Poem Outlines :: THE SONG OF ALDHELM

THE SONG OF ALDHELM

Sidney Lanier

Come over the bridge, my merchants,

Come over the bridge, my souls:

For ye all are mine by the gift of God,

Ye belong to me by the right of my love,

I love

With a love that is father and mother to men,

Ye are all my children, merchants.

Merchant: We have no time, we have no time to listen to idle dreams.

Aldhelm: But I, poor Aldhelm, say you nay;

Till ye hear me, ye have no time

Neither for trade nor travelling;

Till ye hear me ye have no time to fight nor marry nor mourn;

There is not time, O World,

Till you hear me, the Poet Aldhelm,

To eat nor to drink nor to draw breath.

For until the Song of the Poet is heard

Ye do not live, ye can not live.

O noonday ghosts that gabble of losing and gaining,

Pitiful paupers that starve in the plenteous midmost

Of bounty unbounded.

Didst thou make me?

Some say yea.

Did I make thee?

Some say yea.

Oh, am I then thy son, O God,

Or art thou mine?

Thou art more beautiful than me,

And I will worship thee.

Lo, out of me is gone more great than me:

As Him that Mother Mary bore,

Greater far than Mary was;

As one mere woman brought the Lord,

Was mother of the Lord,

Might not my love and longing be

Father of thee?

There will one day be medicine to cure crime.

This youth, O Science, he knoweth more than thee,

He knoweth that life is sweet,

But thou, thou knowest not ever a Sweet.

Tear me, I pray thee, this Flower of Sweetness-of-Life petal from petal, number me the pistils, and above all, above all, dear Science, find me the ovary thereof, and the seeds in the ovary, and save me these.

Thou canst not.

Thou that in thy beautiful Church this morning art reading thy beautiful service with a breaking heart—for that thou knowest thou art reading folly to fools, and for that thou lovest these same folk and canst not abide to think of losing thy friends, and knowest not how to tell them the truth and findest them with no appetite to it nor strength for it—thou fine young clergyman, on this spring morning, there, in the pulpit, front of the dainty ladies with their breathing clouds of dresses and the fans gently waving in the still air—and thou, there, betwixt the pauses while the choir and the heavenly organ tear thy soul with music, peering down with thine eyes in a dream upon the men in the pews, the importers, the jobbers, the stockbrokers, the great drygoods house, some at a nod, some calculating with pencils on the fly-leaf of the Prayer-book, some wondering how it will be with 4's and sixes to-morrow, some vacant, three with Christ thoughts, one out of two hundred earnest—thou that turnest despairing away from the men back to the women whereof several regard thee with soft and rich eyes, with yearning after the unknown whatever-there-may-be-of-better-than-this,

I have a word for thee.

Thou seest and wilt not cover thine eyes; thou dost stand at the casement on a dewy morning, and sentimentalize over the birds that flit by: for thou knowest a worm died in pain at each bird song, and death sitteth in the dew; thou lookest through the rich lawn dresses of the witch women, thou lookest through the ledger-revelries of the merchant, thou seest quasi-religion which is hell-in-trifles before thee, thou seest superstition black about thee,—I have a word for thee.

Come out and declare.

[Credo, and Other Poems]

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