The Poems of Sidney Lanier Part 4

Ye lispers, whisperers, singers in storms, Ye consciences murmuring faiths under forms, Ye ministers meet for each pa.s.sion that grieves, Friendly, sisterly, sweetheart leaves, Oh, rain me down from your darks that contain me Wisdoms ye winnow from winds that pain me, -- Sift down tremors of sweet-within-sweet That advise me of more than they bring, -- repeat Me the woods-smell that swiftly but now brought breath From the heaven-side bank of the river of death, -- Teach me the terms of silence, -- preach me The pa.s.sion of patience, -- sift me, -- impeach me, -- And there, oh there As ye hang with your myriad palms upturned in the air, Pray me a myriad prayer.

My gossip, the owl, -- is it thou That out of the leaves of the low-hanging bough, As I pa.s.s to the beach, art stirred?

Dumb woods, have ye uttered a bird?

Reverend Marsh, low-couched along the sea, Old chemist, rapt in alchemy, Distilling silence, -- lo, That which our father-age had died to know -- The menstruum that dissolves all matter -- thou Hast found it: for this silence, filling now The globed clarity of receiving s.p.a.ce, This solves us all: man, matter, doubt, disgrace, Death, love, sin, sanity, Must in yon silence' clear solution lie.

Too clear! That crystal nothing who'll peruse?

The blackest night could bring us brighter news.

Yet precious qualities of silence haunt Round these vast margins, ministrant.

Oh, if thy soul's at latter gasp for s.p.a.ce, With trying to breathe no bigger than thy race Just to be fellow'd, when that thou hast found No man with room, or grace enough of bound To entertain that New thou tell'st, thou art, -- 'Tis here, 'tis here thou canst unhand thy heart And breathe it free, and breathe it free, By rangy marsh, in lone sea-liberty.

The tide's at full: the marsh with flooded streams Glimmers, a limpid labyrinth of dreams.

Each winding creek in grave entrancement lies A rhapsody of morning-stars. The skies s.h.i.+ne scant with one forked galaxy, -- The marsh brags ten: looped on his breast they lie.

Oh, what if a sound should be made!

Oh, what if a bound should be laid To this bow-and-string tension of beauty and silence a-spring, -- To the bend of beauty the bow, or the hold of silence the string!

I fear me, I fear me yon dome of diaphanous gleam Will break as a bubble o'er-blown in a dream, -- Yon dome of too-tenuous tissues of s.p.a.ce and of night, Over-weighted with stars, over-freighted with light, Over-sated with beauty and silence, will seem But a bubble that broke in a dream, If a bound of degree to this grace be laid, Or a sound or a motion made.

But no: it is made: list! somewhere, -- mystery, where?

In the leaves? in the air?

In my heart? is a motion made: 'Tis a motion of dawn, like a flicker of shade on shade.

In the leaves 'tis palpable: low mult.i.tudinous stirring Upwinds through the woods; the little ones, softly conferring, Have settled my lord's to be looked for; so; they are still; But the air and my heart and the earth are a-thrill, -- And look where the wild duck sails round the bend of the river, -- And look where a pa.s.sionate s.h.i.+ver Expectant is bending the blades Of the marsh-gra.s.s in serial s.h.i.+mmers and shades, -- And invisible wings, fast fleeting, fast fleeting, Are beating The dark overhead as my heart beats, -- and steady and free Is the ebb-tide flowing from marsh to sea -- (Run home, little streams, With your lapfulls of stars and dreams), -- And a sailor unseen is hoisting a-peak, For list, down the insh.o.r.e curve of the creek How merrily flutters the sail, -- And lo, in the East! Will the East unveil?

The East is unveiled, the East hath confessed A flush: 'tis dead; 'tis alive: 'tis dead, ere the West Was aware of it: nay, 'tis abiding, 'tis unwithdrawn: Have a care, sweet Heaven! 'Tis Dawn.

Now a dream of a flame through that dream of a flush is uprolled: To the zenith ascending, a dome of undazzling gold Is builded, in shape as a bee-hive, from out of the sea: The hive is of gold undazzling, but oh, the Bee, The star-fed Bee, the build-fire Bee, Of dazzling gold is the great Sun-Bee That shall flash from the hive-hole over the sea.

Yet now the dew-drop, now the morning gray, Shall live their little lucid sober day Ere with the sun their souls exhale away.

Now in each pettiest personal sphere of dew The summ'd morn s.h.i.+nes complete as in the blue Big dew-drop of all heaven: with these lit shrines O'er-silvered to the farthest sea-confines, The sacramental marsh one pious plain Of wors.h.i.+p lies. Peace to the ante-reign Of Mary Morning, blissful mother mild, Minded of nought but peace, and of a child.

Not slower than Majesty moves, for a mean and a measure Of motion, -- not faster than dateless Olympian leisure Might pace with unblown ample garments from pleasure to pleasure, -- The wave-serrate sea-rim sinks unjarring, unreeling, Forever revealing, revealing, revealing, Edgewise, bladewise, halfwise, wholewise, -- 'tis done!

Good-morrow, lord Sun!

With several voice, with ascription one, The woods and the marsh and the sea and my soul Unto thee, whence the glittering stream of all morrows doth roll, Cry good and past-good and most heavenly morrow, lord Sun.

O Artisan born in the purple, -- Workman Heat, -- Parter of pa.s.sionate atoms that travail to meet And be mixed in the death-cold oneness, -- innermost Guest At the marriage of elements, -- fellow of publicans, -- blest King in the blouse of flame, that loiterest o'er The idle skies yet laborest fast evermore, -- Thou, in the fine forge-thunder, thou, in the beat Of the heart of a man, thou Motive, -- Laborer Heat: Yea, Artist, thou, of whose art yon sea's all news, With his insh.o.r.e greens and manifold mid-sea blues, Pearl-glint, sh.e.l.l-tint, ancientest perfectest hues Ever shaming the maidens, -- lily and rose Confess thee, and each mild flame that glows In the clarified virginal bosoms of stones that s.h.i.+ne, It is thine, it is thine:

Thou chemist of storms, whether driving the winds a-swirl Or a-flicker the subtiler essences polar that whirl In the magnet earth, -- yea, thou with a storm for a heart, Rent with debate, many-spotted with question, part From part oft sundered, yet ever a globed light, Yet ever the artist, ever more large and bright Than the eye of a man may avail of: -- manifold One, I must pa.s.s from thy face, I must pa.s.s from the face of the Sun: Old Want is awake and agog, every wrinkle a-frown; The worker must pa.s.s to his work in the terrible town: But I fear not, nay, and I fear not the thing to be done; I am strong with the strength of my lord the Sun: How dark, how dark soever the race that must needs be run, I am lit with the Sun.

Oh, never the mast-high run of the seas Of traffic shall hide thee, Never the h.e.l.l-colored smoke of the factories Hide thee, Never the reek of the time's fen-politics Hide thee, And ever my heart through the night shall with knowledge abide thee, And ever by day shall my spirit, as one that hath tried thee, Labor, at leisure, in art, -- till yonder beside thee My soul shall float, friend Sun, The day being done.

____ Baltimore, December, 1880.

II. Individuality.

Sail on, sail on, fair cousin Cloud: Oh loiter hither from the sea.

Still-eyed and shadow-brow'd, Steal off from yon far-drifting crowd, And come and brood upon the marsh with me.

Yon laboring low horizon-smoke, Yon stringent sail, toil not for thee Nor me; did heaven's stroke The whole deep with drown'd commerce choke, No pitiless tease of risk or bottomry

Would to thy rainy office close Thy will, or lock mine eyes from tears, Part wept for traders'-woes, Part for that ventures mean as those In issue bind such sovereign hopes and fears.

-- Lo, Cloud, thy downward countenance stares Blank on the blank-faced marsh, and thou Mindest of dark affairs; Thy substance seems a warp of cares; Like late wounds run the wrinkles on thy brow.

Well may'st thou pause, and gloom, and stare, A visible conscience: I arraign Thee, criminal Cloud, of rare Contempts on Mercy, Right, and Prayer, -- Of murders, arsons, thefts, -- of nameless stain.

(Yet though life's logic grow as gray As thou, my soul's not in eclipse.) Cold Cloud, but yesterday Thy lightning slew a child at play, And then a priest with prayers upon his lips

For his enemies, and then a bright Lady that did but ope the door Upon the storming night To let a beggar in, -- strange spite, -- And then thy sulky rain refused to pour

Till thy quick torch a barn had burned Where twelve months' store of victual lay, A widow's sons had earned; Which done, thy floods with winds returned, -- The river raped their little herd away.

What myriad righteous errands high Thy flames MIGHT run on! In that hour Thou slewest the child, oh why Not rather slay Calamity, Breeder of Pain and Doubt, infernal Power?

Or why not plunge thy blades about Some maggot politician throng Swarming to parcel out The body of a land, and rout The maw-conventicle, and ungorge Wrong?

What the cloud doeth The Lord knoweth, The cloud knoweth not.

What the artist doeth, The Lord knoweth; Knoweth the artist not?

Well-answered! -- O dear artists, ye -- Whether in forms of curve or hue Or tone your gospels be -- Say wrong 'This work is not of me, But G.o.d:' it is not true, it is not true.

Awful is Art because 'tis free.

The artist trembles o'er his plan Where men his Self must see.

Who made a song or picture, he Did it, and not another, G.o.d nor man.

My Lord is large, my Lord is strong: Giving, He gave: my me is mine.

How poor, how strange, how wrong, To dream He wrote the little song I made to Him with love's unforced design!

Oh, not as clouds dim laws have plann'd To strike down Good and fight for Ill, -- Oh, not as harps that stand In the wind and sound the wind's command: Each artist -- gift of terror! -- owns his will.

For thee, Cloud, -- if thou spend thine all Upon the South's o'er-br.i.m.m.i.n.g sea That needs thee not; or crawl To the dry provinces, and fall Till every convert clod shall give to thee

Green wors.h.i.+p; if thou grow or fade, Bring on delight or misery, Fly east or west, be made Snow, hail, rain, wind, gra.s.s, rose, light, shade; What matters it to thee? There is no thee.

Pa.s.s, kinsman Cloud, now fair and mild: Discharge the will that's not thine own.

I work in freedom wild, But work, as plays a little child, Sure of the Father, Self, and Love, alone.

____ Baltimore, 1878-9.

III. Marsh Song -- At Sunset.

Over the monstrous shambling sea, Over the Caliban sea, Bright Ariel-cloud, thou lingerest: Oh wait, oh wait, in the warm red West, -- Thy Prospero I'll be.

Over the humped and fishy sea, Over the Caliban sea O cloud in the West, like a thought in the heart Of pardon, loose thy wing, and start, And do a grace for me.