And every fair and every good, In their archetypes endure. The race of gods, Or those we erring own, Are shadows flitting up and down In the still abodes. The circles of that sea are laws Which publish and which hide the cause. Pray for a beam Out of that sphere, Thee to guide and to redeem. O, what a load Of care and toil, By lying use bestowed, From his shoulders falls who sees The true astronomy, The period of peace. Counsel which the ages kept Shall the well-born soul accept. As the overhanging trees Fill the lake with images, As garment draws the garment's hem, By right or wrong, Lands and goods go to the strong. Property will brutely draw Still to the proprietor; Silver to silver creep and wind, And kind to kind. Nor less the eternal poles There need no vows to bind Whom not each other seek, but find.' They give and take no pledge or oath,Nature is the bond of both : No prayer persuades, no flattery fawns,- When each the other shall avoid, Not with scarfs or perfumed gloves The soothing lapse of morn to mirk, Love's hearts are faithful, but not fond, THE APOLOGY THINK me not unkind and rude That I walk alone in grove and glen; I go to the god of the wood To fetch his word to men. Tax not my sloth that I Fold my arms beside the brook; Each cloud that floated in the sky Writes a letter in my book. Chide me not, laborious band, Every aster in my hand Goes home loaded with a thought. There was never mystery But 't is figured in the flowers; Was never secret history But birds tell it in the bowers. One harvest from thy field Homeward brought the oxen strong; A second crop thine acres yield, Which I gather in a song. Wellace Stevens? MERLIN I THY trivial harp will never please Or fill my craving ear; Its chords should ring as blows the breeze, No jingling serenader's art, Nor tinkle of piano strings, Can make the wild blood start In its mystic springs. The kingly bard Must smite the chords rudely and hard, As with hammer or with mace; That they may render back Artful thunder, which conveys Secrets of the solar track, Sparks of the supersolar blaze.' Merlin's blows are strokes of fate, Chiming with the forest tone, When boughs buffet boughs in the wood; Chiming with the gasp and moan Of the ice-imprisoned flood; With the pulse of manly hearts; With the voice of orators; With the din of city arts; |