Songs and Satires Part 12

Well, kiss the crucifix, my son, and pa.s.s beneath the rod.

THE DOOR

This is the room that thou wast ushered in.

Wouldst thou, perchance, a larger freedom win?

Wouldst thou escape for deeper or no breath?

There is no door but death.

Do shadows crouch within the mocking light?

Stand thou! but if thy terrored heart takes flight Facing maimed Hope and wide-eyed Nevermore, There is no less one door.

Dost thou bewail love's end and friends.h.i.+p's doom, The dying fire, drained cup, and gathering gloom?

Explore the walls, if thy soul ventureth-- There is no door but death.

There is no window. Heaven hangs aloof Above the rents within the stairless roof.

Hence, soul, be brave across the ruined floor-- Who knocks? Unbolt the door!

SUPPLICATION

_For He knoweth our frame, He remembereth that we are dust._--PSALM CIII. 14.

Oh Lord, when all our bones are thrust Beyond the gaze of all but Thine; And these blaspheming tongues are dust Which babbled of Thy name divine, How helpless then to carp or rail Against the canons of Thy word; Wilt Thou, when thus our spirits fail, Have mercy, Lord?

Here from this ebon speck that floats As but a mote within Thine eye, Vain sneers and curses from our throats Rise to the vault of Thy fair sky: Yet when this world of ours is still Of this all-wondering, tortured horde, And none is left for Thee to kill-- Have mercy, Lord!

Thou knowest that our flesh is gra.s.s; Ah! let our withered souls remain Like stricken reeds of some mora.s.s, Bleached, in Thy will, by ceaseless rain.

Have we not had enough of fire, Enough of torment and the sword?-- If these accrue from Thy desire-- Have mercy, Lord!

Dost Thou not see about our feet The tangles of our erring thought?

Thou knowest that we run to greet High hopes that vanish into naught.

We bleed, we fall, we rise again; How can we be of Thee abhorred?

We are Thy breed, we little men-- Have mercy, Lord!

Wilt Thou then slay for that we slay, Wilt Thou deny when we deny?

A thousand years are but a day, A little day within Thine eye: We thirst for love, we yearn for life; We l.u.s.t, wilt Thou the l.u.s.t record?

We, beaten, fall upon the knife-- Have mercy, Lord!

Thou givest us youth that turns to age; And strength that leaves us while we seek.

Thou pourest the fire of sacred rage In costly vessels all too weak.

Great works we planned in hopes that Thou Fit wisdom therefor wouldst accord; Thou wrotest failure on our brow-- Have mercy, Lord!

Could we but know, as Thou dost know-- Hold the whole scheme at once in mind!

Yet, dost Thou watch our anxious woe Who piece with palsied hands and blind The fragments of our little plan, To thrive and earn Thy blest reward, And make and keep the world of man-- Have mercy, Lord!

Thou settest the sun within his place To light the world, the world is Thine, Put in our hands and through Thy grace To be subdued and made divine.

Whether we serve Thee ill or well, Thou knowest our frame, nor canst afford To leave Thy own for long in h.e.l.l-- Have mercy, Lord!

THE CONVERSATION

_The Human Voice_

You knew then, starting let us say with ether, You would become electrons, out of whirling Would rise to atoms; then as an atom resting Till through Yourself in other atoms moving And by the fine affinity of power Atom with atom ma.s.sed, You would go on Over the crest of visible forms transformed, Would be a molecule, a little system Wherein the atoms move like suns and planets With satellites, electrons. So as worlds build From star-dust, as electron to electron, The same attraction drawing, molecules Would wed and pa.s.s over the crest again Of visible forms, lying content as crystals, Or colloids--ready now to use the gleam Of life. As 'twere I see You with a match, As one in darkness lights a candle, and one Sees not his friend's form in the shadowed room Until the candle's lighted? Even his form Is darkened by the new-made light, he stands So near it! Well, I add to all I've asked Whether You knew the cell born to the glint Of that same lighted candle would not rest Even as electrons rest not--but would surge Over the crest of visible forms, become Beneath our feet things hidden from the eye However aided,--as above our heads Beyond the Milky Way great systems whirl Beyond the telescope,--become bacilli, Amoeba, starfish, swimming things, on land The serpent, and then birds, and beasts of prey The tiger (You in the tiger) on and on Surging above the crest of visible forms until The ape came--oh what ages they are to us-- But still creation flies on wings of light-- Then to the man who roamed the frozen fields Neither man nor ape,--we found his jaw, You know, At Heidelberg, in a sand-pit. On and on Till Babylon was builded, and arose Jerusalem and Memphis, Athens, Rome, Venice and Florence, Paris, London, Berlin, New York, Chicago--did You know, I ask, All this would come of You in ether moving?

_A Voice_

I knew.

_The Human Voice_

You knew that man was born to be destroyed, That as an atom perfect, whole, at ease, Drawn to some other atom, is broken, changed And rises o'er the crest of visible things To something else--that man must pa.s.s as well Through equal transformation. And You knew The unutterable things of man's life: From the first You saw his wracked Deucalion-soul that looks Backward on life that rises, where he rose Out of the stones. You saw him looking forward Over the purple mists that hide the gulf.

Ere the green cell rose, even in the green cell You saw the sequences of thought--You saw That one would say, "All's matter" and another, "All's mind," and man's mind which reflects the image, Could not envision it. That even wors.h.i.+p Of what you are would be confused by cries From India or Palestine. That love Which sees itself beginning in the seeds, Which fly and seek each other, maims The soul at the last in loss of child or friend Father or mother. And You knew that s.e.x, Ranging from plants through beasts and up to us Had ties of filth--And out of them would rise Diverse philosophies to tear the world.

You knew, when the green cell arose, that even The You which formed it moving on would bring Races and breeds, madmen, tyrants, slaves, The idiot child, the murderer, the insane-- All springing from the action of one law.

You knew the enmity that lies between The lives of micro-beings and our own. You knew How man would rise to vision of himself: Immortal only in the race's life.

And past the atom and the first glint of life, Saw him with soul enraptured, yet o'ershadowed Amid self-consciousness!

_A Voice_

I knew.

But this your fault: You see me as apart, Over, removed, at enmity with You.

You are in Me, and of Me, even at one With Me. But there's your soul--your soul may be The germinal cell of vaster evolution.

Why try to tell you? If I gave a cell Voice to inquire, and it should ask you this: "After me what, a stalk, a flower, life That swims or crawls?" And if I gave to you Wisdom to say: "You shall become a reed By the water's edge"--how could the cell foresee What the reed is, bending beneath the wind When the lake ripples and the skies are blue As larkspur? Therefore I, who moved in darkness Becoming light in suns and light in souls And mind with thought--for what is thought but light Sprung from the clash of ether?--I am with you.

And if beyond this stable state that stands For your life here (as cells are whole and balanced Till the inner urge bring union, then a breaking And building up to higher life), there is No memory of this world nor of your thought, Nor sense of life on this world lived and borne; Or whether you remember, know yourself As one who lived here, suffered here, aspired-- What does it matter?--you cannot be lost, As I am lost not. Therefore be at peace.

And from the laws whose orbits cross and run To seeming tangles, find the law through which Your soul shall be perfected till it draw,-- As the green cell the sunlight draws and turns Its chemical effulgence into life-- My inner splendor. All the rest is mine In infinite time. For if I should unroll The parchment of the future, it were vain-- You could not read it.

TERMINUS

Terminus shows the ways and says, "All things must have an end."

Oh, bitter thought we hid away When first you were my friend.

We hid it in the darkest place Our hearts had place to hide, And took the sweet as from a spring Whose waters would abide.

For neither life nor the wide world Has greater store than this:-- The thought that runs through hands and eyes And fills the silences.