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I THE AUTUMN dusk, not yearly but eternal, | |
| Is haunted by thy voice. | |
| Who turns his way far from the valleys vernal | |
| And by dark choice | |
| Disturbs those heights which from the low-lying land | 5 |
| Rise sheerly toward the heavens, with thee may stand | |
| And hear thy thunders down the mountains strown. | |
| But none save him who shares thy prophet-sight | |
| Shall thence behold what cosmic dawning-light | |
| Met thy soul’s own. | 10 |
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II Master of music! unmelodious singing | |
| Must build thy praises now. | |
| Master of vision! vainly come we, bringing | |
| Words to endow | |
| Thy silence,—where, beyond our clouded powers, | 15 |
| The sun-shot glory of resplendent hours | |
| Invests thee of the Dionysiac flame. | |
| Yet undissuaded come we, here to make | |
| Not thine enrichment but our own who wake | |
| Thy echoing fame. | 20 |
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III Not o’er thy dust we brood,—we who have never | |
| Looked in thy living eyes. | |
| Nor wintry blossom shall we come to sever | |
| Where thy grave lies. | |
| Let witlings dream, with shallow pride elate, | 25 |
| That they approach the presence of the great | |
| When at the spot of birth or death they stand. | |
| But hearts in whom thy heart lives, though they be | |
| By oceans sundered, walk the night with thee | |
| In alien land. | 30 |
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IV For them, grief speaks not with the tidings spoken | |
| That thou art of the dead. | |
| No lamp extinguished when the bowl is broken, | |
| No music fled | |
| When the lute crumbles, art thou nor shalt be; | 35 |
| But as a great wave, lifted on the sea, | |
| Surges triumphant toward the sleeping shore, | |
| Thou fallest, in splendor of irradiant rain, | |
| To sweep resurgent all the ocean plain | |
| Forevermore. | 40 |
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V The seas of earth with flood tides filled thy bosom; | |
| The sea-winds to thy voice | |
| Lent power; the Grecian with the English blossom | |
| Twined, to rejoice | |
| Upon thy brow in chaplets of new bloom; | 45 |
| And over thee the Celtic mists of doom | |
| Hovered to give their magics to thy hand; | |
| And past the moon, where Music dwells alone, | |
| She woke, and loved, and left her starry zone | |
| At thy command. | 50 |
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VI For thee spake Beauty from the shadowy waters; | |
| For thee Earth garlanded | |
| With loveliness and light her mortal daughters; | |
| Toward thee was sped | |
| The arrow of swift longing, keen delight, | 55 |
| Wonder that pierces, cruel needs that smite, | |
| Madness and melody and hope and tears. | |
| And these with lights and loveliness illume | |
| Thy pages, where rich Summer’s faint perfume | |
| Outlasts the years. | 60 |
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VII Outlasts, too well! For of the hearts that know thee | |
| Few know or dare to stand | |
| On thy keen chilling heights; but where below thee | |
| Thy lavish hand | |
| Has scattered brilliant jewels of summer song | 65 |
| And flowers of passionate speech, there grope the throng | |
| Crying—“Behold! this bauble, this is he!” | |
| And of their love or hate, the foolish wars | |
| Echo up faintly where amid lone stars | |
| Thy soul may be. | 70 |
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VIII But some, who find in thee a word exceeding | |
| Even thy power of speech— | |
| To whom each song,—like an oak-leaf crimson, bleeding, | |
| Fallen,—can teach | |
| Tidings of that high forest whence it came | 75 |
| Where the wooded mountain-slope in one vast flame | |
| Burns as the Autumn kindles on its quest— | |
| These rapt diviners gather close to thee:— | |
| Whom now the Winter holds in dateless fee | |
| Sealèd of rest. | 80 |
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IX Strings never touched before,—strange accents chanting,— | |
| Strange quivering lambent words,— | |
| A far exalted hope serene or panting | |
| Mastering the chords,— | |
| A sweetness fierce and tragic,—these were thine, | 85 |
| O singing lover of dark Proserpine! | |
| O spirit who lit the Maenad hills with song! | |
| O Augur bearing aloft thy torch divine, | |
| Whose flickering lights bewilder as they shine | |
| Down on the throng. | 90 |
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X Not thy deep glooms, but thine exceeding glory | |
| Maketh men blind to thee. | |
| For them thou hast no evening fireside story. | |
| But to be free— | |
| But to arise, spurning all bonds that fold | 95 |
| The spirit of man in fetters forged of old— | |
| This was the mighty trend of thy desire; | |
| Shattering the Gods, teaching the heart to mould | |
| No longer idols, but aloft to hold | |
| The soul’s own fire. | 100 |
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XI Yea, thou didst burst the final gates of capture; | |
| And thy strong heart has passed | |
| From youth, half-blinded by its golden rapture, | |
| Into the vast | |
| Desolate bleakness of life’s iron spaces; | 105 |
| And there found solace, not in faiths, or faces, | |
| Or aught that must endure Time’s harsh control. | |
| In the wilderness, alone, when skies were cloven, | |
| Thou hast thy garment and thy refuge woven | |
| From thine own soul. | 110 |
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XII The faiths and forms of yesteryear are waning, | |
| Dropping, like leaves. | |
| Through the wood sweeps a great wind of complaining | |
| As Time bereaves | |
| Pitiful hearts of all that they thought holy. | 115 |
| The icy stars look down on melancholy | |
| Shelterless creatures of a pillaged day: | |
| A day of disillusionment and terror, | |
| A day that yields no solace for the error | |
| It takes away. | 120 |
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XIII Thee with no solace, but with bolder passion | |
| The bitter day endowed. | |
| As battling seas from the frail swimmer fashion | |
| At last the proud | |
| Indomitable master of their tides, | 125 |
| Who with exultant power splendidly rides | |
| The terrible summit of each whelming wave,— | |
| So didst thou reap, from fields of wreckage, gain; | |
| Harvesting the wild fruit of the bitter main, | |
| Strength that shall save. | 130 |
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XIV Here where old barks upon new headlands shatter, | |
| And worlds seem torn apart, | |
| Amid the creeds now vain to shield or flatter | |
| The mortal heart, | |
| Where the wild welter of strange knowledge won | 135 |
| From grave and engine and the chemic sun | |
| Subdues the age to faith in dust and gold: | |
| The bardic laurel thou hast dowered with youth, | |
| In living witness of the spirit’s truth, | |
| Like prophets old. | 140 |
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XV Thee shall the future time with joy inherit. | |
| Hast thou not sung and said: | |
| “Save its own light, none leads the mortal spirit, | |
| None ever led”? | |
| Time shall bring many, even as thy steps have trod, | 145 |
| Where the soul speaks authentically of God, | |
| Sustained by glories strange and strong and new. | |
| Yet these most Orphic mysteries of thy heart | |
| Only to kindred can thy speech impart; | |
| And they are few. | 150 |
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XVI Few men shall love thee, whom fierce powers have lifted | |
| High beyond meed of praise. | |
| But as some bark whose seeking sail has drifted | |
| Through storm of days, | |
| We hail thee, bearing back thy golden flowers | 155 |
| Gathered beyond the Western Isles, in bowers | |
| That had not seen, till thine, a vessel’s wake. | |
| And looking on thee from our land-built towers | |
| Know that such sea-dawn never can be ours | |
| As thou sawest break. | 160 |
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XVII Now sailest thou dim-lighted, lonelier water. | |
| By shores of bitter seas | |
| Low is thy speech with Ceres’ ghostly daughter, | |
| Whose twined lilies | |
| Are not more pale than thou, O bard most sweet, | 165 |
| Most bitter;—for whose brow sedge-crowns were mete | |
| And crowns of splendid holly green and red; | |
| Who passest from the dust of careless feet | |
| To lands where sunrise thou hast sought shall greet | |
| Thy holy head. | 170 |
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XVIII Thou hast followed after him whose hopes were greatest,— | |
| That meteor-soul divine; | |
| Near whom divine we hail thee: thou the latest | |
| Of that bright line | |
| Of flame-lipped masters of the spell of song, | 175 |
| Enduring in succession proud and long, | |
| The banner-bearers in triumphant wars: | |
| Latest; and first of that bright line to be, | |
| For whom thou also, flame-lipped, spirit-free, | |
| Art of the stars. | 180 |
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