Chapter X: Part III: After Civilisation (2)

Old battered wrecks—here in this cottage of the hills—and wondering

Which the great waves of time will first wash down.

* * * * *

And now dearest one, through all this lapse of years I look into your eyes,

And see them deep as ever;

Their beauty is to me a passion just as ever,

Voiceless, unfathomable, that no time can touch.

* * * * *

If the great gulf should come and swallow me in sheer oblivion—still it is good to have known thee;

But that thou should’st die,

That thou should’st perish from thyself and cease to be,

I cannot credit. Somewhere nearer God,

When this thick mortal slumber has gone by,

We shall perchance awaken.

THE MOTHER TO HER DAUGHTER

Beautiful child that launchest out on the great sea of life,

Soon I, thy Mother, must leave thee: soon the dark shall close me in, and leave thee alone in the bright sunshine.

And thy lovers shall come and make love to thee: they shall lay their fortunes at thy feet, and their strength and the glory of their manhood;

They shall desire thee, for thou art beautiful as the silver sickle moon arising in heaven before the dawn.

Yet when they come forget not me, O my child: be not deceived by their words;

For none ever again shall love thee as I love thee, none ever again shall know, as I know, thy hidden thoughts—none shall read the light that plays upon thy face as I can read it.

These shall love thee for themselves: they shall seek thee in order to possess thee; but I have given all that I have to thee.

All the years that we have been together since thou first pressed thy tiny palm upon my breast to look into my face, until now;

I have given myself to thee.

Before thy feet, or ever thou couldst walk, my love has walked, my thoughts have circled thee, my desire has made thee very beautiful.

If I might pray, I pray that when thou hast known the love of man

Thou, too, may’st become a mother, and so even through travail and suffering may’st know the greater love.

Then far away down the years thou shalt remember me;

As when one ascends a mountain the opposite mountain lifts itself higher and higher, so as thou goest farther from me I will grow upon thee clearer and closer even than now.

A SPRIG OF ARISTOCRACY

Browned by the sun, with face elate and joyous,

Pitching hay all day in the wide and fragrant hayfields,

Frank and free, careless of wealth (preferring to do something useful, and to champion the poor and aged)—

O splendid boy, with many more like thee,

England might from her unclean wallowing rise again and live.

A SCENE IN LONDON

Both of them deaf, and close on eighty years old;

She stone blind, and he nearly so;

Side by side crouching over the fire in a little London hovel—six shillings a week—

Their joints knotted with rheumatism, their faces all day long mute like statues of all passing expression (no cloud flying by, no gleam of sunshine there)—lips closed and silent:

* * * * *

But for that now and then taking his pipe out of his mouth,

He puts his face close to her ear and yells just a word into it,

And she nods her blind head and gives a raucous screech in answer,

S. JAMES’ PARK

An island ringed with surf—

A cool green shade and tiny enchanted spot of trees and flowers and fountains—

The ocean raging round it.

* * * * *

The roar of London interminably stretching, interminably sounding,

Great waves of human life breaking, millions of drops together, torrents of vehicles pouring, business men marching, gangs of workmen, soldiers, loafers, street hawkers;

Shopkeepers running out of their shops to look at their own windows, a woman seized with birth-pangs on a doorstep, ragamuffins and children swirling by eddies and rapids of fashion;

The everlasting tide, ebbing a little at night rising again in the day—with fierce continuous roaring—

Yet infringing not on the little island.

* * * * *

Here only a little spray, a dull and distant reverberation;

In the soft shade a pleasant drowsy air, the willows hanging their branches to the water;

The drake preening his feathers in the sun, or swimming among the flags by the pond side, regardless of Nelson peering over the tree-tops from his column, taking no note of the great clock-face of Westminster.

* * * * *

Only a little spray, broken water.

Drop by drop, one by one, or here and there in twos,

Specimens, items out of the deep.

The baker’s man, working 15 hours a day, leaves his handcart in a convenient spot outside and puts in a quiet quarter of an hour here with a novel;

The old woman—her thumb gathered and disabled by incessant work on crape—now as a matter of course thrown out of employ—goes along moaning and muttering to herself;

The pursy old gentleman who has made his money out of the mourning warehouse also goes along;

The footman on an errand walks leisurely by, the French nurse plays with the little English children;

The rather elegant young lady meets her man by appointment at one of the garden seats; they study Bradshaw together in an undertone, revolving plans;

The middle-aged widower comes along—thin, so thin, dressed all in black, seeing nothing, hearing nothing—sitting down for a moment, then up again—resting only in constant movement;

The tramp, with dead expressionless face—the man who is not wanted, to whom every one says No—comes along, and throws himself listlessly down under the trees.

* * * * *

Only a little spray, broken water.

The summer sun falls peaceful on the grass,

The tide of traffic rises a little during the day and ebbs again at night,

But the great roaring bates not—breaks the surf

Of human life forever on this shore.

THE TWIN STATUES OF AMENOPHIS III AT THEBES

Thousands of years—

As now with the light of evening on their heads and featureless faces, their bases wrapt in gloom—

All the hours before dawn or after sunset, in the clear circling of the moon and stars, or through the long cloudless day, braving the terrific heat,

While the caravans of camels go by below, and the peasant ploughs with his ancient plough, or reaps his clover and lupins—century after century;

And the flood-waters of the Nile wash up and recede again, and the sun darkens in the occasional sandstorm or rarer shower of rain—

Thousands of years:

* * * * *

Like great rocks, human, colossal, part of the Earth itself,

Cosmic, wondrous, far-back allegories of the human soul,

They sit looking out over the world while the generations pass.

* * * * *

And the travelers come and gaze—and go away again, wondering what they meant who made such things;

The philosophers of Greece come, and Alexander comes, and the Roman Emperors come; and the Christian fathers and monks (fit successors of the Egyptian), and the Mahomedan conquerors, and Napoleon, and the scientific men, come—and go away again;

And the wandering Arabs come and light their camp-fires—and go away again; and the Cook’s tourist comes and goes away again;

And the river changes its course, and the mountains crumble in the heat of the sun, and the sandhills shift, and villages are built and are buried;

But of him who placed the figures there these words do survive:—

“I, Amenhotep, have made the name of the king immortal, and no one has ever done as I have in my works;

I made these two statues of the king—wondrous huge and high, forty cubits, dwarfing the Temple front—

In the great sandstone mountains I made them, one on each side, east and west;

And I caused eight ships to be built, whereon they were floated up the river;

And placed them here—to last as long as heaven.”

‘ARTEMIDORUS, FAREWELL’

(_inscribed on a mummy case in the British Museum_)

Artemidorus, farewell.
No more no more thy dear lips shall I touch,
Nor kiss thy hands—those clinging hands in mine;
Thy gentle eyes—ah! shall we never gaze
Again upon each other?
Artemidorus, dearest, dearest one,
Leave me, O leave me not.

All the sweet hours that by the Nile we sat
In palm-tree shade, and watched the swallows dip;
Or when we first met at the sacred tank
Deep in the garden grounds of Arsaphes,
And told our secrets (heed’st thou?) to the fishes!
The lotus filling all the air with scent,
The pigeons wheeling, hundreds, overhead—
By our sweet love and laughter, then and since,
A thousand times, and all thy quips and pranks,
Leave me O leave me not.

Where shall I go? what do? why live? O why
Remain when thou art gone? There’s nothing left.
The nights so long, with pain pain at my heart;
The days, the staring Sun, and every sight
Shooting an arrow at me.
Could I but see thee once, or hope to see—
One hair of thy head, one finger of thy hand,
To hear one little word more from thy lips—
’Twere more than all the world. But now the priests
Have got thee in their clutches; and already
They wrap the sacred linen o’er thy head,
Thy features and thy hair they cover up,
And round thy arms thy fingers and thy hands
They wind and wind and wind and wind the bands,
And I shall see thee nevermore, my own.
And then they’ll paint
Thy likeness on the outer mummy case,
And stand it by the wall, as if to mock me,
Throwing my arms around a lifeless shell,
Breaking my heart against it.

And in a hundred years stray folk will come
And ask, “Who was Artemidorus pray?”
Nor listen for an answer—if in sooth
There’s any that can give one. And in time
Strangers perhaps will overrun our land
And violate thy coffin, and unbind
With sacrilegious hands the rags, and find
Only a little dust—Ah! nothing else....
And I shall be a little dust too then....
And whether lord Osiris, the good God,
Will hold our twin souls safely in his hand
Three thousand years through internatal forms
Of bird or beast or serpent, in reserve
For that new day they say has yet to dawn;
Or whether He too will chance fade to dust
Forgetting and forgotten of all men—
Behold I know not.... Only this I know
Of all the words we said in joke or earnest,
And vows we vowed, and solemn troth we plighted,
And all the multitudinous chatter and idle tales
And laughter that we got through, like two streams
That babble for mere gladness down the lands,
Artemidorus dear,
Dearest of all things either in earth or heaven,
For the long silence but one word remains,
Remains but this—“Farewell.”

FROM TURIN TO PARIS

Tireless, hour after hour, over mountains plains and rivers,

The express train rushes on

* * * * *

The shadows change, the sun and moon rise and set;

Day fades into night, and night into day,

The great cities appear and disappear over the horizon.

* * * * *

On through the hot vineyards of Piedmont the express train rushes;

The great-limbed Ligurian peasant sprawls asleep in the third-class carriage which has been put on for a portion of the course;

The calm grave country girls droop their lids to slumber;

The huge unwieldy friar with elephantine limbs, small eyes, and snout like an ant-eater—not a particle of religion in his whole body—gazes blankly out of the window;

And the young mother with black lace on her head looks after her little brood.

* * * * *

On through the hot vineyards in the fierce afternoon the express train rushes—the villages on the hill-tops twinkle through the blaze—the fireman opens the furnace-door of the engine and stokes up again and again.

The first-class passengers dispose themselves as best they may, with blinds down, on the hot and dusty cushions;

The respectable and cold-mutton-faced English gentleman and his wife and daughters, the blasé Chinaman with yellow fan, the little Persian boy so brown, lying asleep against the side of his instructor,

The deeply-lined large-faced shaven old Frenchman, the Italian artist, bearded, nearing forty years old, with expressive mouth and clear discerning eyes,

Dispose themselves as best they may.

* * * * *

The sides of the carriages lie open, like glass.

The young priest fresh from College recites his evensong, then addresses himself to the conversion of his Protestant fellow-traveler—I see his winning manners at first, and then his intimidatory frowns followed by threats of hell-fire;

The group of laughing girls in one compartment are talking three or four languages;

In another an Italian officer leans close in conversation to a yellow-haired young woman, and touches her lightly every now and then on the arm;

In a third sits a bedizened old hag, purveyor of human flesh—with great greedy clever eyes (once beautiful under their still long lashes), deep wrinkles (yet not one of wisdom or of sorrow), and thin cruel lips;

On a frequent errand from London to Italy she travels;

I hear her pious expressions as she talks to the lady sitting opposite to her—I note her habit of turning up her eyes as of one shocked;

And still the train rushes on, and the fields fly past and the vineyards.

2

Dusk closes down, and the train rushes on and on;

The mountains stand rank behind rank, and valley beyond valley,

Towering up and up over the clouds even into broad day again.

* * * * *

Lo! the great measureless slopes with receding dwindling perspective of trees and habitations;

Here at their foot the trellised gardens, and rivers roaring under the stone bridges of towns,

And there the far ledges where the tumbled roofs of tiny hamlets are perched—the terrace after terrace of vine and wheat, the meadows with grass and flowers;

The zigzag path, the lonely chalet, the patches of cultivation almost inaccessible,

The chestnut woods, and again the pinewoods, and beyond again, where no trees are, the solitary pasturages;

[The hidden upper valleys bare of all but rocks and grass—they too with their churches and villages;]

And beyond the pasturages, aye beyond the bare rocks, through the great girdle of the clouds—high high in air—

The inaccessible world of ice, scarce trodden of men.

3

There the rich sunlight dwells, calm like an aureole of glory, over a thousand forms of snow and rock clear-cut delaying.

But below in the dusk along the mountain-bases the train climbs painfully,

Crossing the putty-colored ice-cold streams again and again with tardy wheel;

Till the great summit tunnel is reached, then tilting forward,

With many a roar and rush and whistle and scream from gallery to gallery

It flies—rolls like a terror-stricken thing down the great slopes into the darkness—and night falls in the valleys.

4

Here too then also, and without fail, as everywhere else,

The same old human face looking forth—

Whether in the high secluded valleys where all winter comes no sound from the outer world, or whether by the side of the great iron road where the plate-layer runs to bring a passenger a cup of cold water, or whether loafing in the market-place of the fourth-rate country town—the same.

Here too from the door of her little wooden tenement the worn face looking forth—fringed with grey hair and cap—the old woman peering anxiously down the road for her old man;

[Saw you not how when he left her in the morning, how anxiously, how lovingly, with what strange transformation of countenance—Death close behind her—she prayed him early to return?]

The little boy with big straw hat and short blouse bringing the goats home at evening, the gape-mouthed shortpetticoated squaw that accompanies him;

The peasant lying in the field face downwards and asleep, while his wife and children finish the remainder of his meal; the bullock-faced workers on the roads or over the lands;

Ever the same human face, ever the same brute men and women—poignant with what divine obscure attractions!

* * * * *

And the dainty-handed Chinaman in the first-class carriage surveys them as he passes, with mental comparisons;

And the string of mules waits at the railroad crossing in the last dusk as the train thunders by, and the navvy with great shady hat and grey flannel shirt, and scarf round his waist, waits;

And the inhabitants of opposite hemispheres exchange glances with one another for a moment.

5

The night wears on—and yet the same steady onward speed—the draw of the great cities, Paris and London, beginning already to be felt;

The pause for a few minutes at a junction—the good coffee and milk, the warm peaceful air, the late moon just rising, the few poplars near, the mountains now faint in the distance behind;

The faces seen within the cars, hour after hour, with closed eyes, the changed equalised expression of them, the overshadowing humanity—

(The great unconscious humanity in each one!)

The old bedizened hag overshadowed,

The young priest and his recalcitrant opponent both equally overshadowed—their arguments so merely nothing at all; the beautiful artist-face overshadowed;

The unsafe tunnel passed in the dead of the night, the slow tentative movement of the train, the forms and faces of men within—visible by the light of their own lanterns, anxious with open mouths looking upward at the roof—all overshadowed;

The little traveler asleep with his head on the lap of his instructor—the Persian boy—traveling he too on a long journey, farther than London or Paris;

The westward swing of the great planets through the night, the faint early dawn, the farms and fields flying past once more;

The great sad plains of Central France, the few trees, the innumerable cultivation, the peasants going out so early to work,

The rising of the sun, for a new day—the great red ball so bold rising unblemished on all the heart-ache and suffering, the plans, the schemes, the hopes, the desires, the despairs of millions—

And the glitter and the roar already, and the rush of the life of Paris.

TO THE END OF TIME

Know that to the end of Time and the remotest corner of Space there is nothing that you cannot take for your own—nothing without personal relation to yourself, body and soul: to this body, sweet, bitter, painful, pleasurable, fatal—to that, equal. Not the most fatal drug but feeds that one, not years of slow exile or of illness.

Through this life, that life—the two always conjoined; through failure, stedfastness; through the sight of the change and flow of things, immortality; through the magnificence and splendor of nature (I speak to you now seated on some wooded slope or hill—the birds, the buds, the sky after rain), yourself equal in magnificence and splendor.

ON THE EVE OF DEPARTURE

Always on the eve of departure,

Thy goods all packed, thy testament signed and witnessed,

Touching with lightest touch all offerings life lays at thy feet:

This is thy fate, O blest one!

* * * * *

After the day’s work leaving the papers behind on the desk, the tools on the bench,

Letting the garden-line remain in the garden, leaving the newly sharpened pick in the hardening trough,

Leaving the scissors and the sleeve-board on the floor where they fell, and the waistcoat-lining unfinished on the machine,

Letting go all the plans and purposes of the day, forgetting about them as if they had never been:

Lo! this is thy fate, O blest one!

* * * * *

The chains of office round your neck, yet to uncoil and lay them quietly aside,

The cares of state that have held you since morning holding you no longer, the axe-handle relaxing its grasp on you;

Out of the old ever-passing, free as air,

For the acceptance of all, and the praise and blame of men, alike without prejudice:

Lo! this is thy fate, O blest one!

ARENZANO

In the great Church over the little fishing-village,

In the gloom of evening and of the spacious interior—only a few candles lighted over a side altar—

[The great doors wide open to the twilight over the bay, with silhouettes of figures entering, and continual tread of feet upon the stone floor]—

There in the dusk the fisher-wives kneel and pray:

_Ave Maria, ave, ave._

A great throng, hardly visible, with shawls thrown over their heads—and men and children:

_Ave Maria, ave, ave._

* * * * *

The long monotonous semi-savage refrain and wash of voices,

Unending, like the rhythm of the sea itself,

The untrained choir, the rise suspense and breaking of the wave of trebles, the answer of the basses in passionate iteration—the mesmeric influence—

The great Christ over the main altar, half lost in gloom, with arms outstretched, and crucified,

The faint sweet smell of incense,

The long Past:

* * * * *

The long Past from which it all comes—

Strange voices and refrains,

As from the coasts of Tyre, and the worship of Ashtoreth,

Or this is Isis the ever-virgin Madonna and her infant Horus—one with the Virgin of the stars—

Or this the antiphonal music of the psalms

Within the Jewish Temple.

* * * * *

The same great needs of human life all down the ages—

Each tiny drop to feel the living wave it forms a part of;

Dear Love; and Death; the narrow clear-cut bounded present, the dread Unknown, the children clinging to each other—

Not one that dies, not one the waves engulf,

But tears and agony to those remaining.

* * * * *

Ah! who can tell and who can see the end?

Man that art God yet perishest as grass!

I sit here in a corner of thy world-old temple—

(Here in this old fishing-village just as much as anywhere else)—

In the dark unknown unnoticed I sit,

And hear the ceaseless sounding of Thy Sea,

And join the _Ave Maria, ave, ave_.

O TENDER HEART

O tender heart of our humanity,

O bleeding sacred heart, with tears of ages.

* * * * *

Dear Mother, once on earth, now glorified—

Thy arms outstretched in love o’er all creation—

Thy husk lies by the sea-shore, which Thou once

Didst thus and thus inhabit (parted now,

For it could ne’er contain Thee).

* * * * *

O buds and blooms of Spring once more returning,

Bright waters flowing, O heavenly blue still shining,

And Thou still spreading over all and changeless,

O tender heart of our humanity,

O bleeding sacred heart, with tears of ages.

* * * * *

Arise Thou glorified,

Year after year—leaving thy mortal days behind—

Dear mother in the great unseen impending,

Slowly creation orbs about thy form.

I follow where thou walkedst. I behold

Where ages back on earth Thou still didst pass;

I see thee in the streets to-day disguised;

Thy spirit glides eternal—and I follow,

Kissing the sacred foot-prints as I go.

* * * * *

All suffering for thy dear sake is holy—

(O thorn-crowned brow, O bleeding sacred heart)—

Thou that didst bear me and thy children all

With bitter pangs and sorrow for thy cup

(Thy thin hands laid at last within the grave),

All suffering for thy dear sake is holy.

THE CARTER

So in the dirt, amid the filthy smoke and insensate din of the great city,

Into my attic came my friend the carter and sat with me for a while.

* * * * *

Young and worn, these are the words he said:

“Never before could I have believed it, but I see it all now;

There is nothing like it—no happiness—when you have clean dropped thinking about yourself.

But you must not do it by halves—while ever there is the least grain of self left it will spoil all;

You must just leave it all behind—and yourself be the same as others;

If they want anything, and you want it, well it is the same who gets it;

You cannot be disappointed then.

I do not say it is not hard, but I know there is nothing—no happiness—like it;

It is a new life, and them that has never tasted it, they have no idea what it is.”

* * * * *

Thus in the din and dirt of the city, as over the mountain tops and in the far forests alone with Nature,

I saw the unimaginable form dwelling, whom no mortal eye may see,

The unimaginable form of Man, tenant of the Earth from far ages, seen of the wise in all times—

Dwelling also in the youthful carter.

THE STONE-CUTTER

“And men to-day—are they not always running about to do something?

But He says: _I have finished the work that Thou gavest me to do._”

* * * * *

Thus to me the stone-cutter, with chisel and mallet in hand all the while dishing out a sump-cover,

Standing out there in the Sun, in the light July breeze so cool,

Spoke the words of Christ—the old indestructible words—which all down the ages,

Whether in the mouth of stone-cutter or carpenter,

Emerge time after time from the heart of the people.

THE VOICE OF ONE BLIND

Blind, ah! blind—it has come upon me now—

A veil thickening between the world and me.

[I saw them move through it—saw the dear faces and figures as in a fluid haze,

And then they blurred, and then I saw them not.]

* * * * *

Alone? Ah no! who shall describe the joy that has come upon me?

The blow that should have crushed me broke my chains,

And I, that was the prisoner, am free.

* * * * *

Sweet—all of fever fled—all calm now and peaceful,

To feel the warm sun on my hands, or traveling along my forehead,

To hear the sounds—the rustling of the breeze or chirrup of the birds, the kettle singing or the turned page of the book my loved one reads—

The touches and the hands, the voices and the sweet caresses;

How they come nearer, now!

I go no more to seek, I stay at home, and let them come to me.

* * * * *

And sweet sweet visions—

Ah! forms I saw not when my eyes were clear—

Sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, mortal friends,

What gods are come about me?

* * * * *

And Thou above all:

Thou, gracious presence, sweet enfolding me

Far far within, touching me nearest of all,

As through so many ages men and women Thou with the sweetness of thy love hast ravished:

So I touch them through Thee—through Thee to all

I am come nearer now.

A SONG OF ONE IN OLD AGE

Weary and broken, old age, art thou now come upon me?

My faculties drying up like pools of water in summer,

My body dying, my brain rusting, my heart-beat dull and torpid—

Falling off like a dead leaf from the tree, unheeded, useless—

Is this old age then? lonely, ah! how lonely!

* * * * *

The world hurries by so light and glad and joyous—each man following his call: but I without any;

The spring returns with the budding leaves on the beech so fresh, and the virgin grass, and the foals and young calves in the fields: as it has returned so oft before; but I am old and must die—there is no place for me any longer;

At night in dreams the faces return to me—the faces that I loved, ah! dearest faces!—but when I wake the world is changed, all changed: there is no place for them any longer, but strangers are around me.

How should love come to me—what is there that any one should seek me? Who will pause for the empty husk of a man, and shall I be a supplicant for pity?

How could I ever have guessed when I was young that this would come upon me—and yet it has come upon me, as it has come upon so many millions before?

To die—that is it. This at last is what I have so often counted on—to die, to be effaced, to be made of no account—and now it is forced upon me whether I will or no.

* * * * *

O Death, I shall conquer thee yet.

Didst thou think to terrify me?—but lo! was I not dead before thou camest?

Long long years ago did I not abandon this frail tenement, all but in name?—was not my last furniture packed up and ready to be transported?

The virgin grass received me, and the beech trees so tenderly green in spring, and the bodies of my lovers that I loved:

They became my dwelling, and I forgot that I existed.

I passed freely and floated on the ocean of which before I had only been part of the shore,

I took up my refuge beyond the limits where thou couldst come.

* * * * *

Yet now once more confined,

Here in this prison cell while the walls grow thicker—of all I was a little spark waits yet its liberation.

Come quickly, Death, and loose this last remainder of me—shatter the walls,

Break down this body of mine, and let me go.

Or else,

In patience let me wait seeing fulfilled

That which I sought so long—to be effaced.

Hidden I wait—this old husk suits me well—for who will guess the likeness of me through it?

This is my invisible cap wherein I’ll ramble yet through many byways of sweet human life.

And thou too, stranger, shalt pity me if thou wilt, and I will accept thy pity gratefully—

Yet after all perhaps the best gift of the two

I’ll give to thee.

* * * * *

Old age, old age?—No! only there outside.

Here where I am ’tis everlasting youth.

This is where the virgin grass springs from, I see, and the loves that clothe the frame of humanity.

Out of this old shell passing I begin again—there is no death here, there can be no death,

Only perpetual joy.

IN EXTREME AGE

Unto Thee, O Nature, I abandon myself:

Accept me, thou beautiful,

Marred and deformed and stunted take me from myself

Unto thy own great uses.

* * * * *

Lo, I outgrow this body! painfully

My life ebbs yet and flows again within it.

These hands and feet, these eyes and brain, these senses, faculties, have served their turn—

The dinted tools I render back to Thee.

* * * * *

As when a boy I sat upon the beach in the sun, and watched the sparkling waves,

So now in extreme age sitting here

I trace no change—scarce any change at all.

Some little work done, some formal knowledge gained, some passages of sweet or sad experience;

But all these only outworks, falling off,

Leave me the same that I have been through life.

(So little one life—so brief, slight, a thing.)

* * * * *

Till now at length, feeling Thee gather round me close,

Close, closer, closer yet,

At last the bounds dissolve which kept us twain,

And I and Thou are one, and I alone am not.

AFTER THE DAY’S WORK

Passing by, passing by all exteriors,

Swimming floating on the Ocean that has innumerable bays—

I too at length nestle down in thy breast, O humanity;

Tired I abandon myself to thee, to be washed from the dust of life in thy waves.

I SAW A VISION

I saw a vision of Earth’s multitudes going up and down over the Earth—and I saw the great earth itself wheeling and careering onward through space.

And behold! here and there to one among the multitude a change came;

And to whomsoever it came continued onward apparently as before—yet as from the larva springs the perfect image,

So (as it appeared to me) from that mortal form a new being, long long long in preparation, glided silently up unobserved into the breathless pure height of the sky.

AH! BLESSED IS HE

Ah! blessed is he that hath escaped—

Whom love hath opened the doors of his cage:

No more returning

Shall he be subject again to sin and sorrow.

THE GREAT LEADER

I use my name and powers, I use my great prestige,

As a joiner uses a tool: they serve my purpose well.

Nevertheless think not that I regard them

Except as things to be destroyed in using.

I ACCEPT YOU

I accept you altogether—as the sea accepts the fish that swim in it.

It is no good apologising for anything you have done, for you have never been anywhere yet but what I have sustained you—

And beyond my boundaries you cannot go.

SOL

Coruscating flame I behold the soul,

Mine, yours, whoever it may be—

Darting great tongues of flame thousands of miles long,

Thousands of years.

A GLIMPSE

Here at last having arrived I take my rest, my long long fill of rest, no more to move;

The roaring subsides, the wheels cease to go round, a calm falls on all—the stars and the daisies shine out visibly from the bosom of God.

* * * * *

You cannot baulk me of my true life.

Climbing over the barriers of pain—of my own weaknesses and sins—I escape.

Where will you hold me? by the feet, hands? by my personal vanity? would you shut me in the mirror-lined prison of self-consciousness?

* * * * *

Behold! I acknowledge all my defects—you cannot snap the handcuffs faster on me than I snap them myself: I am vain, deceitful, cowardly—yet I escape.

The handcuffs hold me not, out of my own hands I draw myself as out of a glove; from behind the empty mask of my reputed qualities I depart, and am gone my way,

Unconcerned what I leave behind me.

* * * * *

Into the high air which surrounds and sustains the world,

Breathing life, intoxicating, with joy unutterable, radiant,

As the wind of Spring when the dead leaves fly before it—

I depart and am gone my way.

THE LONG DAY IN THE OPEN

Hour after hour passes by, the Sun wheels on, the clouds disperse and re-form;

On all I have to do thou lookest O Nature, I have nothing to conceal from thee; O Moon traveling so close over the hills,

Dost thou not say what I have to say, are not our purposes one?

THE IDLER

I am he that beholds and praises the universe,

Singing all day like a bird among the branches,

And the leaves put forth and the young buds burst asunder—yet I myself do nothing at all,

But dwell in the midst of them, singing.

IN THE DEEP CAVE OF THE HEART

In the deep cave of the heart, far down,

Running under the outward shows of the world and of people,

Running under geographies, continents, under the fields and the roots of the grasses and trees, under the little thoughts and dreams of men, and the history of races,

Deep, far down,

I see feel and hear wondrous and divine things.

Voices and faces are there; arms of lovers, known and unknown, reach forward and fold me;

Words float, and fragrance of Time ascends, and Life ever circling.

_Fly messenger! through the streets of the cities ancle-plumed Mercury
fly!_

_Swift sinewy runner with arm held up on high!_

_Naked along the wind, thy beautiful feet_

_Glancing over the mountains, under the sun,_

_By meadows and water-sides,—into the great towns like a devouring flame,_

_Through slums and vapors and dismal suburban streets,_

_With startling of innumerable eyes—fly, messenger, fly!_

* * * * *

_Joy joy, the glad news!_

_For he whom we wait is risen!_

_He is descended among his children—_

_He is come to dwell on the Earth!_

THE COMING OF THE LORD

I heard a voice saying:

Son of Man stretch forth thy hand over the earth—and over the sea-coasts and seas and cities of the earth:

I, the King, am come to dwell in my own lands—I am descended among the children of men.

[Blessed art thou whosoever from whose eyes the veil is lifted to see Me;

Blessed are thy mornings and evenings—blessed the hour when thou risest up, and again when thou liest down to sleep.]

* * * * *

Here on this rock in the sun, where the waves obedient wash at my feet, where the fisherman passing spreads his net on the sands,

I the King sit waiting.

This mountain is my throne—I breathe the incense of the myriad-laden meadows;

The little white-washed cottages lie below me, and there my dwelling is also.

2

See you not Me? though I stand in the height of heaven,

Glorious in all forms, am I become as a nothing before you?

Though I walk through the street with a basket on my arm, or leaning on a stick—or loiter in many disguises?

See you not Me,

Who have looked in your eyes so long for that glance of recognition?

Yet when you see me no form of maid or boy, or one mature or aged,

Or the truth of anything shall escape you.

* * * * *

In the streets of the cities, where the horses’ hoofs sound hollow upon the asphalte, and the old woman sits by her tray,

And the babble of voices goes by as you stand at the corner,

I will pass with the rest—you shall see me and not mistake me.

The woods no more shall be merely a cover for wild animals, or so much value in timber, nor the fields for their crops alone,

For I have trodden them—they are holy—and my foot-prints are over all the land.

* * * * *

Who walks in singleness of heart shall be my companion—I will reveal myself to him by ways that the learned understand not.

Though he be poor and ignorant I will be his friend—I will swear faithfulness to him, passing my lips to his, and my hand to betwixt his thighs.

3

Where I pass, all my children know me;

My feet tread naked the grass of the valleys, the trees know me by name—they hear my voice—the brook with heaped up waters rushes past me.

[O voices breaking out over the earth, O singing singing singing!]

My sun shines glorious in heaven, and my moon to adorn the night;

They are my right hand and my left hand—see you not Me between?

[Hark! my children sing—all day and night they are singing!]

4

O child—you whom I touch now, having watched over you so long, so long—

Are you worthy to follow and behold me?

* * * * *

Leaving all, leaving all behind,

Caring no more for the world, for all your projects and purposes, than if you had been stunned by a blow on the head,

Leaving all to me, absolutely all to me,

Then may-be you shall see me.

* * * * *

For though you shall carry on where you are placed, and shall not forsake your post, though you shall be unwearied, giving all that you have out of love to the least capable of making a return, though you shall be active before the world,

Yet shall you not act at all, not one single thing shall you do—but I will do it for you.

* * * * *

After that the arrows shall not pierce you, nor the heavy rain wet you, the shafts of malice shall not penetrate to you, nor the fire though it consume your body shall consume you;

But the sun shall shine, and the faces glance each morning afresh upon you,

For joy, for joy—and joy.

I the Lord Demos have spoken it: and the mountains are my throne.

THE CURSE OF PROPERTY

Are they not mine, saith the Lord, the everlasting hills?

(Where over the fir-tree tops I glance to the valleys.)

The rich meads with brown and white cattle, and streams with weirs and water-mills,

And the tender-growing crops, and hollows of shining apple-blossom—

From my mountain terraces as from a throne beholding my lands—

Are they not mine, where I dwell, and for my children?

* * * * *

How long, you, will you trail your slime over them, and your talk of rights and of property?

How long will you build your houses to hide yourselves in, and your baggage? to shut yourselves off from your brothers and sisters—and Me?

* * * * *

Beware! for I am the storm; I care nought for your rights of property.

In lightning and thunder, in floods and fire, I will ruin and ravage your fields;

Your first-born will I slay within your house, and I will make your riches a mockery.

* * * * *

Fools! that know not from day to day, from hour to hour, if ye shall live,

And yet will snatch from each other the things that I have showered among you.

For I will have none that will not open his door to all, treating others as I have treated him.

The trees that spread their boughs against the evening sky, the marble that I have prepared beforehand these millions of years in the earth; the cattle that roam over the myriad hills—they are Mine, for all my children—

If thou lay hands on them for thyself alone, thou art accursed.

* * * * *

The curse of property shall cling to thee;

With burdened brow and heavy heart, weary, incapable of joy, without gaiety,

Thou shalt crawl a stranger in the land that I made for thy enjoyment.

The smallest bird on thy estate shall sing in freedom in the branches, the plough-boy shall whistle in the furrow,

But thou shalt be weary and lonely—forsaken and an alien among men:

For just inasmuch as thou hast shut thyself off from one of the least of these my children, thou hast shut thyself off from Me.

* * * * *

I the Lord Demos have spoken it—and the mountains are my throne.

OVER THE GREAT CITY

Over the great city,

Where the wind rustles through the parks and gardens,

In the air, the high clouds brooding,

In the lines of street perspective, the lamps, the traffic,

The pavements and the innumerable feet upon them,

I Am: make no mistake—do not be deluded.

* * * * *

Think not because I do not appear at the first glance—because the centuries have gone by and there is no assured tidings of me—that therefore I am not there.

Think not because all goes its own way that therefore I do not go my own way through all.

The fixed bent of hurrying faces in the street—each turned towards its own light, seeing no other—yet I am the Light towards which they all look.

The toil of so many hands to such multifarious ends, yet my hand knows the touch and twining of them all.

* * * * *

All come to me at last.

There is no love like mine;

For all other love takes one and not another;

And other love is pain, but this is joy eternal.

UNDERNEATH AND AFTER ALL

There is no peace except where I am, saith the Lord.

Though you have health—that which is called health—yet without me it is only the fair covering of disease;

Though you have love, yet if I be not between and around the lovers, is their love only torment and unrest;

Though you have wealth and friends and home—all these shall come and go—there is nothing stable or secure, which shall not be taken away;

But I alone remain—I do not change.

As space spreads everywhere, and all things move and change within it, but it moves not nor changes,

So I am the space within the soul, of which the space without is but the similitude and mental image;

Comest thou to inhabit me, thou hast the entrance to all life—death shall no longer divide thee from whom thou lovest.

I am the sun that shines upon all creatures from within—gazest thou upon me thou shalt be filled with joy eternal.

Be not deceived. Soon this outer world shall drop off—thou shalt slough it away as a man sloughs his mortal body.

Learn even now to spread thy wings in that other world—the world of Equality—to swim in the ocean, my child, of Me and my love.

[Ah! have I not taught thee by the semblances of this outer world, by its alienations and deaths and mortal sufferings—all for this?

For joy, ah! joy unutterable!]

* * * * *

Him who is not detained by mortal adhesions, who walks in this world yet not of it,

Taking part in everything with equal mind, with free limbs and senses unentangled—

Giving all, accepting all, using all, enjoying all, asking nothing, shocked at nothing—

Whom love follows everywhere, but he follows not it—

Him all creatures worship, all men and women bless.

* * * * *

It is for this that the body exercises its tremendous attraction—that mortal love torments and tears asunder the successive generations of mankind—

That underneath and after all the true men and women may appear, by long experience emancipated.

A HARD SAYING

Who loves the mortal creature, ending there, is no more free—he has given himself away to Death—

For him the slimy black Form lies in wait at every turn, befouling the universe;

Yet he who loves must love the mortal, and he who would love perfectly must be free:

[Love—glorious though it be—is a disease as long as it destroys or even impairs the freedom of the soul.]

* * * * *

Therefore if thou wouldst love, withdraw thyself from love:

Make it thy slave, and all the miracles of nature shall lie in the palm of thy hand.

NOT FOR A FEW MONTHS OR YEARS

Think not that that which is growing inside you as you battle with these words is for a few months or years,

Or that it will find its rest and satisfaction in the things for which the world is so busy striving.

Food ease lust knowledge fame—’twill pasture up as nonchalantly as a dog, and look in your face for more.

They shall not satisfy it. The list of all the things that can be named shall not satisfy it.

DISENTANGLEMENT

Be not torn by desire:

When burning clinging love assails thee—like a red-hot thing which sticks to the flesh it scorches—

Beware!

For love is good and lust is good—but not to tear and rend thee.

* * * * *

Slowly and resolutely—as a fly cleans its legs of the honey in which it has been caught—

So remove thou, if it only be for a time, every particle which sullies the brightness of thy mind;

Return into thyself—content to give, but asking no one, asking nothing;

In the calm light of His splendor who fills all the universe, the imperishable indestructible of ages,

Dwell thou—as thou canst dwell—contented.

2

Now understand me well:

There is no desire or indulgence that is forbidden; there is not one good and another evil—all are alike in that respect;

In place all are to be used.

Yet in using be not entangled in them; for then already they are bad, and will cause thee suffering.

* * * * *

When thy body—as needs must happen at times—is carried along on the wind of passion, say not thou, “I desire this or that”;

For the “I” neither desires nor fears anything, but is free and in everlasting glory, dwelling in heaven and pouring out joy like the sun on all sides.

Let not that precious thing by any confusion be drawn down and entangled in the world of opposites, and of Death and suffering.

For as a light-house beam sweeps with incredible speed over sea and land, yet the lamp itself moves not at all,

So while thy body of desire is (and must be by the law of its nature) incessantly in motion in the world of suffering, the “I” high up above is fixed in heaven.

* * * * *

Therefore I say let no confusion cloud thy mind about this matter;

But ever when desire knocks at thy door,

Though thou grant it admission and entreat it hospitably, as in duty bound,

Fence it yet gently off from thy true self,

Lest it should tear and rend thee.

3

And him thou lovest or her thou lovest—

If without confusion thou beholdest such one fixed like a star in heaven, and ever in thy most clinging burning passion rememberest Whom thou lovest,

Then art thou blessed beyond words, and thy love is surely eternal;

But if by confusion thou knowest not whom thou lovest—but seest only the receptacle of desire which inhabits the world of change and suffering—

Then shalt thou be whirled and gulfed in a sea of torment, and shalt travel far and be many times lost upon that ocean before thou shalt know what is the true end of thy voyage.

THE MORTAL LOVER

This is the little mortal lover in whose heart the low scorching flame of rejected love burns night and day, withering all his life.

In vain the great mountains and the sea, in vain the sun in heaven, in vain all faces offer themselves;

There is no rest: only death and annihilation for everything that is born;

Only a corpse swinging up-river with the tide among the mud-banks, and swinging down again with the ebb;

And the tide ebbing and flowing aimlessly for ever in a land where all are dead.

* * * * *

He lies awake all night and strains his eyes for a glimmer of light, but there is none;

Every pursuit, every hope, all of life, is a mockery—he has been gulled into existence.

We have been brought here (he says), a mass of sensitive capacities, to behold a possible satisfaction—then to be trampled underfoot like worms, without redemption, never again to know each other or ourselves.

The heart aches and burns in slow torture, the sounds of daily life are a mockery, the pursuits of men are like the laughter of maniacs playing on the brink of a precipice.

* * * * *

Millions and millions approach the edge—a vast body always moving on from behind;

The gulf is measureless in depth, but the young and those who are in the rear know not of it—they only feel the vast onward movement, and with loud chants and rollicking songs march gaily confidently on;

Then suddenly those who are older and nearing the edge behold the horrible and naked truth—they see the avalanche of human beings for ever going over into the abyss;

With shouts and cries of warning they turn upon those that are behind: but it is useless, they too are pushed on relentlessly;

Behind is a babel of sounds, cries of Forward, Progress, God, Immortality, and the like; around are shrieks and despairing threats, curses and plaintive unheeded warnings; before is the abyss of oblivion,

Into which countless generations before have gone, and we must go;

And this is the hell of existence.

* * * * *

He lies awake all night with pain gnawing at his heart, and strains his eyes for a glimmer of light, but there is none.

THE END OF LOVE

Seek not the end of love in this act or in that act—lest indeed it become the end;

But seek this act and that act and thousands of acts whose end is love—

So shalt thou at last create that which thou now desirest;

And then when these are all past and gone there shall remain to thee a great and immortal possession, which no man can take away.

A NEW LIFE

Henceforth I propound a new life for you—that you should bring the peace and grace of Nature into all your daily life—being freed from vain striving:

The freed soul, passing disengaged into the upper air, forgetful of self,

Rising again in others, ever knowing itself again in others.

* * * * *

The villa stands with its picturesque gables and garden, its rhododendrons all in flower, and exotic firs, with clumps of tulips;

The ploughman to his horses clicks and calls all day in the midst of the vocal landscape;

The rivers wind lazily about the land; the slow air floats on from the West and South, bringing on its bosom long-promised gifts.

Out of houses and closed rooms, out of the closed prison of self which you have inhabited so long;

Into the high air which circles round the world, the region of human equality,

With outspread wings balanced, resting on that which is not self,

Floating high up as a condor over the mountains in aerial suspense,

Or as an eagle flying screaming over the cities of the earth, with joy delirious—

So passing enfranchised shall you regain after long captivity

Your own your native abode.

THE LAW OF EQUALITY

You cannot violate the law of Equality for long.

Whatever you appropriate to yourself now from others, by that you will be poorer in the end;

What you give now, the same will surely come back to you.

If you think yourself superior to the rest, in that instant you have proclaimed your own inferiority;