  Brother, from what dim world of lonely light, Trembling on heaven’s pinnacles to-night, Is lifted your sad face of love while you Stare upward toward me, staring upward, too, At that faint flame which is your home, between The leafy branches of these poplars seen— So hushed, so far! Perhaps to-night you scan Your starry heaven for the star of Man, High in the trellis of eternity And glittering arches hung; perhaps like me You, too, look up and wonder. Is it fair, That world of yours? Are there great cities there, Populous millions, hearts that beat as these, Clear meadows and far mountains, shoreless seas, Shadows of moving armies, thrones that shake? Does the heart thrill for love there, does it break— Tell me, are there hushed gardens, quiet tombs? And mighty poets weaving at their looms The old, dim wisdoms that outweary Time; And saints, and lifted saviours, and sublime Faiths and high fortitudes beyond belief? —All blotted out by one small poplar leaf In the light wind of languid summer stirred! Brother, what news out of the night, what word From the frontiers of mind beyond our ken, Of mysteries unimagined yet of men, Compassed by travail of your spirit? O Could you but reach to us! Could we but know Across the imperturbable old Dark Some answering glimmer of the ancient Spark Lifted—some token, tangible to sense, Of the indomitable Intelligence That thrones on matter—language visible— Crying, “Eternity—and all is well! Brother, be of good cheer; we, too, have known! Not lonely moves, not utterly alone, Your sad fraternity through the dark of God: But the confederate legions are abroad, Life’s flag advances on the starry way, And Consciousness, still battling, still at bay, Holds the bright forts against Oblivion—” What answering thrill would ’round the planet run! For we are one; all Consciousness is one, Whatever form it wear, however dressed In gray or glamour, in whatever breast It lift its longing: glimmering it moves Through the green wave; it stamps with startled hooves The upland pastures of the world, and soars In heaven with the eagle; on bright shores It basks a sunny body, or in dread Lifts from the undergrowth a snaky head And darts a flickering tongue; it is most clear In the lark’s throat; among the grasses here, That couch the ant, it turns a tiny eye Around the darkness; scampers and is shy In the scared rabbit; through the murmuring air Wheels with the beetle, and, where heaven is bare, Southward with the wild crane at summer’s close, Hungering, an eternal pilgrim goes On quests implacable. And from the eyes Of the poised panther gleam the cruelties Of its stern need that roams the world, and rends With tooth or talon; in the hawk descends On the stunned squirrel; in the squirrel moans As the hawk strikes; darkens the earth with bones Of its own wreck and, hungering again, Knows in its body the old spur. For when Hunger, the shadow cast by death, draws near, Life on her thousand thrones feels the one fear, And in the lion’s roar at dusk is heard The unassuagable, insistent word Of urgent Being, clamorous to be. Wreaking and wrought upon, eternally Mingling and mixed; inextricably blent, Victor and vanquished, in one sacrament— Body with body—of delight and death, It moves in splendor; lifts the shuddering breath Of the spent stag; and in the mind of Man Rebels against the miserable plan— Flings its frail web of thought across the path Of suns in heaven, and in holy wrath, On blood of murdered brothers nourished, still Thunders to all the world, Thou shall not kill! And the worm’s death is in the sparrow’s song. And I have seen it in the gnats that throng Old shadowy forests, in tumultuous dance; Or in the little measuring-worm advance, Inch by slow inch, along the swaying stem Of some exalted flower; or lift the hem Of the frail butterfly’s embroidered cloak In gentle breathings that the sun did stroke Caressingly with fingers of his heat; Or from the dog yearn upward, and entreat With eyes of adoration or of fear The great god, Man—“What message, master dear, From the dim heights beyond me where you are?” In the mare’s tremulous whinny, in the far Lowing of cattle from the upland sward, Or wail of whip-poor-wills, at twilight poured On pools of silence plaintively, or cry Of the lone wolf beneath the glittering sky Of soundless winter, I have heard the same Splendor speak forth, and utter the one name Of Life, the dreadful, the magnificent. All afternoon the passion of heaven spent On earth its fiery fury in blind, bright Lightnings of dread and laughters of delight Down shuddering deeps of shaken thunder, where The delirious longing loosed its sorrowing hair Of wind and shower and overshadowing cloud Across the belovÈd face, in darkness bowed Or glimmering light revealed; and cried aloud For anger of utter ecstasy; and shed The wild love of the rushing rain that sped To the thrilled heart, consenting, of the dim And rapturous earth, that lifted up to him Drowsed lips of thirsty flowers; and the cup |
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