their sails upon the sea: one Glory Speaks through them all--through swords and guns, Battles and dreams and hearts that bled, Lovers, or rulers in their pride, Desolate lands, and the lone stars That by the wind of Time are shaken, And thronging worlds and flaming suns.

We are all passing on together, In darkness, to the end unknown-- Through all the ways and days of earth: The thief, the ploughman and the seer, The dog, the emperor on his throne, The eyes, bowed over eyes unseeing, The dying face, the broken heart, To the one end are moving, whether Evil or good--but not alone. Each in the other has a part. Each as he may, in hope or fear, Love, lust, or labor, death or birth, Works out the will of the One Being-- For One is all, and all are One.

SALUTATION

You, perhaps yet unborn, that some day shall read these rhymes--
Know, that I was a man even as yourself, and from the womb
Issued in nakedness--also, that I suffered the doom
Common to all men, and that I pondered these things many times;

And ceased. So shall you cease: brief are the days and few.
I have made these songs, that we for a moment might partake
Of the one dream. This is my spirit offered for your sake.
Eat, drink; this is my spirit given for you.

It is night, and we are alone together: your head
Bends over the open book, your feeding eyes devour
The substance of my dream. O sacred hour
That makes us one--you, fleeting, and I, already fled!

Here is my love, here is my sorrow, my heart’s rage,
Poured out for you. What tenderness brooding above you
Hallows these songs! I have made them all for you. I love you.
What love, what longing, my brother, speaks to you from this page!