Kitabı oku: «A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul», sayfa 3

MAY

1

 
     WHAT though my words glance sideways from the thing
     Which I would utter in thine ear, my sire!
     Truth in the inward parts thou dost desire—
     Wise hunger, not a fitness fine of speech:
     The little child that clamouring fails to reach
     With upstretched hand the fringe of her attire,
     Yet meets the mother's hand down hurrying.
 

2

 
     Even when their foolish words they turned on him,
     He did not his disciples send away;
     He knew their hearts were foolish, eyes were dim,
     And therefore by his side needs must they stay.
     Thou will not, Lord, send me away from thee.
     When I am foolish, make thy cock crow grim;
     If that is not enough, turn, Lord, and look on me.
 

3

 
     Another day of gloom and slanting rain!
     Of closed skies, cold winds, and blight and bane!
     Such not the weather, Lord, which thou art fain
     To give thy chosen, sweet to heart and brain!—
     Until we mourn, thou keep'st the merry tune;
     Thy hand unloved its pleasure must restrain,
     Nor spoil both gift and child by lavishing too soon.
 

4

 
     But all things shall be ours! Up, heart, and sing.
     All things were made for us—we are God's heirs—
     Moon, sun, and wildest comets that do trail
     A crowd of small worlds for a swiftness-tail!
     Up from Thy depths in me, my child-heart bring—
     The child alone inherits anything:
     God's little children-gods—all things are theirs!
 

5

 
     Thy great deliverance is a greater thing
     Than purest imagination can foregrasp;
     A thing beyond all conscious hungering,
     Beyond all hope that makes the poet sing.
     It takes the clinging world, undoes its clasp,
     Floats it afar upon a mighty sea,
     And leaves us quiet with love and liberty and thee.
 

6

 
     Through all the fog, through all earth's wintery sighs,
     I scent Thy spring, I feel the eternal air,
     Warm, soft, and dewy, filled with flowery eyes,
     And gentle, murmuring motions everywhere—
     Of life in heart, and tree, and brook, and moss;
     Thy breath wakes beauty, love, and bliss, and prayer,
     And strength to hang with nails upon thy cross.
 

7

 
     If thou hadst closed my life in seed and husk,
     And cast me into soft, warm, damp, dark mould,
     All unaware of light come through the dusk,
     I yet should feel the split of each shelly fold,
     Should feel the growing of my prisoned heart,
     And dully dream of being slow unrolled,
     And in some other vagueness taking part.
 

8

 
     And little as the world I should foreknow
     Up into which I was about to rise—
     Its rains, its radiance, airs, and warmth, and skies,
     How it would greet me, how its wind would blow—
     As little, it may be, I do know the good
     Which I for years half darkling have pursued—
     The second birth for which my nature cries.
 

9

 
     The life that knows not, patient waits, nor longs:—
     I know, and would be patient, yet would long.
     I can be patient for all coming songs,
     But let me sing my one monotonous song.
     To me the time is slow my mould among;
     To quicker life I fain would spur and start
     The aching growth at my dull-swelling heart.
 

10

 
     Christ is the pledge that I shall one day see;
     That one day, still with him, I shall awake,
     And know my God, at one with him and free.
     O lordly essence, come to life in me;
     The will-throb let me feel that doth me make;
     Now have I many a mighty hope in thee,
     Then shall I rest although the universe should quake.
 

11

 
     Haste to me, Lord, when this fool-heart of mine
     Begins to gnaw itself with selfish craving;
     Or, like a foul thing scarcely worth the saving,
     Swoln up with wrath, desireth vengeance fine.
     Haste, Lord, to help, when reason favours wrong;
     Haste when thy soul, the high-born thing divine,
     Is torn by passion's raving, maniac throng.
 

12

 
     Fair freshness of the God-breathed spirit air,
     Pass through my soul, and make it strong to love;
     Wither with gracious cold what demons dare
     Shoot from my hell into my world above;
     Let them drop down, like leaves the sun doth sear,
     And flutter far into the inane and bare,
     Leaving my middle-earth calm, wise, and clear.
 

13

 
     Even thou canst give me neither thought nor thing,
     Were it the priceless pearl hid in the land,
     Which, if I fix thereon a greedy gaze,
     Becomes not poison that doth burn and cling;
     Their own bad look my foolish eyes doth daze,
     They see the gift, see not the giving hand—
     From the living root the apple dead I wring.
 

14

 
     This versing, even the reading of the tale
     That brings my heart its joy unspeakable,
     Sometimes will softly, unsuspectedly hale
     That heart from thee, and all its pulses quell.
     Discovery's pride, joy's bliss, take aback my sail,
     And sweep me from thy presence and my grace,
     Because my eyes dropped from the master's face.
 

15

 
     Afresh I seek thee. Lead me—once more I pray—
     Even should it be against my will, thy way.
     Let me not feel thee foreign any hour,
     Or shrink from thee as an estranged power.
     Through doubt, through faith, through bliss, through stark dismay,
     Through sunshine, wind, or snow, or fog, or shower,
     Draw me to thee who art my only day.
 

16

 
     I would go near thee—but I cannot press
     Into thy presence—it helps not to presume.
     Thy doors are deeds; the handles are their doing.
     He whose day-life is obedient righteousness,
     Who, after failure, or a poor success,
     Rises up, stronger effort yet renewing—
     He finds thee, Lord, at length, in his own common room.
 

17

 
     Lord, thou hast carried me through this evening's duty;
     I am released, weary, and well content.
     O soul, put on the evening dress of beauty,
     Thy sunset-flush, of gold and purple blent!—
     Alas, the moment I turn to my heart,
     Feeling runs out of doors, or stands apart!
     But such as I am, Lord, take me as thou art.
 

18

 
     The word he then did speak, fits now as then,
     For the same kind of men doth mock at it.
     God-fools, God-drunkards these do call the men
     Who think the poverty of their all not fit,
     Borne humbly by their art, their voice, their pen,
     Save for its allness, at thy feet to fling,
     For whom all is unfit that is not everything.
 

19

 
     O Christ, my life, possess me utterly.
     Take me and make a little Christ of me.
     If I am anything but thy father's son,
     'Tis something not yet from the darkness won.
     Oh, give me light to live with open eyes.
     Oh, give me life to hope above all skies.
     Give me thy spirit to haunt the Father with my cries.
 

20

 
     'Tis hard for man to rouse his spirit up—
     It is the human creative agony,
     Though but to hold the heart an empty cup,
     Or tighten on the team the rigid rein.
     Many will rather lie among the slain
     Than creep through narrow ways the light to gain—
     Than wake the will, and be born bitterly.
 

21

 
     But he who would be born again indeed,
     Must wake his soul unnumbered times a day,
     And urge himself to life with holy greed;
     Now ope his bosom to the Wind's free play;
     And now, with patience forceful, hard, lie still,
     Submiss and ready to the making will,
     Athirst and empty, for God's breath to fill.
 

22

 
     All times are thine whose will is our remede.
     Man turns to thee, thou hast not turned away;
     The look he casts, thy labour that did breed—
     It is thy work, thy business all the day:
     That look, not foregone fitness, thou dost heed.
     For duty absolute how be fitter than now?
     Or learn by shunning?—Lord, I come; help thou.
 

23

 
     Ever above my coldness and my doubt
     Rises up something, reaching forth a hand:
     This thing I know, but cannot understand.
     Is it the God in me that rises out
     Beyond my self, trailing it up with him,
     Towards the spirit-home, the freedom-land,
     Beyond my conscious ken, my near horizon's brim?
 

24

 
     O God of man, my heart would worship all
     My fellow men, the flashes from thy fire;
     Them in good sooth my lofty kindred call,
     Born of the same one heart, the perfect sire;
     Love of my kind alone can set me free;
     Help me to welcome all that come to me,
     Not close my doors and dream solitude liberty!
 

25

 
     A loving word may set some door ajar
     Where seemed no door, and that may enter in
     Which lay at the heart of that same loving word.
     In my still chamber dwell thou always, Lord;
     Thy presence there will carriage true afford;
     True words will flow, pure of design to win;
     And to my men my door shall have no bar.
 

26

 
     My prayers, my God, flow from what I am not;
     I think thy answers make me what I am.
     Like weary waves thought follows upon thought,
     But the still depth beneath is all thine own,
     And there thou mov'st in paths to us unknown.
     Out of strange strife thy peace is strangely wrought;
     If the lion in us pray—thou answerest the lamb.
 

27

 
     So bound in selfishness am I, so chained,
     I know it must be glorious to be free
     But know not what, full-fraught, the word doth mean.
     By loss on loss I have severely gained
     Wisdom enough my slavery to see;
     But liberty, pure, absolute, serene,
     No freëst-visioned slave has ever seen.
 

28

 
     For, that great freedom how should such as I
     Be able to imagine in such a self?
     Less hopeless far the miser man might try
     To image the delight of friend-shared pelf.
     Freedom is to be like thee, face and heart;
     To know it, Lord, I must be as thou art,
     I cannot breed the imagination high.
 

29

 
     Yet hints come to me from the realm unknown;
     Airs drift across the twilight border land,
     Odoured with life; and as from some far strand
     Sea-murmured, whispers to my heart are blown
     That fill me with a joy I cannot speak,
     Yea, from whose shadow words drop faint and weak:
     Thee, God, I shadow in that region grand.
 

30

 
     O Christ, who didst appear in Judah land,
     Thence by the cross go back to God's right hand,
     Plain history, and things our sense beyond,
     In thee together come and correspond:
     How rulest thou from the undiscovered bourne
     The world-wise world that laughs thee still to scorn?
     Please, Lord, let thy disciple understand.
 

31

 
     'Tis heart on heart thou rulest. Thou art the same
     At God's right hand as here exposed to shame,
     And therefore workest now as thou didst then—
     Feeding the faint divine in humble men.
     Through all thy realms from thee goes out heart-power,
     Working the holy, satisfying hour,
     When all shall love, and all be loved again.
 

JUNE

1

 
     FROM thine, as then, the healing virtue goes
     Into our hearts—that is the Father's plan.
     From heart to heart it sinks, it steals, it flows,
     From these that know thee still infecting those.
     Here is my heart—from thine, Lord, fill it up,
     That I may offer it as the holy cup
     Of thy communion to my every man.
 

2

 
     When thou dost send out whirlwinds on thy seas,
     Alternatest thy lightning with its roar,
     Thy night with morning, and thy clouds with stars
     Or, mightier force unseen in midst of these,
     Orderest the life in every airy pore;
     Guidest men's efforts, rul'st mishaps and jars,—
     'Tis only for their hearts, and nothing more.
 

3

 
     This, this alone thy father careth for—
     That men should live hearted throughout with thee—
     Because the simple, only life thou art,
     Of the very truth of living, the pure heart.
     For this, deep waters whelm the fruitful lea,
     Wars ravage, famine wastes, plague withers, nor
     Shall cease till men have chosen the better part.
 

4

 
     But, like a virtuous medicine, self-diffused
     Through all men's hearts thy love shall sink and float;
     Till every feeling false, and thought unwise,
     Selfish, and seeking, shall, sternly disused,
     Wither, and die, and shrivel up to nought;
     And Christ, whom they did hang 'twixt earth and skies,
     Up in the inner world of men arise.
 

5

 
     Make me a fellow worker with thee, Christ;
     Nought else befits a God-born energy;
     Of all that's lovely, only lives the highest,
     Lifing the rest that it shall never die.
     Up I would be to help thee—for thou liest
     Not, linen-swathed in Joseph's garden-tomb,
     But walkest crowned, creation's heart and bloom.
 

6

 
     My God, when I would lift my heart to thee,
     Imagination instantly doth set
     A cloudy something, thin, and vast, and vague,
     To stand for him who is the fact of me;
     Then up the Will, and doth her weakness plague
     To pay the heart her duty and her debt,
     Showing the face that hearkeneth to the plea.
 

7

 
     And hence it comes that thou at times dost seem
     To fade into an image of my mind;
     I, dreamer, cover, hide thee up with dream,—
     Thee, primal, individual entity!—
     No likeness will I seek to frame or find,
     But cry to that which thou dost choose to be,
     To that which is my sight, therefore I cannot see.
 

8

 
     No likeness? Lo, the Christ! Oh, large Enough!
     I see, yet fathom not the face he wore.
     He is—and out of him there is no stuff
     To make a man. Let fail me every spark
     Of blissful vision on my pathway rough,
     I have seen much, and trust the perfect more,
     While to his feet my faith crosses the wayless dark.
 

9

 
     Faith is the human shadow of thy might.
     Thou art the one self-perfect life, and we
     Who trust thy life, therein join on to thee,
     Taking our part in self-creating light.
     To trust is to step forward out of the night—
     To be—to share in the outgoing Will
     That lives and is, because outgoing still.
 

10

 
     I am lost before thee, Father! yet I will
     Claim of thee my birthright ineffable.
     Thou lay'st it on me, son, to claim thee, sire;
     To that which thou hast made me, I aspire;
     To thee, the sun, upflames thy kindled fire.
     No man presumes in that to which he was born;
     Less than the gift to claim, would be the giver to scorn.
 

11

 
     Henceforth all things thy dealings are with me
     For out of thee is nothing, or can be,
     And all things are to draw us home to thee.
     What matter that the knowers scoffing say,
     "This is old folly, plain to the new day"?—
     If thou be such as thou, and they as they,
     Unto thy Let there be, they still must answer Nay.
 

12

 
     They will not, therefore cannot, do not know him.
     Nothing they could know, could be God. In sooth,
     Unto the true alone exists the truth.
     They say well, saying Nature doth not show him:
     Truly she shows not what she cannot show;
     And they deny the thing they cannot know.
     Who sees a glory, towards it will go.
 

13

 
     Faster no step moves God because the fool
     Shouts to the universe God there is none;
     The blindest man will not preach out the sun,
     Though on his darkness he should found a school.
     It may be, when he finds he is not dead,
     Though world and body, sight and sound are fled,
     Some eyes may open in his foolish head.
 

14

 
     When I am very weary with hard thought,
     And yet the question burns and is not quenched,
     My heart grows cool when to remembrance wrought
     That thou who know'st the light-born answer sought
     Know'st too the dark where the doubt lies entrenched—
     Know'st with what seemings I am sore perplexed,
     And that with thee I wait, nor needs my soul be vexed.
 

15

 
     Who sets himself not sternly to be good,
     Is but a fool, who judgment of true things
     Has none, however oft the claim renewed.
     And he who thinks, in his great plenitude,
     To right himself, and set his spirit free,
     Without the might of higher communings,
     Is foolish also—save he willed himself to be.
 

16

 
     How many helps thou giv'st to those would learn!
     To some sore pain, to others a sinking heart;
     To some a weariness worse than any smart;
     To some a haunting, fearing, blind concern;
     Madness to some; to some the shaking dart
     Of hideous death still following as they turn;
     To some a hunger that will not depart.
 

17

 
     To some thou giv'st a deep unrest—a scorn
     Of all they are or see upon the earth;
     A gaze, at dusky night and clearing morn,
     As on a land of emptiness and dearth;
     To some a bitter sorrow; to some the sting
     Of love misprized—of sick abandoning;
     To some a frozen heart, oh, worse than anything!
 

18

 
     To some a mocking demon, that doth set
     The poor foiled will to scoff at the ideal,
     But loathsome makes to them their life of jar.
     The messengers of Satan think to mar,
     But make—driving the soul from false to feal—
     To thee, the reconciler, the one real,
     In whom alone the would be and the is are met.
 

19

 
     Me thou hast given an infinite unrest,
     A hunger—not at first after known good,
     But something vague I knew not, and yet would—
     The veiled Isis, thy will not understood;
     A conscience tossing ever in my breast;
     And something deeper, that will not be expressed,
     Save as the Spirit thinking in the Spirit's brood.
 

20

 
     But now the Spirit and I are one in this—
     My hunger now is after righteousness;
     My spirit hopes in God to set me free
     From the low self loathed of the higher me.
     Great elder brother of my second birth,
     Dear o'er all names but one, in heaven or earth,
     Teach me all day to love eternally.
 

21

 
     Lo, Lord, thou know'st, I would not anything
     That in the heart of God holds not its root;
     Nor falsely deem there is any life at all
     That doth in him nor sleep nor shine nor sing;
     I know the plants that bear the noisome fruit
     Of burning and of ashes and of gall—
     From God's heart torn, rootless to man's they cling.
 

22

 
     Life-giving love rots to devouring fire;
     Justice corrupts to despicable revenge;
     Motherhood chokes in the dam's jealous mire;
     Hunger for growth turns fluctuating change;
     Love's anger grand grows spiteful human wrath,
     Hunting men out of conscience' holy path;
     And human kindness takes the tattler's range.
 

23

 
     Nothing can draw the heart of man but good;
     Low good it is that draws him from the higher—
     So evil—poison uncreate from food.
     Never a foul thing, with temptation dire,
     Tempts hellward force created to aspire,
     But walks in wronged strength of imprisoned Truth,
     Whose mantle also oft the Shame indu'th.
 

24

 
     Love in the prime not yet I understand—
     Scarce know the love that loveth at first hand:
     Help me my selfishness to scatter and scout;
     Blow on me till my love loves burningly;
     Then the great love will burn the mean self out,
     And I, in glorious simplicity,
     Living by love, shall love unspeakably.
 

25

 
     Oh, make my anger pure—let no worst wrong
     Rouse in me the old niggard selfishness.
     Give me thine indignation—which is love
     Turned on the evil that would part love's throng;
     Thy anger scathes because it needs must bless,
     Gathering into union calm and strong
     All things on earth, and under, and above.
 

26

 
     Make my forgiveness downright—such as I
     Should perish if I did not have from thee;
     I let the wrong go, withered up and dry,
     Cursed with divine forgetfulness in me.
     'Tis but self-pity, pleasant, mean, and sly,
     Low whispering bids the paltry memory live:—
     What am I brother for, but to forgive!
 

27

 
     "Thou art my father's child—come to my heart:"
     Thus must I say, or Thou must say, "Depart;"
     Thus I would say—I would be as thou art;
     Thus I must say, or still I work athwart
     The absolute necessity and law
     That dwells in me, and will me asunder draw,
     If in obedience I leave any flaw.
 

28

 
     Lord, I forgive—and step in unto thee.
     If I have enemies, Christ deal with them:
     He hath forgiven me and Jerusalem.
     Lord, set me from self-inspiration free,
     And let me live and think from thee, not me—
     Rather, from deepest me then think and feel,
     At centre of thought's swift-revolving wheel.
 

29

 
     I sit o'ercanopied with Beauty's tent,
     Through which flies many a golden-winged dove,
     Well watched of Fancy's tender eyes up bent;
     A hundred Powers wait on me, ministering;
     A thousand treasures Art and Knowledge bring;
     Will, Conscience, Reason tower the rest above;
     But in the midst, alone, I gladness am and love.
 

30

 
     'Tis but a vision, Lord; I do not mean
     That thus I am, or have one moment been—
     'Tis but a picture hung upon my wall,
     To measure dull contentment therewithal,
     And know behind the human how I fall;—
     A vision true, of what one day shall be,
     When thou hast had thy very will with me.