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I ’MID glad green miles of tillage | |
| And fields where cattle graze, | |
| A prosy little village, | |
| You drowse away the days. | |
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| And yet—a wakeful glory | 5 |
| Clings round you as you doze; | |
| One living lyric story | |
| Makes music of your prose. | |
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| Here once, returning never, | |
| The feet of song have trod; | 10 |
| And flashed—Oh, once forever!— | |
| The singing Flame of God. | |
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II These were his fields Elysian: | |
| With mystic eyes he saw | |
| The sowers planting vision, | 15 |
| The reapers gleaning awe. | |
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| Serfs to a sordid duty, | |
| He saw them with his heart, | |
| Priests of the Ultimate Beauty, | |
| Feeding the flame of art. | 20 |
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| The weird, untempled Makers | |
| Pulsed in the things he saw; | |
| The wheat through its virile acres | |
| Billowed the Song of Law. | |
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| The epic roll of the furrow | 25 |
| Flung from the writing plow, | |
| The dactyl phrase of the green-rowed maize | |
| Measured the music of Now. | |
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III Sipper of ancient flagons, | |
| Often the lonesome boy | 30 |
| Saw in the farmers’ wagons | |
| The chariots hurled at Troy. | |
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| Trundling in dust and thunder | |
| They rumbled up and down, | |
| Laden with princely plunder, | 35 |
| Loot of the tragic Town. | |
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| And once when the rich man’s daughter | |
| Smiled on the boy at play, | |
| Sword-storms, giddy with slaughter, | |
| Swept back the ancient day! | 40 |
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| War steeds shrieked in the quiet, | |
| Far and hoarse were the cries; | |
| And Oh, through the din and the riot, | |
| The music of Helen’s eyes! | |
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| Stabbed with the olden Sorrow, | 45 |
| He slunk away from the play, | |
| For the Past and the vast To-morrow | |
| Were wedded in his To-day. | |
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IV Rich with the dreamer’s pillage, | |
| An idle and worthless lad, | 50 |
| Least in a prosy village, | |
| And prince in Allahabad; | |
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| Lover of golden apples, | |
| Munching a daily crust; | |
| Haunter of dream-built chapels, | 55 |
| Worshipping in the dust; | |
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| Dull to the worldly duty, | |
| Less to the town he grew, | |
| And more to the God of Beauty | |
| Than even the grocer knew! | 60 |
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V Corn for the buyers, and cattle— | |
| But what could the dreamer sell? | |
| Echoes of cloudy battle? | |
| Music from heaven and hell? | |
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| Spices and bales of plunder | 65 |
| Argosied over the sea? | |
| Tapestry woven of wonder, | |
| And myrrh from Araby? | |
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| None of your dream-stuffs, Fellow, | |
| Looter of Samarcand! | 70 |
| Gold is heavy and yellow, | |
| And value is weighed in the hand! | |
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VI And yet, when the years had humbled | |
| The Kings in the Realm of the Boy, | |
| Song-built bastions crumbled, | 75 |
| Ash-heaps smothering Troy; | |
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| Thirsting for shattered flagons, | |
| Quaffing a brackish cup, | |
| With all of his chariots, wagons— | |
| He never could quite grow up. | 80 |
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| The debt to the ogre, To-morrow, | |
| He never could comprehend: | |
| Why should the borrowers borrow? | |
| Why should the lenders lend? | |
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| Never an oak tree borrowed, | 85 |
| But took for its needs—and gave. | |
| Never an oak tree sorrowed; | |
| Debt was the mark of the slave. | |
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| Grass in the priceless weather | |
| Sucked from the paps of the Earth, | 90 |
| And the hills that were lean it fleshed with green— | |
| Oh, what is a lesson worth? | |
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| But still did the buyers barter | |
| And the sellers squint at the scales; | |
| And price was the stake of the martyr, | 95 |
| And cost was the lock of the jails. | |
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VII Windflowers herald the Maytide, | |
| Rendering worth for worth; | |
| Ragweeds gladden the wayside, | |
| Biting the dugs of the Earth; | 100 |
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| Violets, scattering glories, | |
| Feed from the dewy gem: | |
| But dreamers are fed by the living and dead— | |
| And what is the gift from them? | |
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VIII Never a stalk of the Summer | 105 |
| Dreams of its mission and doom: | |
| Only to hasten the Comer— | |
| Martyrdom unto the Bloom. | |
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| Ever the Mighty Chooser | |
| Plucks when the fruit is ripe, | 110 |
| Scorning the mass and letting it pass, | |
| Keen for the cryptic type. | |
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| Greece in her growing season | |
| Troubled the lands and seas, | |
| Plotted and fought and suffered and wrought— | 115 |
| Building a Sophocles! | |
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| Only a faultless temple | |
| Stands for the vassal’s groan; | |
| The harlot’s strife and the faith of the wife | |
| Blend in a graven stone. | 120 |
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| Ne’er do the stern gods cherish | |
| The hope of the million lives; | |
| Always the Fact shall perish | |
| And only the Truth survives. | |
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| Gardens of roses wither, | 125 |
| Shaping the perfect rose: | |
| And the poet’s song shall live for the long, | |
| Dumb, aching years of prose. | |
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IX King of a Realm of Magic, | |
| He was the fool of the town, | 130 |
| Hiding the ache of the tragic | |
| Under the grin of the clown. | |
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| Worn with the vain endeavor | |
| To fit in the sordid plan; | |
| Doomed to be poet forever, | 135 |
| He longed to be only a man; | |
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| To be freed from the god’s enthralling, | |
| Back with the reeds of the stream; | |
| Deaf to the Vision calling, | |
| And dead to the lash of the Dream. | 140 |
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X But still did the Mighty Makers | |
| Stir in the common sod; | |
| The corn through its awful acres | |
| Trembled and thrilled with God! | |
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| More than a man was the sower, | 145 |
| Lured by a man’s desire, | |
| For a triune Bride walked close at his side— | |
| Dew and Dust and Fire! | |
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| More than a man was the plowman, | |
| Shouting his gee and haw; | 150 |
| For a something dim kept pace with him, | |
| And ever the poet saw; | |
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| Till the winds of the cosmic struggle | |
| Made of his flesh a flute, | |
| To echo the tune of a whirlwind rune | 155 |
| Unto the million mute. | |
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XI Son of the Mother of mothers, | |
| The womb and the tomb of Life, | |
| With Fire and Air for brothers | |
| And a clinging Dream for a wife; | 160 |
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| Ever the soul of the dreamer | |
| Strove with its mortal mesh, | |
| And the lean flame grew till it fretted through | |
| The last thin links of flesh. | |
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| Oh, rending the veil asunder, | 165 |
| He fled to mingle again | |
| With the dred Orestean thunder, | |
| The Lear of the driven rain! | |
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XII Once in a cycle the comet | |
| Doubles its lonesome track. | 170 |
| Enriched with the tears of a thousand years, | |
| Æschylus wanders back. | |
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| Ever inweaving, returning, | |
| The near grows out of the far; | |
| And Homer shall sing once more in a swing | 175 |
| Of the austere Polar Star. | |
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| Then what of the lonesome dreamer | |
| With the lean blue flame in his breast? | |
| And who was your clown for a day, O Town, | |
| The strange, unbidden guest? | 180 |
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XIII ’Mid glad green miles of tillage | |
| And fields where cattle graze; | |
| A prosy little village, | |
| You drowse away the days. | |
| |
| And yet—a wakeful glory | 185 |
| Clings round you as you doze; | |
| One living, lyric story | |
| Makes music of your prose! | |
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