Collected Poems Volume I Part 14

Therefore I say unto all that have sinned, East and West and South and North The wings of my measureless love go forth To cover you all: they are free as the wings of the wind.

III

Consider the troubled waters of the sea Which never rest; As the wandering waves are ye; Yet a.s.suaged and appeased and forgiven, As the seas are gathered together under the infinite glory of heaven, I gather you all to my breast.

But the sins and the creeds and the sorrows that trouble the sea Relapse and subside, Chiming like chords in a world-wide symphony As they cease to chide; For they break and they are broken of sound and hue, And they meet and they murmur and they mingle anew, Interweaving, intervolving, like waves: they have no stay: They are all made as one with the deep, when they sink and are vanished away; Yea, all is toned at a turn of the tide To a calm and golden harmony; But I--shall I wonder or greatly care, For their depth or their height?

Shall it be more than a song in my sight How many wandering waves there were, Or how many colours and changes of light?

It is your eyes that see And take heed of these things: they were fas.h.i.+oned for you, not for Me.

IV

With the stars and the clouds I have clothed Myself here for your eyes To behold That which Is. I have set forth the strength of the skies As one draweth a picture before you to make your hearts wise; That the infinite souls I have fas.h.i.+oned may know as I know, Visibly revealed In the flowers of the field, Yea, declared by the stars in their courses, the tides in their flow, And the clash of the world's wide battle as it sways to and fro, Flas.h.i.+ng forth as a flame The unnameable Name, The ineffable Word, _I am the Lord._

V

I am the End to which the whole world strives: Therefore are ye girdled with a wild desire and shod With sorrow; for among you all no soul Shall ever cease or sleep or reach its goal Of union and communion with the Whole, Or rest content with less than being G.o.d.

Still, as unending asymptotes, your lives In all their myriad wandering ways Approach Me with the progress of the golden days; Approach Me; for my love contrives That ye should have the glory of this For ever; yea, that life should blend With life and only vanish away From day to wider wealthier day, Like still increasing spheres of light that melt and merge in wider spheres Even as the infinite years of the past melt in the infinite future years.

Each new delight of sense, Each hope, each love, each fear, Widens, relumes and recreates each sphere, From a new ring and nimbus of pre-eminence.

I am the Sphere without circ.u.mference: I only and for ever comprehend All others that within me meet and blend.

Death is but the blinding kiss Of two finite infinities; Two finite infinite orbs The splendour of the greater of which absorbs The less, though both like Love have no beginning and no end.

VI

Therefore is Love's own breath Like Knowledge, a continual death; And all his laughter and kisses and tears, And woven wiles of peace and strife, That ever widen thus your temporal spheres, Are making of the memory of your former years A very death in life.

VII

I am that I am; Ye are evil and good; With colour and glory and story and song ye are fed as with food: The cold and the heat, The bitter and the sweet, The calm and the tempest fulfil my Word; Yet will ye complain of my two-edged sword That has fas.h.i.+oned the finite and mortal and given you the sweetness of strife, The blackness and whiteness, The darkness and brightness, Which sever your souls from the formless and void and hold you fast-fettered to life?

VIII

Behold now, is Life not good?

Yea, is it not also much more than the food, More than the raiment, more than the breath?

Yet Strife is its name!

Say, which will ye cast out first from the furnace, the fuel or the flame?

Would ye all be as I am; and know neither evil nor good; neither life; neither death; Or mix with the void and the formless till all were as one and the same?

IX

I am that I am; the Container of all things: kneel, lift up your hands To the high Consummation of good and of evil which none understands; The divine Paradox, the ineffable Word, in whose light the poor souls that ye trod Underfoot as too vile for their fellows are at terrible union with G.o.d!

Am I not over both evil and good, The righteous man and the shedder of blood?

Shall I save or slay?

I am neither the night nor the day, Saith the Lord.

Judge not, oh ye that are round my footstool, judge not, ere the hour be born That shall laugh you also to scorn.

X

Ah, yet I say unto all that have sinned, East and West and South and North The wings of my measureless love go forth To cover you all: they are free as the wings of the wind.

XI

But one thing is needful; and ye shall be true To yourselves and the goal and the G.o.d that ye seek; Yea, the day and the night shall requite it to you If ye love one another, if your love be not weak.

XII

Since I sent out my worlds in their battle-array To die and to live, To give and to receive, Not peace, not peace, I have brought among you but a sword, To divide the night from the day, Saith the Lord; Yet all that is broken shall be mended, And all that is lost shall be found, I will bind up every wound, When that which is begun shall be ended.

THE PROGRESS OF LOVE

(A LYRICAL SYMPHONY)

I

In other worlds I loved you, long ago: Love that hath no beginning hath no end.

The woodbine whispers, low and sweet and low, In other worlds I loved you, long ago; The firwoods murmur and the sea-waves know The message that the setting sun shall send.

In other worlds I loved you, long ago: Love that hath no beginning hath no end.

II

And G.o.d sighed in the sunset; and the sea Chanted the soft recessional of Time Against the golden sh.o.r.es of mystery;

And ever as that long low change and chime With one slow sob of molten music yearned Westward, it seemed as if the Love sublime

Almost uttered itself, where the waves burned In little flower-soft flames of rose and green That woke to seaward, while the tides returned

Rising and falling, ruffled and serene, With all the mirrored tints of heaven above s.h.i.+mmering through their mystic myriad sheen.

As a dove's burnished breast throbbing with love Swells and subsides to call her soft-eyed mate Home through the rosy gloom of glen or grove,

So when the greenwood noon was growing late The sea called softly through the waste of years, Called to the star that still can consecrate

The holy golden haze of human tears Which tinges every sunset with our grief Until the perfect Paraclete appears.

Ah, the long sigh that yields the world relief Rose and relapsed across Eternity, Making a joy of sorrows that are brief,

As, o'er the bright enchantment of the sea, Facing the towers of that old City of Pain Which stands upon the sh.o.r.es of mystery