Chapter III: Songs and Meditations

THE MULTITUDINOUS ONE

Behold in us the Multitudinous One, The myriad motions of Whose Being are Life and the pain of life! One Self we are, Though clothed in many forms. These laboring minds, These bodies, bruised and broken, are but strands In the eternal Body that through birth, Death, and the throes of travail without end, Renews Itself; and all our tumult is But the one Will among the many here When with fierce pity and remorseless love And with unutterable joy It strains, Seeking a passage through the bleeding web And tangled meshes of blind wills at war-- God’s Being, in act, which is Man’s agony, And glory, too: for on that agony His rapture rests; our passion is His peace, And He is woven of us, as we of Him.

MEDITATION

Evening has quieted the wind, the night Is soft around me while I sit alone And reading by calm candle-light.

The voice of a forgotten poet cries, From the clear page, up to my listening heart; And my heart listens, and replies.

And yet, even in loveliness I find No refuge from old wonder; the old thoughts And the old questions come to mind.

Was it for this the ravin and the rage, The lust and hunger of the centuries Clamored--to close in this calm page?

What blood was shed for this? What roving herds In meadowy pastures, what brave things have died To feed the music of these words?

Beauty is desolate, being the crown And end of all; to her the laboring years Lift yearning hands, and Time bows down.

The ages travail with a great unrest, In agony and ecstasy, to build The frail arch of one dolorous breast.

I will not think of this; I will read on In these calm pages. It is written here: _The Song to the Belovèd One_.

The heart that wrought it, and the cunning hand, Are stilled forever, and the poet lies, Forgotten, in a far-off land.

The iron bondage of old Time and Space Withholds me from him, whom I have not seen; Nor shall I look upon his face.

He takes his ease in the dark earth, and there Has rest from all his labors, and the night Covers him with her heavy hair.

If I could pierce into that hushed abode Of slumber and corruption, I should find The mouth from which this sorrow flowed.

It would be quiet now, for all it cried-- Quiet and imperturbable: it is With its own sleep preoccupied.

Yet, surely, in this very room it sings Miraculously to my heart to-night. How shall I understand these things?

I will not think of them; I will read on In these calm pages. It is written here: _The Song to the Belovèd One_.

The night is hushed around me while I move Darkly, with dreamy thought, from page to page, From line to line, of grief and love.

Now, in the silence of the night, I read These words, the opening of the final prayer: _Song, for thy sake with Death I plead_.

The lonely splendor of Antares shines Through the barred window, and an aphis crawls Among the letters and the lines.

He moves among them with uncertain will Fitfully, and between the words, “_I plead_,” Falters a moment--then is still.

Little he guesses what these letters are, Nor I the meaning of the trembling Word Written beyond us, star on star.

The night covers us both, and we are driven, Like leaves before the wind, through the immense And glittering wilderness of heaven.

Earth takes us with her: silently she swings Through the old orbit, bearing in her breast The drowsy mouth--the mouth that sings.

And yet, all this lives only in my mind; And when that darkens, the whole world will darken Suddenly--the whole world go blind.

All I have touched, all I have loved and known Will fail me--and the breast of Life draw back, Leaving me in the dark, alone.

O starry universe, hung in the clear Bell of my mind, be living in me now! Dwell in me for a moment here!

How often in the many minds of men Have you been born, only to pass away-- Dying with every mind again!

This is a thought that is too hard for me: It is a bitter thing to think upon, That, to myself, all this shall be

As if it had not been, when I am gone.

THE MASQUE OF BEING

The fish-hawk over the water and the gray fish that goes
Glimmering through the water--the preyer and the prey--
They follow or hasten ever; they wrestle together, they close
In the old fearful fashion, in the old fierce way.

Harsh are the rites of being, and bitter is the war
Waged between life and life by the blind will-to-be:
Yet all if they but knew it, are one--lovers they are
Who strive, each with the other, in a great mystery.

COMMUNION

Sacred is the communion of man with man Through speech: dearer than wine, dearer than bread Is the low talk around the open fire Or under the clear stars, whereby his heart Is mingled with the heart of his own kind. After the fret and turmoil of the day The tired seamstress leans into the twilight, And, in the alley, with her neighbor shares Grave nothings; while in billiard-room or bar, ’Mid thunder of laughter, the old joke goes ’round, Or ribald story. Wherever two are met, There speech is and the ancient fellowship, Making us one, who are but wanderers Upon a lonely way.

And therefore men, That death itself may not divide them forever, Have whispered to each other across the years, In rune or rhyme, ballad, fable or myth, Their passions and their sorrows; and a glory Gathers about his memory who most Has shared with us, out of his love, himself. Blessèd beyond all others are the heads Upon whose front falls the immortal gleam-- In distant lands perhaps, beyond far seas, From sun-washed islands or gray promontories, Lifted across the years to give us light-- Spirits at which our groping youth was fed, The drowsy lips from which all dreams come down, Makers of music, whisperers of secrets, Though in the darkness of the centuries Hidden away--the hands folded, the heart Quiet--still musical, still murmuring, In many a legend, many a rustling page, Sad songs and dreams that drift about the world, The old incorrigible ecstasy-- Despite all death, despite all doubt, all doom, Still passionate, still intimate with us, And full of a fierce love.

And sweet it is To sit--echoing spirit and singing spirit-- As friend with friend, by the wayside of the years, Above the dust of time and circumstance, And hear, in the lone hour of delight, The sacred things that man has said to man For comfort of his sad and wondering heart: News from a traveller on the common way-- How lies the land, whether the hills be steep Or valleys fruitful, where the waters run, Or March hides the first flower--ponderings, Praise of the road, doubt for the journey’s end Or of the purpose of the pilgrimage, (If there _be_ purpose in the pilgrimage) Questions, questions and reassurances, Words that the generations past have worn Upon their lips for love’s sake, that shall lie, Trembling, upon the lips we may not reach: The immortal Legend, the old tameless Song, Wherein, to us--who all too easily, Too often and too easily, forget-- The splendor, the unimaginable splendor, Holy and stern, of all reality, In happy moments is revealed anew; Hints of a meaning, echoes of the high Sorrowful music to which all things move, With all their warring voices, to one end, Violently. Amen--so _shall_ they move, Till Time’s lone harp fall silent, till the years Slumber, and all be as a tale long told.

THE VICTORY

I shall take flight from Death on sudden wings,
In some swift song; he shall not have me here--
For all his cunning, all his snares and slings,
I shall escape him, whom I fear.

Then, though he wander through all woods and ways,
He will not reach to _me_, out of the strong
Net of these tangled nights and days
Escaped forever in a song.

But now my wings are broken and I hide
In this tall grass, to hear his foot go by
Stealthily, stealthily--
Searching the field on either side.

Heal me, O Time, and I will rise again
On swifter wings and for a surer flight,
Remembering this pain!
So, when he comes, he shall not find me here,
By day or night--
But search forever, and in vain.

THE YEARS

My dreams wear thinner as the years go by:
The stony face of Fate into my own
Stares, with that granite look of hers; and I
Stare back, with a still face--but not of stone.

GOLGOTHA

Take me down from this cross, for now my body is broken,
And the feet pierced and the hands pierced, and in my side
The heart fails me--it breaks, and the words that I have spoken
Are as nothing; you were deceived in me, and I have lied.

Take me down, lower me from the tree--yet slowly,
My spirit is heavy and my heart sick, my flesh is sore
From the bruising and from the bitter scourging, and the holy
Dream that was in me once is in me now no more.

There is no virtue left in me, there is not any
Hope left in me to help you: if it must be done,
As it was written in the old days, that one for many
Should be uplifted--truly, I am not that one.

The nails bite deep into my flesh--shall I endure it
Longer? No longer! Loose me, take me down and lay
My body in the cool tomb, and seal it up, secure it
Against the faces, the proud faces, the blind day.

For I am tired and have need of night to cover me,
And secrecy wherein to hide my shame, and deep
Silence and solitude forevermore, and over me,
Darkness--and a lone resting-place and a long sleep.

And yet, nevertheless, perhaps a little longer
I may endure it. Father, if this thing must be,
Give me the strength. Ah yet, perhaps, a little longer ...
I will pour out Thy love upon them in my agony!

AFFIRMATION

_Poem delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, Harvard Chapter, Cambridge, June 24, 1927_