The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton Volume 2 Part 25

LIFE.

LIFE, like a marble block, is given to all, A blank, inchoate ma.s.s of years and days, Whence one with ardent chisel swift essays Some shape of strength or symmetry to call; One shatters it in bits to mend a wall; One in a craftier hand the chisel lays, And one, to wake the mirth in Lesbia's gaze, Carves it apace in toys fantastical.

But least is he who, with enchanted eyes Filled with high visions of fair shapes to be, Muses which G.o.d he shall immortalize In the proud Parian's perpetuity, Till twilight warns him from the punctual skies That the night cometh wherein none shall see.

AN AUTUMN SUNSET

I

LEAGUERED in fire The wild black promontories of the coast extend Their savage silhouettes; The sun in universal carnage sets, And, halting higher, The motionless storm-clouds ma.s.s their sullen threats, Like an advancing mob in sword-points penned, That, balked, yet stands at bay.

Mid-zenith hangs the fascinated day In wind-l.u.s.trated hollows crystalline, A wan valkyrie whose wide pinions s.h.i.+ne Across the ensanguined ruins of the fray, And in her lifted hand swings high o'erhead, Above the waste of war, The silver torch-light of the evening star Wherewith to search the faces of the dead.

II

Lagooned in gold, Seem not those jetty promontories rather The outposts of some ancient land forlorn, Uncomforted of morn, Where old oblivions gather, The melancholy, unconsoling fold Of all things that go utterly to death And mix no more, no more With life's perpetually awakening breath?

Shall Time not ferry me to such a sh.o.r.e, Over such sailless seas, To walk with hope's slain importunities In miserable marriage? Nay, shall not All things be there forgot, Save the sea's golden barrier and the black Closecrouching promontories?

Dead to all shames, forgotten of all glories, Shall I not wander there, a shadow's shade, A spectre self-destroyed, So purged of all remembrance and sucked back Into the primal void, That should we on that sh.o.r.e phantasmal meet I should not know the coming of your feet?