Chapter D: H. Lawrence (3)

My staff and scrip I cast away—
Light-burdened to the mountain height!
Climbing the rocky steep by day,
Kindling my fire against the night.

The bitter hail shall flower the peak,
The icy wind shall dry my tears.
Strong shall I be, who am but weak,
When bright Orion spears my fears.

Under the horned moon I shall rise
Up-swinging on the scarf of dawn.
The sun, searching with level eyes,
Shall take my hand and lead me on.

Wide flaming pinions veil the West—
Ah, shall I find? and shall I know?
My feet are bound upon the Quest—
Over the Great Divide I go.

John G. Neihardt

PRAYER FOR PAIN

I do not pray for peace nor ease,
Nor truce from sorrow:
No suppliant on servile knees
Begs here against to-morrow!

Lean flame against lean flame we flash,
O Fates that meet me fair;
Blue steel against blue steel we clash—
Lay on, and I shall dare!

But Thou of deeps the awful Deep,
Thou Breather in the clay,
Grant this my only prayer—Oh, keep
My soul from turning gray!

For until now, whatever wrought
Against my sweet desires,
My days were smitten harps strung taut,
My nights were slumberous lyres.

And howsoe’er the hard blow rang
Upon my battered shield,
Some lark-like, soaring spirit sang
Above my battle-field.

And through my soul of stormy night
The zigzag blue flame ran.
I asked no odds—I fought my fight—
Events against a man.

But now—at last—the gray mist chokes
And numbs me. Leave me pain!
Oh, let me feel the biting strokes,
That I may fight again!

ENVOI

Oh, seek me not within a tomb—
Thou shalt not find me in the clay!
I pierce a little wall of gloom
To mingle with the day!

I brothered with the things that pass,
Poor giddy joy and puckered grief;
I go to brother with the grass
And with the sunning leaf.

Not death can sheathe me in a shroud;
A joy-sword whetted keen with pain,
I join the armies of the cloud,
The lightning and the rain.

Oh, subtle in the sap athrill,
Athletic in the glad uplift,
A portion of the cosmic will,
I pierce the planet-drift.

My God and I shall interknit
As rain and ocean, breath and air;
And oh, the luring thought of it
Is prayer!

Yone Noguchi

THE POET

Out of the deep and the dark,
A sparkling mystery, a shape,
Something perfect,
Comes like the stir of the day:
One whose breath is an odor,
Whose eyes show the road to stars,
The breeze in his face,
The glory of heaven on his back.
He steps like a vision hung in air,
Diffusing the passion of eternity;
His abode is the sunlight of morn,
The music of eve his speech:
In his sight,
One shall turn from the dust of the grave,
And move upward to the woodland.