Chapter IV

Must it be?--Must we then Render back to God again This His broken work, this thing, For His man that once did sing? Will not all our wonders do? Gifts we stored the ages through, (Trusting that He had forgot)-- Gifts the Lord requirèd not?

Would the all-but-human serve! Monsters made of stone and nerve; Towers to threaten and defy Curse or blessing of the sky; Shafts that blot the stars with smoke; Lightnings harnessed under yoke; Sea-things, air-things, wrought with steel, That may smite, and fly, and feel! Oceans calling each to each; Hostile hearts, with kindred speech. Every work that Titans can; Every marvel: save a man, Who might rule without a sword.-- Is a man more precious, Lord?

Can it be?--Must we then Render back to Thee again Million, million wasted men? Men, of flickering human breath, Only made for life and death?

Ah, but see the sovereign Few, Highly favored, that remain! These, the glorious residue, Of the cherished race of Cain. These, the magnates of the age, High above the human wage, Who have numbered and possesst All the portion of the rest!

What are all despairs and shames, What the mean, forgotten names Of the thousand more or less, For one surfeit of success?

For those dullest lives we spent, Take these Few magnificent! For that host of blotted ones, Take these glittering central suns. Few;--but how their lustre thrives On the million broken lives! Splendid, over dark and doubt, For a million souls gone out! These, the holders of our hoard,-- Wilt thou not accept them, Lord?

V

Oh, in the wakening thunders of the heart, --The small lost Eden, troubled through the night, Sounds there not now,--forboded and apart, Some voice and sword of light? Some voice and portent of a dawn to break?-- Searching like God, the ruinous human shard Of that lost Brother-man Himself did make, And Man himself hath marred?

It sounds!--And may the anguish of that birth
Seize on the world; and may all shelters fail,
Till we behold new Heaven and new Earth
Through the rent Temple-vail!
When the high-tides that threaten near and far
To sweep away our guilt before the sky,--
Flooding the waste of this dishonored Star,
Cleanse, and o'erwhelm, and cry!--

Cry, from the deep of world-accusing waves,
With longing more than all since Light began,
Above the nations,--underneath the graves,--
'Give back the Singing Man!'

THE TREES

I

Now, in the thousandth year, When April's near, Now comes it that the great ones of the earth Take all their mirth Away with them, far off, to orchard-places,-- Nor they nor Solomon arrayed like these,-- To sun themselves at ease; To breathe of wind-swept spaces; To see some miracle of leafy graces;-- To catch the out-flowing rapture of the trees. Considering the lilies. --Yes. And when Shall they consider Men?

(_O showering May-clad tree,
Bear yet awhile with me._)

II

For now at last, they have beheld the trees. Lo, even these!-- The men of sounding laughter and low fears; The women of light laughter, and no tears; The great ones of the town. And those, of most renown, That once sold doves,--now grown so pennywise To bargain with forlorner merchandise,-- They buy and sell, they buy and sell again, The life-long toil of men. Worn with their market strife to dispossess The blind,--the fatherless, They too go forth, to breathe of budding trees, And woods with beckoning wonders new unfurled. Yes, even these: The money-changers and the Pharisees; The rulers of the darkness of this world.

(_O choiring Summer tree,
Bear yet awhile with me._)

III

For now, behold their heart's desire is thrall To simpleness.--O new delight, unguessed, In very rest! And precious beyond all, A garden-place, a garden with a wall! To the green earth! All bountiful to bless Hearts sickening with excess. To the green earth, whose blithe replenishments Shall fresh the jaded sense! To the green earth, the dust-corrupted soul Returns to be made whole. For now it comes indeed, They will go forth, all they, to see a reed So shaken by the wind. Men are no longer blind To aught, save human kind.

(_O mellowing August tree,
Bear yet awhile with me._)