i. Knowledge
THE SECRET of the World is lowly, | |
| Self-sung nigh my pleading ear; | |
| It presses close, enchanting, holy, | |
| Murmuring,—what, I cannot hear: | |
| A dream embosoming all my waking, | 5 |
| Solace shaming all my fear. | |
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| In hours serenest and profoundest, | |
| List I’yond the breadth of time: | |
| Over the sea of calm Thou soundest; | |
| Now I catch the tune, the rhyme, | 10 |
| And now shall know!—Alas! the silence | |
| Ripples, broken; dies the chime. | |
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| Partial, the universal Mother | |
| Tells her secret to the stars: | |
| And they intone it each to other, | 15 |
| Trooping in their silver cars. | |
| Winging and witching comes the echo, | |
| But mine ear the meaning bars. | |
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| When the sunlight, aether flooding, | |
| Rains its richness down the sky, | 20 |
| The Fact on every beam is brooding, | |
| And on every leaf an eye | |
| Implanteth, where the dauntless, dimless, | |
| Godlike vision I espy. | |
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| The psalmist pine-tree, sounding, sweeping | 25 |
| One great chord forevermore; | |
| Deep-chested Ocean’s chant, as, keeping | |
| Time upon the throbbing shore, | |
| His billowy palm still falls and rises,— | |
| Both recount that wondrous lore. | 30 |
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| The World is rich, it hath possession; | |
| Joy of wealth fills land and sea; | |
| The fields in bloom, the stars in session, | |
| Birds and blades on bough and lea, | |
| All know the truth, the joy, the wonder, | 35 |
| Not revealed to man, to me. | |
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| Nature, be just in thy bestowing! | |
| Best to best shouldst thou confide. | |
| Oh! why from him, whose bliss is knowing, | |
| Knowledge, cruel, dost thou hide? | 40 |
| Since, that withholden, naught is given; | |
| Given, naught withheld beside. | |
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ii. Life A goblet drained is all my knowing,— | |
| Cup whence I have quaffed the wine: | |
| From out the Unknown comes the flowing | 45 |
| And exhaustless juice divine, | |
| That lends the blood its priceless crimson, | |
| And the eye its living shine. | |
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| Embrace me, Mystery of Being; | |
| Fill my arteries, flood my brain, | 50 |
| And through me pour thy heart, till seeing, | |
| Thought, are drowned, like dew in rain, | |
| In powerful, pure participation: | |
| Separate life is separate pain. | |
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| Temple unseen of Truth immortal, | 55 |
| Thought hath brought me to thy door; | |
| Never passes he the portal, | |
| I am drawn the threshold o’er; | |
| And lo! I am a leaf that quivers | |
| In God’s joy-wind evermore! | 60 |
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| Now are the light-waves round me rolling, | |
| Now the love-tides through me run, | |
| Body and soul anew ensouling: | |
| Seeing and being melt in one. | |
| The ear is self-same with the music, | 65 |
| Beam with vision, eye with sun. | |
