Nirvana Days Part 4

The robins listened And sang it loud.

The blue-birds came In a fluttering crowd.

The cardinal preached It high and proud, Spring!

And thro the warm earth their song went trilling, Trilling, "Wake! Arise!"

The kingcups quickly a.s.sembled, strong.

The bluets stept From the moss in throng.

Like fairies too Came the cress along.

Spring!

And love in your breast, my la.s.s, awaking-- Waking.

_Love_ was born!

Your eyes were kindled, Your lips were warm.

Wild beauties broke From your face and form.

And all my heart Was a heaven-storm, Was Spring!

THE STRONG MAN TO HIS SIRES

Tonight as I was riding on a wave Of triumph and of glory, A Question suddenly, as from the grave, Rose in me, culpatory.

"Whence come to you this joyance and this strength"

It said, "this might of vision?

This will that measures all things to its length, That cuts with calm decision?

"This blood within your veins, that is as wine Which Destiny's self blesses.

Whence flows it, from what grape that is divine, Or trodden from what presses?

"Do you so proud forget what hands have borne You to the heights and crowned you?

Would you behold what sackcloth has been worn That laurels may surround you?"...

"I would--O lips invisible! whose breath"-- I answered--"so arraigns me; Whose voice is as a sound sent forth of Death, And like to Death entrains me.

"I would! For if the flesh of me and soul Are fibred with the ages, My triumph is of them and manifold Of all life's mystic stages."

So, forth they came--a vast ancestral line, Upon my vision teeming, All shapes whose natal semblance could affine Them to me, faintly gleaming.

I knew them as I knew myself, and felt The Day of each within me; And so began to speak, the while they dwelt About--they who had been me.

"My Sires," I said, "think you I have forgot The fervor of your living?

How into me is moulded all you thought.

Of getting or of giving?

"Think you I do not feel my every drop Of blood is as an ocean In which are surging and will never stop All things your hope gave motion?

"My senses, that are swift to take delight And shrine it in their being, Are they not born of all your faith, and bright With all your bliss of seeing?

"And my full heart within whose fount I hear Your voices that are vanished, Can it forget its grat.i.tude or fear Foes that you braved and banished?

"No. But the blindly striving years that led You to the Rose's beauty, Or taught you out of Ill to disembed The golden veins of Duty;

"The wasting and incalculable wants That in you quailed or quivered; The longing that lit stars no dark now daunts-- _I know, who stand delivered!_

"To you then from whose throng the centuries Long dead slip now their shrouding, Who from oblivion's profundities Rise up, and round are crowding,

"I say, Immortal do I hold your will!

Its gathered might ascending Is sacred with the unconquerable might Of G.o.d--who sees its ending;

"Of G.o.d--on whose strong Vine, Heredity, Rooted in Voids primeval, The world climbs ever to some great To-Be Of pa.s.sion or reprieval."

I said--and on night's infinite beheld Silence alone beside me; And majesty of greater meanings welled Into my soul, to guide me.

AT STRATFORD

I could not sleep. The wind poured in my ear Immortal names--Lear, Hamlet, Hal, Macbeth, And thro the night I heard the rus.h.i.+ng breath Of ghost and witch and fool go whirling by.

I followed them, under the phantom sphere Of the pale moon, along the Avon's near And nimbused flowing, followed to his bier-- Who had evoked them first with mighty eye.

And as I gazed upon the peaceful spire That points above earth's most immortal dust, I could have asked G.o.d for His starry Lyre Out of the skies to play my praise upon.

I could have shouted, as, O Wind, thou must, "Here lies Humanity: kneel, and pa.s.s on."

THE IMAGE PAINTER

Up under the roof, in cold or heat, Far up, aloof from the city street, She sat all day And painted gray Cold idols, scarcely human.

And if she thought of ease and rest, Of love that spells G.o.d's name the best, Her few friends heard but one request-- "Pray for a tired little woman."

She sat from dawn till weary dusk.

Her hands plied on--with but a husk Of bread to break And for Christ's sake To bless: was _He_ not human?

Then when the light would leave her brush She'd sit there still, in the dim hush, And say aloud, lest tears should rush-- "Pray for a tired little woman."

They found her so--one morning when A knock brought no sweet welcome ken Of her still face And cloistral grace And brow so bravely human.

They found her by the window bar, Her eyes fixed where had been some star.

O you that rest, where'er you are, Pray for the tired little woman.

WANDA

"She shall be sportive as the fawn That wild with glee across the lawn Or up the mountain springs;"