{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_54870/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_54870","id":"gutenberg_54870","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/54870","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Poetry","Poetry"],"text":"PHILOSOPHIES\n\n\n BY RONALD ROSS\n K.C.B., F.R.C.S., D.Sc., LL.D., F.R.S., C.B.\n\n\n\n\n LONDON\n JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.\n 1923\n\n\n\n\n FIRST EDITION....... _September, 1910_\n _Reprinted_..... _December, 1910_\n _Reprinted_..... _June, 1911_\n _Reprinted_..... _August, 1923_\n\n\n\n ALL RIGHTS RESERVED\n\n _Printed in Great Britain by_\n _Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._\n\n\n\n\n PREFACE\n\n\nThese verses were written in India between the years 1881 and 1899,\nmostly during my researches on malaria. Friends who have read that part\nof them which is called _In Exile_ complained that they could not easily\nfollow the movement of it; and as I am now publishing the poems together\nwith a text-book on malaria\u2014and also because I desire very strongly to\nrid my mind of this subject which has occupied it for twenty years\u2014I\ntake the opportunity to give such explanation of the work as I can find\nexpression for.\n\nIn 1881 I joined the military medical service of India, and was called\nupon to serve during the next seven years in Madras, Bangalore, Burma,\nand the Andaman Islands. Having abundant leisure, I occupied most of it\nin the study of various sciences and arts, in all of which I attempted\nsome works to the best of my ability. For this I make no excuse to my\nconscience, since to my mind art and science are the same, and efforts\nin both, however poor the result may be, are to be commended more than\nidleness. Near the end of the seven years, however, I began to be drawn\ntoward certain thoughts which from the first had occurred to me in my\nprofession, especially as to the cause of the widespread sickness and of\nthe great misery and decadence of the people of India. Racked by\npoverty, swept by epidemics, housed in hovels, ruled by superstitions,\nthey presented the spectacle of an ancient civilisation fallen for\ncenturies into decay. One saw there both physical and mental\ndegeneration. Since the time of the early mathematicians science had\ndied; and since that of the great temples art had become ornament, and\nreligion dogma. Here was the living picture of the fate which destroyed\nGreece, Rome, and Spain; and I saw in it the work of nescience\u2014the\nopposite of science. . . . Returning to Britain in 1888, I qualified\nmyself for pathological researches, and about 1890 or 1891 entered upon\na careful study of malarial fever, in the hope of finding out accurately\nhow it is caused and may be prevented. On August 20, 1897, I was\nfortunate enough to find the clue to the problem\u2014which, I believe,\nwould not have been discovered but for such good fortune; and the next\nyear I ascertained the principal facts which I had been in search of.\n\nThese poems are the notes of the wayside. As for _In Exile_, I do not\nremember the date\u2014but it was early in the course of the labour\u2014when my\nthoughts began to shape themselves into a kind of sonnet of three short\nstanzas. It was a pleasure and relief after the day\u2019s work to mould them\nthus, for each set of stanzas required a different balance and structure\nwithin its narrow limits, and was, so to speak, inscribed on small\nsquares of stone, to be put away and arranged thereafter. Later, when my\nresearches had attained to success, a sudden disastrous interruption of\nthem compelled me to set aside the verses also, and it was not until\nnine years afterwards that I found time to arrange them for rough\nprinting. They were then put nearly in the order of writing, some\nfragments being finished but most omitted. I have blamed myself for\nthis, because the omissions give to the whole a more sombre cast than is\nnatural to me, or than I had intended; but now I judge I was right in\nit. The poem, such as it is, is not a diary in verse, but rather the\nfigure of a work and of a philosophy. . . . I find I cannot rise with\nthose who would soar above reason in the chase of something supernal.\nInfinities and absolutes are still beyond us; though we may hope to come\nnearer to them some day by the patient study of little things. Our first\nduty is the opposite of that which many prophets enjoin upon us\u2014or so I\nthink. We must not accept any speculations merely because they now\nappear pleasant, flattering, or ennobling to us. We must be content to\ncreep upwards step by step; planting each foot on the firmest finding of\nthe moment; using the compass and such other instruments as we have;\nobserving without either despair or contempt the clouds and precipices\nabove and beneath us. Especially our duty at present is to better our\npresent foothold; to investigate; to comprehend the forces of nature; to\nset our state rationally in order; to stamp down disease in body, mind,\nand government; to lighten the monstrous misery of our fellows, not by\nwindy dogmas, but by calm science. The sufferings of the world are due\nto this, that we despise those plain earthly teachers, reason, work, and\ndiscipline. Lost in many speculations, we leave our house disordered,\nunkept, and dirty. We indulge too much in dreams; in politics which\norganise not prosperity but contention; in philosophies which expressly\nteach irrationalism, fakirism, and nescience. The poor fakir seated\nbegging by the roadside; with his visions\u2014and his sores! Such is\nman. . . . An old philosophy this\u2014like the opposite one. The poem\ngathers itself under it and attempts to use the great symbols of that\nwonderful Land, the drought, the doubt, the pains of self, the arid\nlabour, the horrors of whole nations diseased, the crime of Nescience,\nparodying God\u2019s words, and the victory of His thunder and rain.\n\nThe dated stanzas near the end, except the first two lines of the second\nquatrain, were written the day after the discovery of the parasites of\nmalaria in mosquitos. There are some repetitions, and I fear worse\nfaults; but it is too late to mend them. I am much indebted to Mr. John\nMasefield and Mrs. Masefield for assisting me in the correction of the\nproofs.\n\n THE AUTHOR.\n DECEMBER 2, 1909.\n\n\n\n\n CONTENTS\n\n\n PRELUDES\n\n INDIA.............................. 1\n THOUGHT............................ 2\n SCIENCE............................ 2\n POWER.............................. 3\n DOGMA.............................. 4\n FROTH.............................. 4\n LIBERTY............................ 5\n THE THREE ANGELS................... 5\n\n APOLOGUES\n\n RETURN............................. 6\n THE STAR AND THE SUN............... 6\n THE WORLD\u2019S INHERITORS............. 7\n DEATH-SONG OF SAVAGERY............. 9\n OCEAN AND THE DEAD................. 10\n OCEAN AND THE ROCK................. 11\n THE BROTHERS....................... 12\n ALASTOR............................ 13\n\n LABOURS\n\n SONNET............................. 15\n VISION............................. 16\n THOUGHT AND ACTION................. 18\n THE INDIAN MOTHER.................. 20\n GANGES-BORNE....................... 20\n INDIAN FEVERS...................... 21\n THE STAR........................... 21\n PETITION........................... 22\n\n IN EXILE\n\n PART I............................. 23\n DESERT......................... 23\n PART II............................ 26\n VOX CLAMANTIS.................. 26\n SELF-SORROWS................... 29\n EXILE.......................... 30\n PART III........................... 32\n SOUL-SCORN..................... 32\n RESOLVE........................ 33\n DESERT-THOUGHTS................ 33\n THE GAINS OF TIME.............. 35\n INVOCATION..................... 36\n DESPAIRS....................... 37\n PART IV............................ 38\n INDURATION..................... 38\n WISDOM\u2019S COUNSEL............... 39\n IMPATIENCE..................... 40\n WORLD-SORROWS.................. 40\n PHILOSOPHIES................... 41\n LIES........................... 43\n TRUTH-SERVICE AND SELF-SERVICE. 43\n WRATHS......................... 45\n VISION OF NESCIENCE............ 45\n PART V............................. 46\n THE DEEPS...................... 46\n LOSS........................... 47\n PART VI............................ 49\n DEATH.......................... 49\n PART VII........................... 51\n THE MONSOON.................... 51\n REPLY.......................... 53\n\n P\u00c6ANS\n\n MAN................................ 55\n LIFE............................... 56\n WORLD-SONG......................... 56\n\n Transcriber\u2019s Notes can be found at the end of this eBook.\n\n * * * * *\n\n PRELUDES\n\n INDIA\n\n Here from my lonely watch-tower of the East\n An ancient race outworn I see\u2014\n With dread, my own dear distant Country, lest\n The same fate fall on thee.\n\n Lo here the iron winter of curst caste\n Has made men into things that creep;\n The leprous beggars totter trembling past;\n The baser sultans sleep.\n\n Not for a thousand years has Freedom\u2019s cry\n The stillness of this horror cleaved,\n But as of old the hopeless millions die,\n That yet have never lived.\n\n Man has no leisure but to snatch and eat,\n Who should have been a god on earth;\n The lean ones cry; the fat ones curse and beat,\n And wealth but weakens worth.\n\n O Heaven, shall man rebelling never take\n From Fate what she denies, his bliss?\n Cannot the mind that made the engine make\n A nobler life than this?\n\n Madras, 1881.\n\n * * * * *\n\n THOUGHT\n\n Spirit of Thought, not thine the songs that flow\n To fill with love or lull Idalian hours.\n Thou wert not nurtured \u2019mid the marish flowers,\n Or where the nightshade blooms, or lilies blow:\n But on the mountains. From those keeps of snow\n Thou se\u00ebst the heavens, and earth, and marts and towers\n Of teeming man; the battle smoke that lours\n Above the nations where they strive below;\u2014\n The gleam of golden cohorts and the cloud\n Of shrieking peoples yielding to the brink\u2014\n The gleam, the gold, the agony, the rage;\n The civic virtue of a race unbow\u2019d;\n The reeling empire, lost in license, sink;\n And chattering pigmies of a later age.\n\n 1881-2.\n\n * * * * *\n\n SCIENCE\n\n I would rejoice in iron arms with those\n Who, nobly in the scorn of recompense,\n Have dared to follow Truth alone, and thence\n To teach the truth\u2014nor fear\u2019d the rage that rose.\n No high-piled monuments are theirs who chose\n Her great inglorious toil\u2014no flaming death;\n To them was sweet the poetry of prose,\n But wisdom gave a fragrance to their breath.\n Alas! we sleep and snore beyond the night,\n Tho\u2019 these great men the dreamless daylight show;\n But they endure\u2014the Sons of simple Light\u2014\n And, with no lying lanthorne\u2019s antic glow,\n Reveal the open way that we must go.\n\n 1881-2.\n\n * * * * *\n\n POWER\n\n Caligula, pacing thro\u2019 his pillar\u2019d hall,\n Ere yet the last dull glimmer of his mind\n Had faded in the banquet, where reclined\n He spent all day in drunken festival,\n\n Made impious pretence that Jove with him,\n Unseen, walk\u2019d, talk\u2019d and jested; for he spoke\n To nothing by his side; or frown\u2019d; or broke\n In answering smiles; or shook a playful rim\n\n Of raiment coyly. \u2018Earth,\u2019 he said, \u2018is mine\u2014\n No vapour. Yet Caligula, brother Jove,\n Will love thee if he find thee worthy love;\n If not, his solid powers shall war with thine\n\n And break them, God of Cloud.\u2019 The courtiers round,\n As in the presence of two deities, bent\n In servile scorn: when, like a warning sent,\n An utterance of earthquake shook the ground,\n\n Awful, but which no human meaning bore.\n With glaring eyeballs narrowing in dismay,\n The huddled creature fallen foaming lay,\n Glass\u2019d in the liquid marbles of the floor.\n\n 1881-2.\n\n * * * * *\n\n DOGMA\n\n To a poor martyr perisht in the flame\n Lo suddenly the cool and calm of Heaven,\n And One who gently touch\u2019d and tended, came.\n \u2018For thee, O Lord,\u2019 he cried, \u2018my life was given.\u2019\n\n When thus the Pitiful One: \u2018O suffering man,\n I taught thee not to die, but how to live;\n But ye have wrongly read the simple plan,\n And turn to strife the Heav\u2019nly gift I give.\n\n I taught the faith of works, the prayer of deeds,\n The sacrament of love. I gave, not awe,\n But praise; no church but God\u2019s; no form, no creeds;\n No priest but conscience and no lord but law.\n\n Behold, my brother, by my side in Heaven\n Judas abhor\u2019d by men and Nero next.\n How then, if such as these may be forgiven,\n Shall one be damn\u2019d who stumbles at a text?\u2019\n\n 1881-2.\n\n * * * * *\n\n FROTH\n\n This bubbling gossip here of fops and fools,\n Who have no care beyond the coming chance,\n Rough-rubs the angry soul to arrogance\n And puts puff\u2019d wisdom out of her own rules.\n True, knowledge comes on all winds, without schools,\n And every folly has her saw: perchance\n Some costly gem from silliest spodomance\n May be unash\u2019d; and mind has many tools.\n But still, love here rains not her heav\u2019nly dew,\n Nor friendship soothes the folly-fretted sense;\n But pride and ignorance, the empty two,\n Strut arm-in-arm to air their consequence,\n And toil bleeds tears of gold for idle opulence.\n\n 1881-2.\n\n * * * * *\n\n LIBERTY\n\n When Cassius fell and Brutus died,\n Resentful Liberty arose,\n Where from aloft the mountain snows\n She watch\u2019d the battle\u2019s breaking tide;\n And as she rent her azure robe\n Darkness descended o\u2019er the globe.\n\n \u2018Break never, Night,\u2019 she cried, \u2018nor bring\n Before I come again the morn\n With all her heav\u2019nly light, for scorn\n Of this base world so slumbering;\n Where men for thrice five hundred years\n Their sin shall mourn, and me, in tears.\u2019\n\n 1882.\n\n * * * * *\n\n THE THREE ANGELS\n\n Heav\u2019n vex\u2019d in heaven heard the World\n And all the grief thereof, and sent\n The angel Strength. Swift he unfurl\u2019d\n His wings and flasht his sword and went:\n But still the cry of Earth rang to the firmament.\n\n Then gentle Love, most loved in heaven,\n Heav\u2019n sent to Earth. His large eyes shone,\n Upcast with glory from God given,\n And darkening downward from the Throne\n He fell: nor bated yet the far terrestrial moan.\n\n Then all the host of heav\u2019n, amazed,\n Cried, \u2018Next let Wisdom go and prove\n Himself and conquer.\u2019 But he raised\n His face and answer\u2019d, \u2018Heav\u2019n above,\n Like them, alone I fail; send with me Strength and Love.\u2019\n\n 1882.\n\n * * * * *\n\n APOLOGUES\n\n * * * * *\n\n RETURN\n\n Muse, in my boyhood\u2019s careless days\n My rev\u2019rence for thee was not small,\n Altho\u2019 I roam\u2019d by Star and Sea\n And left thee, seeking other ways\u2014\n I left thee, for I knew that all\n Return by Sea and Star to thee.\n\n Not worthy he to hear thy song,\n Him thou thyself despisest most,\n Who dares not leave thee and arise\n To face the World\u2019s discordant throng;\n Since thou\u2019rt best gain\u2019d by being lost,\n And Earth is in thy Heav\u2019nly eyes.\n\n 1886-7.\n\n * * * * *\n\n THE STAR AND THE SUN\n\n In Darkness, and pacing the Thunder-Beat Shore\n By many Waves,\n No sound being near to me there but the hoarse\n Cicala\u2019s cry,\n While that unseen Sword, the Zodiacal Light,\n Falchion of Dawn,\n Made clear all the Orient, wanning the Silvery Stars,\n\n I heard the fine flute of the Fast-Fading Fire,\n The Morning Star,\n Pipe thus to the Glimmering Glories of Night,\n And sing, O World,\n If I too must leave thee then who can remain?\n But lo! from the Deep\n The Thundering Sun upsprang and responded, I.\n\n Andamans, 1886-7.\n\n * * * * *\n\n THE WORLD\u2019S INHERITORS\n\n God gazing down from Heaven saw the World.\n Mighty, himself a heav\u2019n, he fill\u2019d the heavens.\n His beard fell like a wasted thunder at eve,\n And all his robe was woven with white stars,\n And on his breast a star.\n\n The World was dark. Deep in a forest there,\n Where not the rill that routed in the wood\n Dared break the silence, nor one murmur of night\n Wound to the stagnant, chill, and listening air,\n Five children slumbering lay.\n\n One ruddy as the red grapes of the south;\n One duskier, breather of more burning air;\n One blue-eyed, blond, and golden-crown\u2019d with locks;\n One finely fashion\u2019d in an even mould;\n And one hard wrought as steel.\n\n Lord of the Woods their Sire; enormous, rough,\n Hair-tangled like the north-bear: but his Mate\n Queen of a myriad palaces that shone\n With chalcedon and jasper, justly wrought,\n And gems of jewel\u2019d stone.\n\n Who when he saw her won her; loved her well;\n By her abhor\u2019d: and so he slew her then,\n And gazed upon her beauty dead, and died\n Himself, lamenting his wild woods. And these\n Their wondrous offspring were.\n\n Europe, A.D. 500.\n\n The World beheld them and adored\u2014adored,\n And fear\u2019d, and sought to slay them; for\n The battle-brood of gods is battle-born.\n But they endured; nor in the thunder found\n Harm, or the bolt of death.\n\n And God look\u2019d down and spake, and thro\u2019 the Earth\n The murmur ran, terranean like the shock\n When central earthquakes jar, until the Deep\n Foams tingling to the ic\u00e8d poles; and said,\n To these I give the World.\n\n Andamans, 1886-7.\n\n * * * * *\n\n DEATH-SONG OF SAVAGERY\n\n I have heard it\u2014I have heard the Forest\n Strive to bring me comfort, and the Ocean\n Roll large-tongued consolation round me.\n I have heard the weakling Wildbirds crying,\n And the wailing Winds proclaim me brother.\n I have heard these things and yet I perish.\n\n From the Flowers, the myriad mouths of Forest,\n Honey\u2019d words have come, and from the Billows,\n Bursting, issue of sweet cheering voices.\n In this Midnight and moon-glamour\u2019d Darkness,\n Winds and Wildbirds crying give me pity;\n But, altho\u2019 I hear them, lo! I perish.\n\n For a mighty Voice rolls thro\u2019 my Spirit,\n Crying, As thou wert, so art, and shalt be,\n Ever and for ever and for ever,\n Son of Midnight and moon-glamour\u2019d Darkness,\n Rayless, lightless, and thy One Star faded,\n Child of Night and Ocean, till thou perish.\n\n Andamans, 1886-7.\n Epilogue to the author\u2019s romance The Child of Ocean.\n\n * * * * *\n\n OCEAN AND THE DEAD\n\n THE DEAD: \u2018Dost dare to rouse us from our sleep,\n Eternal, given of God, O Deep?\u2019\n\n OCEAN: \u2018A thunder on your bones! In life\n You waged with me your pigmy strife.\u2019\n\n THE DEAD: \u2018Living, but humble mariners we;\n Dead, Ocean, what are we to thee?\u2019\n\n OCEAN: \u2018You hoped to find within your graves\n Eternal refuge from my waves.\u2019\n\n THE DEAD: \u2018Living, we faced thee full of fears;\n Dying, thy roar was in our ears.\u2019\n\n OCEAN: \u2018Dead, I will break your bones for ever.\n Man may forgive, but Nature never.\u2019\n\n Andamans, 1886-7.\n\nIn 1740 the cemeteries of Dunwich were laid bare by the sea.\n\n * * * * *\n\n OCEAN AND THE ROCK\n\n THE ROCK: \u2018Cease, O rude and raging Sea,\n Thus to waste thy war on me.\n Hast thou not enough assail\u2019d,\n All these ages, Fool, and fail\u2019d?\u2019\n\n OCEAN: \u2018Gaunt and ghastly Skeleton,\n Remnant of a time that\u2019s gone,\n Tott\u2019ring in thy last decay\n Durst thou still to darken day?\u2019\n\n THE ROCK: \u2018Empty Brawler, brawl no more;\n Cease to waste thy watery war\n On my bastion\u2019d Bases broad,\n Sanctified by Time and God.\u2019\n\n OCEAN: \u2018Thou that be\u00ebst but to be,\n Scornest thou my energy?\n Not much longer lasts the strife.\n I am Labour, I am Life.\u2019\n\n THE ROCK: \u2018Roar, then, roar, and vent thy Surge;\n Thou not now shalt drone my dirge.\n Dost imagine to dismay\n This my iron breast with Spray?\u2019\n\n OCEAN: \u2018Relic of primeval Slime,\n I shall whelm thee in my time.\n Changeless thou dost ever die;\n Changing but immortal I.\u2019\n\n Andamans, 1886-7.\n\n * * * * *\n\n THE BROTHERS\n\n Beneath Socotra, and before\n The mariner makes the Libyan shore,\n Or him the Doubtful Cape beguiles,\n Black in the Night two dreadful Isles.\n By Allah chain\u2019d to Ocean\u2019s bed,\n Each shows above an awful head,\n And front to front, envisaged, frown\n To frown retorts\u2014by loud renown\n The Brothers. But no love between:\n Tho\u2019 bound, they nurse a mutual spleen;\n And, when the thundering Waves engage\n In battle, vent immortal rage.\n\n DARZ\u00c9: \u2018Ho! Thro\u2019 the Midnight learn my hate.\n When God releases, then thy fate.\u2019\n\n SAMH\u00c9: \u2018When God unbinds thy fetter\u2019d feet,\n For mercy him, not me, entreat.\u2019\n\n DARZ\u00c9: \u2018Dost think, because thy head is high,\n That thou art more divine than I?\u2019\n\n SAMH\u00c9: \u2018Because thy looks are earthward given\n Thou hatest one who looks to Heaven.\u2019\n\n DARZ\u00c9: \u2018Because thou gazest at the Sun\n Think\u2019st thou thou art the nobler one?\u2019\n\n SAMH\u00c9: \u2018For them who with the Stars converse\n There is no better and no worse.\u2019\n\n DARZ\u00c9: \u2018So! hold thy old philosophy!\n Truth and the World enough for me.\n For humble Truth was born on Earth,\n But Lies, forsooth, have better birth!\u2019\n\n SAMH\u00c9: \u2018I watch the white Stars rise and fall;\n I hear the vanish\u2019d Eagles call;\n For me the World is but a Sod;\n I strive to see the eyes of God.\u2019\n\n 1888.\n\n The islands about which this legend is told are known as Jez\u00edrat\n Darz\u00e9 and Jez\u00edrat Samh\u00e9, east of Cape Gardafui\u2014one high and the\n other low.\n\n * * * * *\n\n ALASTOR\n\n \u2019Tis said that a noble youth of old\n Was to his native village lost,\n And to his home, and ag\u00e8d sire;\n For he had wander\u2019d (it is told)\n Where, pinnacled in eternal frost,\n Apollo leads his awful Choir.\n\n Awful, for nought of human warms\n The agony of their song sublime,\n Which like the breath of ice is given\n Ascending in vapour from all forms,\n Where gods in clear alternate chime\n Reveal their mystery-thoughts to Heaven.\n\n Nor in those regions of windless cold\n Is fiery the Sun, tho\u2019 fierce in light;\n But frozen-pale the numb\u00e8d Moon\n Wanders along the ridges that fold\n Enormous Peaks, what time the Night\n Rivals with all her stars the Noon.\n\n For there, not dimly as here, the Stars,\n But glob\u00e8d and azure and crimson tinct,\n Climb up the windless wastes of snow,\n Gold-footed, or thro\u2019 the long-drawn bars\n Of mountain mist, with eyes unblink\u2019d\n And scorn, gaze down on the World below;\n\n Or high on the topmost peak and end\n Of ranges stand with sudden blaze,\n Like Angels born in spontaneous birth;\n Or wrap themselves in flame and descend\n Between black foreheads of rock in haze,\n Slowly, like griev\u00e8d gods to earth.\n\n And there for ever the patient Wind\n Rakes up the crystals of dry snow,\n And mourns for ever her work undone;\n And there for ever, like Titans blind,\n Their countenance lifting to Heaven\u2019s glow,\n The sightless Mountains yearn for the Sun.\n\n There nightly the numb\u00e8d eagle quells\n (Full-feather\u2019d to his feet of horn)\n His swooning eye, his eyrie won,\n And slumbers, frozen by frosty spells\n Fast to the pinnacle; but at Morn\n Unfetter\u2019d leaps toward the Sun.\n\n . . . . .\n\n He heard, he saw. Not to the air\n Dared breathe a breath; but with his sight\n Wreak\u2019d on Immortals mortal wrong,\n And dared to see them as they were\u2014\n The black Peaks blacken\u2019d in their light,\n The white Stars flashing with their song.\n\n So fled. But when revealing Morn\n Show\u2019d him, descended, giant-grown,\n Men ant-like, petty, mean and weak,\n He rush\u2019d, returning. Then in scorn\n Th\u2019 Immortals smote him to a Stone\n That aches for ever on the Peak.\n\n 1888.\n\n * * * * *\n\n LABOURS\n\n * * * * *\n\n SONNET\n\n High Muse, who first, where to my opening sight,\n New-born, the loftiest summits of the world,\n Silent, with brows of ice and robes unfurl\u2019d\n Of motionless thunder, shone above the night,\n Didst touch my infant eyes and fill with light\n Of snow, and sleepless stars, and torrents hurl\u2019d,\n And fragrant pines of morning mist-empearl\u2019d,\n And music of great things and their delight:\n Revisit me; resume my soul; inspire\n With force and cold out of the north\u2014not given\n To sickly dwellers in these southern spots,\n Where all day long the great Sun rolls his fire\n Intol\u2019rable in the dusty march of heaven,\n And the heart shrivels and the spirit rots.\n\n Madras, 1890.\n\n * * * * *\n\n VISION\n\n A valley of far-fallen rocks,\n Like bones of mouldering mountains, spread,\n And ended by the barren blocks\n Of mountains doom\u2019d or dead:\n No rivage there with green recess\n Made music in that wilderness.\n\n Despairing fell the sore-spent Sun,\n And cried, \u2018I die,\u2019 and sank in fire;\n Like conquering Death, the Night came on\n And ran from spire to spire;\n And swollen-pale ascended soon,\n Like Death in Life, the leprous Moon.\n\n On windy ledges lined with light,\n Between the still Stars sparsely strewn,\n Two Spirits grew from out the Night\n Beneath the mistless Moon,\n And held deep parley, making thought\n With words sententious half distraught.\n\n One full-robed; in his hand a book;\n His lips, that labour\u2019d for the word,\n Scarce moved in utterance; and his look\n Sought, not his face who heard,\n But that Sad Star that sobs alway\n Upon the breast of dying Day.\n\n One, weary, with two-handed stress\n Leant on his shoulder-touching spear\n His beard blown o\u2019er the hairiness\n Of his great breast; and clear\n His eyes shot speculation out\n To catch the truth or quell the doubt.\n\n 1. \u2018The dreams of Hope, of blue-eyed Hope,\n Melt after morn and die in day;\n Love\u2019s golden dew-globe, lit aslope,\n Dulls with a downward ray;\n Canst thou with all thy thought renew\n The flying dreams or drying dew?\u2019\n\n 2. \u2018Not I creator. Hour by hour\n I labour without stress or strife\n To gain more knowledge, greater power,\n A nobler, longer life.\n By thought alone we take our stand\n Above the world and win command.\u2019\n\n 1. \u2018Know, Knowledge doth but clip our wings,\n And worldly Wisdom weaken worth,\n To make us lords of little things,\n And worm-gods of the earth.\n Were earth made Heaven by human wit,\n Some wild star yet might shatter it.\u2019\n\n 2. \u2018The wings of Fancy are but frail,\n And Virtue\u2019s without Wisdom weak;\n Better than Falsehood\u2019s flowery vale,\n The Truth, however bleak.\n Tho\u2019 she may bless not nor redeem,\n The Truth is true, and reigns supreme.\u2019\n\n 1. \u2018Not all, but few, can plead and prove\n And crown their brows with Truth and pass;\n Their little labours cannot move\n The mountain\u2019s mighty mass.\n To man in vain the Truth appeals,\n Or Heav\u2019n ordains, or Art reveals.\u2019\n\n 2. \u2018So self-consuming thought. But see\n The standards of Advance unfurl\u2019d;\n The buds are breaking on the lea,\n And Spring strikes thro\u2019 the world.\n Tho\u2019 we may never reach the Peak,\n God gave this great commandment, Seek.\u2019\n\n . . . . .\n\n The ponderous bolts of Night were drawn;\n The pale Day peer\u2019d thro\u2019 cloudy bars;\n The Wind awoke; the sword of Dawn\n Flasht thro\u2019 the flying Stars;\n The new-born Sun-Star smote the Gloom:\n The Desert burst in endless Bloom.\n\n Bangalore, 1890.\n\n * * * * *\n\n THOUGHT AND ACTION\n\n The Angel of the Left Hand spake. His speech\n Fell as when on some shuddering arctic beach\n The icy Northern creeps from reach to reach\n\n And curdles motion and with thrilling spell\n Fixes the falling ripple. \u2018Peace and quell,\u2019\n He said, \u2018the action not matur\u00e8d well.\n\n What scorn to build with labour, round on round,\n And lay the costly marbles, when \u2019tis found\n The whole design at last inapt, unsound!\n\n Beware the bitter moment when awake\n We view the mischief that our visions make\u2014\n The good things broken in a mad mistake.\n\n But rather use the thought that is divine;\n And know that every moment of design\n Will save an hour of action, point for line.\n\n And leave to others loss or victory;\n And like the stars of heaven seek to be\n The wise man\u2019s compass but beyond the sea.\u2019\n\n Then He upon the Right. His words came forth\n Like the full Southern blowing to the north.\n \u2018The time is come,\u2019 he said, \u2018to try thy worth.\n\n For when Thought\u2019s wasted candles wane and wink,\n And meditations like the planets sink,\n The sun of Action rushes from the brink.\n\n Stand not for ever in the towers of Thought\n To watch the watery dawning waste to nought\n The distant stars deluding darkness brought.\n\n Not timorous weak persuasion, but the brand\n Of Action\u2014not discussion, but command\u2014\n Can rouse the ranks of God and storm the land,\n\n Where men who know the day still doze again;\n Not walls of dust can dam th\u2019 outrageous main,\n Nor mitigation seize the world and reign.\n\n Fear not. Unsheath the naked falchion. Try\n The end. For in the end, who dares deny,\n The utter truth shall slay the utter lie.\u2019\n\n Bangalore, 1890-3.\n\n * * * * *\n\n THE INDIAN MOTHER\n\n Full fed with thoughts and knowledges sublime,\n And thundering oracles of the gods, that make\n Man\u2019s mind the flower of action and of time,\n I was one day where beggars come to take\n Doles ere they die. An Indian mother there,\n Young, but so wretched that her staring eyes\n Shone like the winter wolf\u2019s with ravening glare\n Of hunger, struck me. For to much surprise\n A three-year child well nourish\u2019d at her breast,\n Wither\u2019d with famine, still she fed and press\u2019d\u2014\n For she was dying. \u2018I am too poor,\u2019 she said,\n \u2018To feed him otherwise\u2019; and with a kiss\n Fell back and died. And the soul answer\u00e9d,\n \u2018In spite of all the gods and prophets\u2014this!\u2019\n\n Bangalore, 1890-3.\n\n * * * * *\n\n GANGES-BORNE\n\n The fingers which had stray\u2019d\n Thro\u2019 shining clusters of his children\u2019s hair\n Now lifeless moved, and play\u2019d\n With horrible tresses of the ripples there;\n His eyes, as if he pray\u2019d,\n Were cast beneath long eyelids, wan and spare.\n\n Rock\u2019d by the roaring flood,\n He seem\u2019d to speak as in debate with doom,\n Uplooking, while the flood\n Bore him with thunder to the ocean foam.\n God\u2019s face, a luminous cloud,\n Look\u2019d thro\u2019 the midnight, black, and horrible gloom.\n\n Bangalore, 1890-3.\n\n * * * * *\n\n INDIAN FEVERS\n\n In this, O Nature, yield I pray to me.\n I pace and pace, and think and think, and take\n The fever\u2019d hands, and note down all I see,\n That some dim distant light may haply break.\n\n . . . . . .\n\n The painful faces ask, can we not cure?\n We answer, No, not yet; we seek the laws.\n O God, reveal thro\u2019 all this thing obscure\n The unseen, small, but million-murdering cause.\n\n Bangalore, 1890-3.\n\n * * * * *\n\n THE STAR\n\n Far across the Loneland, far across the Sea,\n Far across the Sands, O silver shining\n Sister of the Silence, Sister of the Dew,\n Sister of the Twilight, lighten me.\n\n Ever art thou beaming. I, with eyes upcast,\n Gazing worn and weary from this Dark World,\n Ask of thee thy Wisdom, steadfast Eye of God,\n That I be as Thou art while I last.\n\n 1890-3.\n\n * * * * *\n\n PETITION\n\n Truth, whom I hold divine,\n Thy wings are strong to bear\n Thro\u2019 day or desperate night;\n For, ever those eyes of thine,\n Fix\u2019d upward full of prayer,\n Are seeking for the light.\n\n Guide me and bear. Descend\n Into the sulphurous void\u2014\n Tho\u2019 I so weak, thy wings\n Stronger than him who, pen\u2019d\n In hell unmerited, buoy\u2019d\n Poets past infernal springs.\n\n Take me and bear. Descend\n Into these deeps of death,\n Wherever the light may lead,\n Wherever the way may wend;\n And give to my failing breath,\n O Spirit, thy words of deed.\n\n 1890-3.\n\n * * * * *\n\n IN EXILE\n\n * * * * *\n\n\n\n\n I\n\n\n * * * * *\n\n DESERT\n\n I\n\n This profit yet remains\n Of exile and the hour\n That life in losing gains\n Perhaps a fuller flower.\n\n Not less the prun\u00e8d shoot,\n Not less the barren year,\n Which yields the perfect fruit,\n Which makes the meaning clear.\n\n For on this desert soil\n A blessing comes unsought\u2014\n Space for a single toil,\n Time for a single thought.\n\n When in distractions tost,\n Since oft distractions claim\n For moments never lost\n Of each its higher aim,\n\n We live, we learn the wealth\n The joyous hours may bring,\n But jealous time by stealth\n Puts all of it to wing;\n\n Pursuing empty arts\n We gain no noble goal,\n And lose, in learning parts,\n The grandeur of the whole.\n\n If Patience, pouring tears\u2014\n She cannot but lament\n The long unfruitful years\n Of exile, idly spent\u2014\n\n Have patience, she will find\n They were not all in vain,\n But each has left behind\n A little store of gain\u2014\n\n A wider wisdom bought\n With labour; problems solved;\n The themes of inner thought\n More thoroughly revolved.\n\n So one who entertain\u2019d\n The prosperous of the earth;\n No good from any gain\u2019d,\n But lost his wealth and worth;\n\n In wrath he gather\u2019d round\n The indigent and old;\n Each wretch, amazed he found,\n Had left a gift of gold.\n\n So one who sought a land\n Where all the earth is ore;\n But had he sifted sand\n He would have gather\u2019d more.\n\n\n II\n\n The Sun arose and took\n The lofty heav\u2019ns of right;\n From out the heav\u2019ns he shook\n The pestilence of his light.\n\n He paced upon his path\n And from his right hand hurl\u2019d\n The javelins of his wrath,\n Contemptuous of the world.\n\n Before his scornful lips\n The forests fell down dead,\n And scowling in eclipse\n Disbanding thunders fled.\n\n He fills the hills with fire\n And blasts the barren plain;\n He hath stript the stricken briar,\n And slain the thorn again.\n\n He cracks the rocks, and cakes\n The quagmires into crust,\n And slays the snake, and makes\n The dead leaf writhe in dust.\n\n He halts in heav\u2019n half way\n And blackens earth with light;\n And the dark doom of day\n Lies on us like the night.\n\n A Land of clamorous cries;\n Of everlasting light;\n Of noises in the skies\n And noises in the night.\n\n There is no night; the Sun\n Lives thro\u2019 the night again;\n The image of the Sun\n Is burnt upon the brain.\n\n O God! he still returns;\n He slays us in the dust;\n The brazen Death-Star burns\n And stamps us into dust.\n\n\n III\n\n The air is thunder-still.\n What motion is with us?\n Deep shocks of thunder fill\n The deep sky ruinous;\n\n As if, down lumbering large\n Upon these desert tracts,\n He had fallen about the marge\n In cloudy cataracts.\n\n And spot by spot in dust\n The writhing raindrops lie,\n And turn like blood to rust\u2014\n Writhe, redden, shrink, and dry.\n\n A Land where all day long,\n Day-long descanting dirge,\n The heavy thunders hang\n And moan upon the verge;\n\n Where all day long the kite\n Her querulous question cries,\n And circles lost in light\n About the yellow skies;\n\n And thou, O Heart, art husht\n In the deep dead of day,\n Half restless and half crusht,\n Half soaring too away.\n\n Day-long the querulous kite\n Her querulous question cries,\n And sails, a spot of night,\n About the vasty skies.\n\n The puff\u2019d cheeks of typhoons\n Blow thro\u2019 the worthless clouds\n That roll in writhing moons\n In skies of many moods,\n\n None fruitful; and the clouds\n Take up the dust and dance\n A dance of death and shrouds\u2014\n Mock, mow, retire, advance.\n\n IV\n\n Where is the rain? We hear\n The footsteps of the rain,\n Walking in dust, and, near,\n Dull thunders over the plain.\n\n Cloud?\u2014dust. The wind awakes;\n The base dust we have trod\n Smokes up to heaven and takes\n The thunderings of God.\n\n No rain. The angry dust\n Cries out against the rain;\n The clouds are backward thrust;\n The monstrous Sun again.\n\n We hoped the rain would fall\n After the dreadful day,\n For we heard the thunders call\n Each other far away.\n\n We hoped for rain because\n After thunder rain is given;\n And yet it only was\n The mockery of heaven.\n\n He is the lord of us;\n He will unconquered sink,\n Red, but victorious,\n And smoking to the brink.\n\n Shout, barren thunders, shout\n And rattle and melt again!\n So fall the fates about,\n So melt the hopes of men.\n\n Rattle aloft and wake\n The sleepers on the roofs,\n Wild steeds of heav\u2019n, and shake\n Heav\u2019n with your echoing hoofs.\n\n Awake the weary at night\n Until they cry, \u201cThe rain!\u201d\u2014\n Then take to tempestuous flight\n And melt into air again.\n\n\n V\n\n This is the land of Death;\n The sun his taper is\n Wherewith he numbereth\n The dead bones that are his.\n\n He walks beside the deep\n And counts the mouldering bones\n In lands of tumbling steep\n And cataracts of stones.\n\n About his feet the hosts\n Of dead leaves he hath slain\n Awaken, shrieking ghosts\n Demanding life again.\n\n O silent Sepulchre,\n Great East, disastrous clime;\n O grave of things that were;\n O catacombs of time;\n\n O silent catacombs;\n O blear\u2019d memorial stones;\n Where laughing in the tombs\n Death plays with mouldering bones;\n\n And through dead bones the stalk\n Of the living herb is thrust;\n And we, the living, walk\n In wastes of human dust.\n\n Dust\u2014thou art dust. Thy Sun,\n Thy lord, and lord of dust,\n Doth stamp thee into one\n Great plain of dust; and dust\n\n Thy heav\u2019ns, thy nights, thy days;\n Thy temples and thy creeds;\n Thy crumbling palaces;\n Thy far forgotten deeds,\u2014\n\n Infinite dust. Half living,\n We clothe ourselves in dust\n And live, not to be living,\n But because we must.\n\n Thy winds are full of death;\n Death comes we know not whence;\n Thy forests have a breath\n Of secret pestilence;\n\n Thy rivers rolling large\n Are blest with no sweet green,\n But silent at the marge\n The waiting monsters seen.\n\n No scented silence, eve,\n But night a noisy gloom;\n And we thy captives live,\n The derelicts of doom.\n\n * * * * *\n\n\n\n\n II\n\n\n * * * * *\n\n VOX CLAMANTIS\n\n I\n\n Long, long the barren years;\n Long, long, O God, hast thou\n Appointed for our tears\n This term of exile. Lo,\n\n Life is but nothing thus:\n Old friendships perish\u00e8d;\n Not hand in hand with us\n The dying father dead;\n\n Narrow\u2019d the mind that should\n Thro\u2019 all experience range\n And grow; in solitude\n Unheard the wheels of change.\n\n When sadly numbering\n The wasted golden hours\n Our fate hath put to wing,\n That had perchance been ours\n\n To have seen, to have known, to have trod\n About from pole to girth\n This heritage of God,\n This wondrous sculptured earth,\n\n Seeing that never again\n The usurer Time gives back,\n How should we not complain\n This Present, barren-black?\n\n We said, \u2018We must not mourn;\n The end is always good;\n Well past the pain well borne.\u2019\n But Sorrow in her mood\n\n Would not be comforted,\n And cried, \u2018I know the truth;\n Where are the distant dead,\n And where the wasted youth?\n\n Let Wisdom take her ground\n And Hope do what she can;\n Ill heals the dreadful wound\n That severs half a man.\u2019\n\n Sorrow, not so beguiled,\n Would take my hand and lead,\n But waiting Wisdom smiled\n And took my hand instead,\n\n And answered, \u2018Well I rede\n The shackled win the goal;\n The body\u2019s strengthener Need,\n And Sorrow of the soul.\n\n But mine the part be given\n To guide and hers to follow,\n And so win thro\u2019 to heaven.\u2019\n And Sorrow said, \u2018I follow.\u2019\n\n\n II\n\n To sadness and to self\n We should not enter in\u2014\n Sadness the shadow of self\n And self the shadow of sin\u2014\n\n Unless because the whole\n Of human life appears\n Clear only when the soul\n Is darken\u2019d thro\u2019 with tears.\n\n The day too full of light\n With light her own light mars;\n But in the shading night\n The shining host of stars.\n\n That, leaving manhood, men\n Should kiss the hands of grief\n And, loving but the wen,\n The wart, the wither\u2019d leaf,\n\n Amass a hoard of husks\n When joy is in the corn\n Nor ever evening dusks\n Without the tints of morn,\n\n Informs with doubt if good\n Be, or omnipotent;\n Since in the brightest blood\n This idle discontent.\n\n Joy, jester at herself,\n And happiness, of woe,\n If self at peace with self\n Know not, when shall he know?\n\n So one, a prosperous man;\n Nightly the people fill\n His toast, and what he can\n Is only what he will.\n\n They shout; his name is wed\n With thunders; torches flare;\n Tost in a wretched bed\n He chews a trifling care.\n\n\n III\n\n One says in scorn, \u2018The strife\n To live well keeps us well,\n And \u2019tis the unworthy life\n That makes the prison cell.\u2019\n\n And one, \u2018An angel stood\n On sands of withering heat;\n The flowerless solitude\n Grew green beneath his feet.\u2019\n\n A third, \u2018Many would lief\n Endure thy solitude\n As else. Ascribe thy grief\n To poison in the blood.\u2019\n\n And I, \u2018O Soul, content\n Yet in thine exile dwell,\n And live up to thy bent.\n Not more than well is well;\n\n But take the sports divine,\n The largesse of the earth;\n Wind-drinking steeds be thine\n And blows\u00e8d chase\u2014the mirth\n\n Of those who wisely draw\n Their lives in nature\u2019s vein\n And live in the large law,\n Of slaying or being slain.\n\n \u2018Or learn by looking round.\n Lift up thine eyes. Avow\n The gardener of thy ground\n Doth worthier work than thou.\n\n From his poor cot he wends\n At early break of day;\n His pretty charges tends\n In his unskilful way.\n\n Much wearied with his toil\n He labours thro\u2019 the hours,\n And pours upon the soil\n Refreshment for his flowers.\n\n \u2018Tho\u2019 bent with aged stoop,\n To him no rest is given,\n But the heads of those that droop\n He raises up to heaven.\n\n Half ready for the grave,\n His weakness he forgets,\n More scrupulous to save\n The breath of violets.\n\n But at the evening hour\n When he shall seek repose,\n The voice of every flower\n Will bless him as he goes.\u2019\n\n * * * * *\n\n SELF-SORROWS\n\n I\n\n These stones that idly make\n An idle land and lie,\n Fantastic forms, or break\n Down crumbling hills not high\n\n In arid cataracts\n Where meagre cattle stray\n To search the meagre tracts\n Of bitter grass: for aye\n\n They move not, live not, lie\n Dull eyes that watch the world,\n And exiles asking why\n God brought them here or hurl\u2019d.\n\n We would we could have torn\n This winding web of fate\n Which round us barely born\n Hath bought us to this state\n\n Of being cast away\n Among these tombs. The river\n Of life here day by day\n Runs downward slower ever\n\n Into black washes. True\n Yet holds our destiny\u2014\n To live a year or two,\n Look round us once and die.\n\n If we should try to trace\n In portions, line by line,\n The beauty of a face\n To know why thus divine,\n\n Seeing but many curves,\n We miss the inner soul\n And find no part deserves\n That merit of the whole.\n\n And so to analyse\n Thy mournful spirit vain,\n O Exile; but our sighs\n Suffice to prove the pain.\n\n To grow from much to more\n In knowledge, and to put\n A power to every power,\n A foot before a foot,\n\n Toward that goal of good\n That glimmers thro\u2019 the night\n Above the time and mood,\n A star of constant light;\n\n At last to meet the dark,\n The goal not reach\u2019d indeed,\n But full of hours and work,\n Are, Exile, not thy creed.\n\n And less to leap to catch\n The spinning spokes of change;\n In our brief life to snatch\n All aspects and to range\n\n Full-face with every view;\n To sit with those who toil,\n Great spirits, toiling too;\n Still less to fan or foil\n\n Those fires that, rushing fast\n Thro\u2019 all the people\u2019s life,\n Break roaring round the past\n In renovating strife.\n\n If in the energic West\n Man ever grows more large,\n Like ocean without rest\n Exploring at the marge,\n\n Here lower yet he turns\n For ever downward thrust\u2014\n The baleful Sun-God burns\n And breaks him into dust;\n\n Or like his native plains\n Where nothing new appears,\n Or hath appeared, remains\n Unchanged a thousand years.\n\n\n II\n\n Tho\u2019 sorrows darkly veiled\n At all men\u2019s tables (nor\n The guests make question, paled,\n Nor children hush before\n\n Those presences of grief)\n Sit, yet to all men due\n Due rights; the sweet relief\n Of home; the friendship true;\n\n The dying word; to feel\n Their country in their keep;\n To heave along the wheel,\n And push against the steep.\n\n But in this wilderness,\n Wed to a rock or two,\n What joys have we to bless?\n Far, far, our friends and few;\n\n And thou, O happy Land,\n We dream of thee in vain\u2014\n One moment see, then stand\n Within this waste again.\n\n The great earth in her zones\n Matureth day by day;\n But we, like waiting stones,\n Know time but by decay.\n\n Grief hath a shadow, shame;\n And manhood, meanly tost\n In woes without a name\n And sorrows that are lost,\n\n Look\u2019d at, when in the streets\n True sorrow, seal\u2019d with sores\n And wrap\u2019d in rags, entreats\n A charity from ours,\n\n Manhood can best control;\n But this dark exile hath\n Worse wounds, and of the soul\u2014\n A misery and a wrath.\n\n * * * * *\n\n EXILE\n\n I\n\n Happy the man who ploughs\n All day his native croft;\n He looks to heaven and knows,\n Smiling, the lark aloft.\n\n Happy the man whose toil\n Leads on laborious hills;\n The rock beneath the soil\n The measure of his ills.\n\n Happiest, who can go forth\n Thro\u2019 every age and clime,\n His home the whole of earth,\n His heritage all time.\n\n In vasty Wilds and with\n No crimson petals pranckt\n The shallow briars breathe\n And bloom and die unthankt.\n\n And we the useless Briar,\n And round us Desert spread\n The red Sun rolls his fire\n And smites the Desert dead;\n\n Death, Silence, and the Star\n With scornful nostrils curl\u2019d;\n And half-forgotten, far,\n The movements of the world.\n\n\n II\n\n One hour released I rusht\n About the world again;\n The living thousands crusht;\n The streets were full of rain;\n\n I felt the north wind sting\n And glory\u2019d in the sleet;\n I heard my footsteps ring\n Along the frosty street;\n\n And saw\u2014less seen than felt\u2014\n Swift-flashing Italy,\n And that bright city built\n Upon the mirroring Sea.\n\n\n III\n\n My country, my England, home,\n Are thy flowers bright, thy bells\n Ringing the spring welcome,\n The winter long farewells?\n\n Are thy fields fair\u2014each flower\n Fill\u2019d with the heav\u2019nly dew,\n My country, at this hour\n When I am thinking of you?\n\n Art thou so far, so fair?\n Across what leagues of foam,\n My country? Art thou still there,\n My England, my country, my home?\n\n\n IV\n\n This hateful desert land\n Is pent by a great sea\n That booms upon the strand\n For ever. Salt the sea\n\n And salt the shore; the thorn\n And cactus stand and gaze\n Upon these waves; new-born\n The young grass ends her days;\n\n Straightly the beach is lined.\n I wander to the shore.\n The sunset dies behind,\n The full moon springs before.\n\n Of these great Deeps that link\n The land I love with this,\n I wander to the brink,\n I watch the waters kiss\n\n This lonely shore. O Waves,\n O Winds and Waters, where\n My country? Sing, O Waves,\n And tell me of it here.\n\n O Night? O Moon that comest,\n A sad face fronting mine?\n O dusking Deep that boomest,\n What tidings of it thine?\n\n\n V\n\n O Homeland, at this hour\n What joys are thine? This moon\n What lovers in what bower\n Sees? and what jocund tune\n\n From smoky villages\n Is heard? What homely light\n Shines welcome through the trees?\n What watch-dog barks delight?\n\n What lingering linnet flings\n Her good-night in the air?\n What honeysuckle rings\n Her chime of fragrance there?\n\n One moment, and I see\n The cot, the lane, the light,\n The moon behind the tree,\n The evening turn to night;\n\n One moment know the scent\n Of smoke of fragrant fires,\n And hear the cattle pent\n Within the wattled byres.\n\n One moment\u2014and I wake;\n The vision fades and falls;\n These lifeless deserts make\n Me adamantine walls.\n\n * * * * *\n\n\n\n\n III\n\n\n * * * * *\n\n SOUL-SCORN\n\n No cloak of cloudy wrack\n The mistless mystery mars,\n But all the desert is black\n Beneath the quivering stars.\n\n I hear the pinions creak\n Of night-birds, beating by;\n And lost hyaenas shriek\n Unto the spectral sky.\n\n The Stars, immortal Sons\n Of God, are full of fire;\n But we, rejected ones,\n Know heav\u2019n but in desire.\n\n My Soul said, \u2018Art thou dead?\n The chasm of night is riv\u2019n;\n What dost thou see?\u2019 I said,\n \u2018The full-fired fires of heav\u2019n.\u2019\n\n \u2018Look not but see,\u2019 he said.\n I said, \u2018I know not whether\n They are the hosts of God\n Clashing their spears together.\n\n So bright the stars appear\n Their splendour smokes in heav\u2019n;\n I think indeed I hear\n Their distant voices ev\u2019n.\u2019\n\n He said, \u2018See not but know.\u2019\n I said, \u2018I cannot see;\n I think perhaps they go\n To some great victory.\u2019\n\n He said, \u2018For ever they go,\n Still onward, on and on;\n And that is why they know\n The victory\u2019s clarion.\u2019\n\n I said, \u2018I am too weak\n To do more than I must.\u2019\n He said, \u2018Then cease to seek\n And perish in the dust.\u2019\n\n * * * * *\n\n RESOLVE\n\n Bound in misfortune\u2019s bands,\n Blindfold and brought to nought,\n I would reach out my hands\n And touch eternal thought.\n\n I cannot choose but try\n Behind these prison bars\n To measure earth and sky\n And know the whole of stars;\n\n And what I rede I write,\n Vain visions as they rise,\n Vain visions of the night,\n Unworthy others\u2019 eyes.\n\n I said, \u2018Tho\u2019 dungeon\u2019d here\n In these deep dens of night,\n My soul shall persevere\n To seek supernal light;\n\n Untainted Truth to know\n From that fair face of Lies\n Whose heav\u2019nly features glow\n Like Truth\u2019s, save in the eyes;\n\n Till, after all these years,\n The wisdom come unsought\n To see the stars as spheres\n And sound the bounds of thought.\u2019\n\n * * * * *\n\n DESERT-THOUGHTS\n\n I hold with them who see\n Nor only idly stand\n The deed of thought to be\n Worth many deeds of hand.\n\n Ever as we journey sink\n The old behind the new,\n And Heav\u2019n commands we think\n As justly as we do.\n\n One golden virtue more\n Than virtue we must prize,\n One iron duty more\n Than duty, to be wise.\n\n Who to himself hath said,\n \u2018This chamber must be closed;\n This tract of truth I dread,\n This darkness God-imposed\n\n May not be lifted,\u2019 keeps\n An ever-open door\n Thro\u2019 which deception creeps,\n Confounding more and more,\n\n Until to wild extremes\n Of falsehood driv\u2019n he dies,\n Intoxicate with dreams\n And drunk with a thousand lies.\n\n And more if he have taken\n A secret lie for friend,\n He shall be found forsaken,\n And terrible his end.\n\n So one doth travelling ride;\n A dreadful forest fears;\n Rejoiced at length a guide\n He meeteth unawares.\n\n With thunder overthrown\n Day dies in solitude;\n The guide, a monster grown,\n Devours him in the wood.\n\n Idle and base the cry\n \u2018If it be so, so be it;\n But if it be so, then I\n Will look not lest I see it.\u2019\n\n Or this, \u2018If it be so\n We lose this thing or that;\n \u2019Twere better not to know.\u2019\n The lightning spareth not\n\n The timorous soul who hides\n His head in danger thus:\n The iron fact abides;\n Things were not made for us.\n\n Who answers, who repines?\n Not he who works in love,\n But he who thinks divines\n The thing he cannot prove.\n\n He takes his stand and rolls\n The phrase he hopes for Heav\u2019n,\n But cheats the hungry souls\n And gives them bread of leav\u2019n.\n\n His ears are filled with wax,\n His bandaged eyeballs blind,\n And yet no doubts perplex,\n And he can see the wind.\n\n Though all in science good,\n By incessant question found,\n Beyond it strayed we brood\n And argue round and round;\n\n And where we hoped the end,\n Such distance we have come,\n Amazed we only find\n The point we started from;\n\n And fancies, like the breath\n We utter, do but prove\n A cloud above, beneath,\n To fog us as we move.\n\n We climb from cloud to cloud\n The airy precipice;\n Fain would we reach to God;\n We fall thro\u2019 the abyss.\n\n The vapours will not bear.\n Wild-clutching we are hurl\u2019d\n Thro\u2019 measurements of air\n Again upon the world.\n\n Clear rings the answer high,\n \u2018The mystery makes itself;\n The mystery is a lie;\n Be cleansed and know thyself.\u2019\n\n If with unshaken will,\n Resolving not to stray\n But to be rising still,\n We clamber day by day\n\n From truth to truth, at last,\n In valleys of the night\n Not lost, we know the vast\n And simple upper light,\n\n Only one labouring knows.\n The base, tumultuous wreck\n Of rock and forest shows;\n The summit, a single peak.\n\n So sought, so seen, so found.\n And what the end so high?\n A summit splendour crown\u2019d\n Between the earth and sky,\n\n Where with sidereal blaze\n The mistless planets glow,\n And stars unsully\u2019d gaze\n On unpolluted snow.\n\n No strife the vast reveals\n But perfect peace indeed\u2014\n The thunder of spinning wheels\n At rest in eternal speed.\n\n * * * * *\n\n THE GAINS OF TIME\n\n Loll\u2019d in the lap of home;\n Full-fed with fruits of time\n Ripen\u2019d on labour\u2019d loam\n By others, since the prime;\n\n Ingrate, we give no thought\n To all these golden things\n The toiling past hath brought,\n The toiling present brings.\n\n But on this silent shore\n And waste barbarian,\n We hear the engines roar\n And mind the might of man.\n\n So one in savage lands:\n He enters all alone;\n No weapon in his hands.\n The secret spears unthrown,\n\n The creepers lose their guile,\n Seeing his face, distrest\n They know not why. A smile,\n A sign or two, a jest,\n\n And all on bended knees\n Withhold the savage stroke.\n With beating heart he sees\n The lessening steamer-smoke.\n\n He draws a power to be\n From powers sacrificed;\n And in his eyes we see\n The teaching of the Christ,\n\n And all the great beside,\n The oracles of time\n From Delphic clefts have cried\n Or crasht in thundering rhyme.\n\n A book his finger parts;\n He moves thro\u2019 adverse cries;\n Master of many arts\n And careless of the skies.\n\n What are thy mighty deeds,\n O Past, thy gains, O Time?\n A dust of ruin\u2019d creeds,\n A scroll or two of rhyme?\n\n A temple earthquake-dasht?\n A false record of things?\n A picture lightning-flasht\n Of cruel eyes of kings?\n\n No, these: a wiser rule;\n A science of ampler span;\n A heart more pitiful;\n More mind; a nobler man.\n\n * * * * *\n\n INVOCATION\n\n I\n\n Thee most we honour, thee,\n Great Science. Hold thy way.\n The end thou canst not see,\n But in the end the day.\n\n Seek without seeking ends,\n And shatter without ruth;\n On thee our fate depends;\n Be faithful, keep the truth.\n\n We think it false to dream\n Beyond the likely fact;\n We grant thee, Truth, supreme,\n Whatever thou exact.\n\n I pray thee, Truth, control\n My destiny distraught,\n And move my sightless soul\n In thy high ways of thought.\n\n Hold thou my hand. I go\n Wherever thou wilt guide,\n Tho\u2019 bleak the bitter snow\n And black the mountain side.\n\n Or if thou bid\u2019st descend,\n I fear not for myself,\n Tho\u2019 raging thunders rend\n And lightnings lash, the gulf.\n\n My deeds I will endow,\n My spirit render clean,\n O Truth, with thee; and thou\n Wilt make the desert green;\n\n And haply show withal\n The wells that will not sink,\n Sweet pastures for the soul,\n And in the desert drink.\n\n Confounded by these briars,\n Thy stars will compass me\n And be the beacon fires\n To light mine eyes to thee.\n\n\n II\n\n But in my state infirm\n That Spirit comes and cries\n To me in wrath, \u2018O worm,\n They see not who have eyes,\n\n How thou that hast not? Know,\n My children drink the sun,\n Taking them wings to go\n Where others walk or run:\n\n Yet scarcely one life-taught\n Can ever rightly heed\n The issue of a thought\n Or do a fruitful deed.\u2019\n\n * * * * *\n\n DESPAIRS\n\n I\n\n I call no curse on fate,\n I call no curse on thee,\n O barren bitter state\n Of exile, such to me.\n\n I would but only this:\n I wish that I could go\n And see the thing that is,\n And, seeing, better know;\n\n And take things in my hand\n And find if false or fit;\n But in this far-off land\n What hope is there of it?\n\n There is no hope of it;\n I see but sad despair,\n Unless it may be writ\n God cureth care by care.\n\n So one in prison thrust;\n He ages span by span,\n But in the prison dust\n Becomes a better man.\n\n So one is blind from birth;\n All day he sitteth still;\n He cannot see the earth,\n But heaven when he will.\n\n\n II\n\n I thought that I might rise\n And, looking to the stars,\n Lift up my blinded eyes\n And bless God unawares,\n\n In words whose merit this\u2014\n Poor buds of blighting air\u2014\n To know no loveliness\n But breathe the scent of prayer;\n\n Since Heaven hath decreed\n Who suffers lives with God,\n And he who writes indeed\n Must write in his own blood\n\n I thought, tho\u2019 fetter\u2019d fast,\n I yet might move my hands\n To cast or to recast\n Some labour\u2014sift the sands\n\n For knowledge\u2014search the vast\n Some hidden hope to find\u2014\n Perhaps to help at last\n The cause of humankind.\n\n O hope abandon\u2019d! Not\n In me the worth or wit.\n God gave this lowly lot\n Because I merit it.\n\n In humble ways I move\n Myself to little things;\n The heated hands I prove,\n I watch the light that springs\n\n Or fades in fever\u2019d eyes;\n My only solace here,\n Not to be rich or wise\n But to have done with fear.\n\n God sees the silent space\n Where footstep never trod;\n And in the lonely place\n The listener is God.\n\n * * * * *\n\n\n\n\n IV\n\n\n * * * * *\n\n INDURATION\n\n Deep, deep in league with Fate,\n Fate fast in league with Sorrow,\n And Sorrow with my state,\n I would that I could borrow,\n\n O Deep, a depth from thee,\n O Fate, thy fix\u00e8d calm,\n O Sorrow, what to me\n Thou givest not, thy balm;\n\n That I might worthier show\n A scorn of your controls,\n And let Misfortune know\n Iron chains make iron souls.\n\n If chain\u2019d we could but take\n Contagion from the steel,\n And wisdom\u2019s mantle shake\n Around us head to heel,\n\n And chill the eyes and rest\n No longer violent,\n The steel, still more imprest,\n Would banish discontent.\n\n The strongest chains are burst\n When we have done with care;\n A joy lives in the worst,\n A gladness in despair.\n\n So when great clouds all night\n Hold high debate of thunder\n In awful tones that fright\n The huddled cities under;\n\n And roar their rage and move\n About the breadths of space,\n And sudden flashes prove\n The madness in their face;\n\n At length, when break of day\n Shows heav\u2019nly peace newborn,\n They muttering melt away\n Before the might of morn.\n\n * * * * *\n\n WISDOM\u2019S COUNSEL\n\n I\n\n But Wisdom wearying said,\n \u2018I know a nobler way.\n Let Fate with Sorrow wed\n And give the Deep his day;\n\n But turn thine eyes and see\n With some more love sincere\n The prisoners that with thee\n Are also dungeon\u2019d here\u2014\n\n The pale flower in the chink,\n The spider at the grate,\n The bird that comes to drink\n His tollage from thy plate.\u2019\n\n Grief, sitting sad\u2019ning still\n With cold eyes inward cast,\n Looks round the empty will\n And dreary chambers vast\n\n Of thought. She cannot sit;\n She loathes her selfish tears;\n She looks once more without,\n And lo! worse grief appears.\n\n Her tears bechidden freeze;\n She watches the world\u2019s need,\n And deeper sorrow sees,\n And that that weeps indeed.\n\n There is no misery\n Attired in mourning wear,\n Worse misery may not see,\n And that that goeth bare.\n\n We have no heavy cross\n To some one\u2019s is not small;\n We weep no heavy loss\n But some one weeps his all;\n\n And not the grief unseen,\n And not the aching mind,\n Cries like the sorrow seen\n And shivering in the wind.\n\n\n II\n\n Half stun\u2019d I look around\n And see a land of death\u2014\n Dead bones that walk the ground\n And dead bones underneath;\n\n A race of wretches caught\n Between the palms of Need\n And rub\u2019d to utter naught,\n The chaff of human seed;\n\n And all like stricken leaves,\n Despondent multitudes\n The wind of winter drives\n About the broken woods.\n\n The toiler tills the field,\n But at his bosom coil\u2019d\n The blood-leach makes him yield\n The pence for which he toil\u2019d,\n\n And grows and drops off fat\n From these poor breathless ones,\n Who know not this or that\n But work themselves to bones;\n\n And this one fever\u2019d flags,\n And that one hopeless tries,\n Or uncomplaining drags\n A giant leg, and dies.\n\n * * * * *\n\n IMPATIENCE\n\n Vain drug! If I am sick\n Can others\u2019 sickness heal?\n Or dead, death make me quick?\n I care not what they feel.\n\n What reck I? Let me go.\n Is not my bosom full?\n The sorrow that I know\n Makes others\u2019 sorrow dull.\n\n I will shut up the soul,\n For only joy is just.\n Stones with the river roll,\n And we ev\u2019n as we must.\n\n Why should I think of thee,\n O Wisdom, and thy lies?\n Better laugh and foolish be\n Than laugh not and be wise.\n\n The wild-birds heed thee not;\n Of thee no torrents roar;\n The deep seas know no jot\n Of all thy little lore;\n\n But man who cannot \u2019scape\n To follow thee and trust,\n Thou takest by the nape\n And grindest in the dust.\n\n * * * * *\n\n WORLD-SORROWS\n\n I\n\n Lo! here accurs\u00e8d caste\n Hath made men things that creep;\n The beggars totter past,\n The baser sultans sleep;\n\n The limping lepers crawl,\n The tricking traders cheat;\n The lean ones cry and fall,\n The fat ones curse and beat;\n\n Never hath freedom\u2019s cry\n The stifling stillness cleaved;\n The hopeless millions die\n That yet have never lived.\n\n No noble god of earth,\n Man can but snatch and eat;\n Starvation murders worth,\n Wealth makes the beast complete.\n\n What horror here! Is this\n Thy revelation, Truth?\n I shake at the abyss.\n What hunger, rage, and ruth,\n\n How hopeless! Heaven, we men\n Are not the gods we think!\u2014\n Base pismires of the fen\n That fight and bite and sink.\n\n\n II\n\n O myriad-childed Mother,\n Sitting among their graves\n Who thee and one another\n Have made for ever slaves,\n\n Great East; O aged Mother,\n Too old for Fear and Hope\u2014\n Fear that is Pleasure\u2019s brother,\n And Sorrow\u2019s sister, Hope\u2014\n\n As erst in ages gone,\n So now, thou art half dead,\n Thy countenance turned to stone\n By an eternal dread.\n\n With lips that dare not move\n And awful lids apart,\n While yet faint pulses prove\n The life about thy heart,\n\n Thou sitt\u2019st at dreadful gaze\n Into the dreadful Vast:\n For thou canst well appraise\n The future by the past,\n\n Where thou beholdest Death\n Confound and desolate,\n And men like ants beneath\n The giant feet of Fate.\n\n\n III\n\n Are these thy mighty deeds,\n O Past, thy gains, O Time?\n This wrack of ruin\u2019d creeds,\n This scroll or two of rhyme?\u2014\n\n A temple earthquake-dasht;\n A false record of things;\n A picture, lightning-flasht,\n Of cruel eyes of kings;\n\n A mangled race that bleeds\n In cruel custom\u2019s claws,\n Besotted by their creeds,\n And murder\u2019d by their laws?\n\n Right easily understood\n Fate\u2019s lesson is, tho\u2019 slow;\n She takes a nation\u2019s blood\n To jot a word or two.\n\n And for sufficient space\n To write a line of hers,\n She wipes away a race\n And dashes down the verse,\n\n And cries, \u2018So much to each,\n And man may mark or not;\n But what I choose to teach\n Shall never be forgot.\u2019\n\n * * * * *\n\n PHILOSOPHIES\n\n I\n\n If it be not to be,\n Or being be in vain,\n That high philosophy\n Shall ever counsel men\n\n To mend this mindless state\n In which, as in the East,\n We drift on floods of fate,\n As helpless as the beast,\n\n Then here the issue is\u2014\n Look on this land and weep\u2014\n A race as ruin\u2019d as this,\n A misery as deep.\n\n\n II\n\n Seeing how pent we are\n Within our human ways,\n That save in ceaseless war\n We cannot spend our days,\n\n In struggle each with each\n To get a breathing space,\n While Heaven, out of reach,\n Looks on with scornful face;\n\n I wonder, for man\u2019s sake,\n Cannot that mind of his\n Which made the engine make\n A better state than this?\n\n Here sitting in my place\n There comes to me unsought\n The beautiful sad face\n Of this undying thought.\n\n And with it as in scorn\n The present state descried\n Of monsters heaven-born\n And angels crucify\u2019d,\n\n Where, scourged to unnatural toil,\n In palsy\u2019d posture bent,\n Man creeping near the soil\n Forgets the firmament.\n\n\n III\n\n Since, since we first began\n To measure near and far,\n And know that the thoughts of man\n His chiefest actions are,\n\n A thousand cries in sooth\n Call us thro\u2019 time amain,\n And every cry a truth\n And every truth a gain,\n\n And yet the needful task,\n To mend this state withal,\n Remains undone; we ask,\n What is the good of all?\n\n Do, cries the lofty seer;\n Believe, the prelate cries;\n Be, beauty\u2019s priest austere\n Persuades. The man replies,\n\n \u2018We have three beds at home\n Where eight of us must lie;\n Three blankets and one room,\n My children, wife and I.\n\n All day our work we mind;\n But little money gain;\n At night the wintry wind\n Whines thro\u2019 the window-pane.\u2019\n\n So one doth read at ease\n With comfortable wine\n Devout philosophies\n That say, for him, divine,\n\n To be, to bear, to act,\n To know oneself, be strong,\n Are all the heav\u2019ns exact.\n He answers, \u2018I am strong;\n\n I fear not any fate;\n I do; I nobly bear.\u2019\n A beggar at his gate\n Cries in the bitter air.\n\n * * * * *\n\n LIES\n\n I\n\n Come, lie to us, let us glow;\n Pour out the red wine; speak;\n Pour out the sweet lies\u2014so\n We shall be warm and sleek.\n\n Tell us in manner high\n The flattering things that soothe;\n But hush the outer cry\n And crush the inner truth.\n\n What matters all the din\n Of truth\u2014discordant cries?\n We quaff the joyous wine\n And lap ourselves in lies.\n\n The lordly anthem peals\n The while the people rot;\n The gilded church reveals\n The penury of their lot.\n\n No matter\u2014let them starve!\n The gorgeous mass atones;\n These glorious arches serve\n To sepulchre their bones.\n\n Come, hymn the dying wretch\n With p\u00e6ans on the harps;\n Nard and vermilion fetch\n To paint and scent the corpse.\n\n\n II\n\n Into the hand of man,\n When by the gods first form\u2019d,\n They gave this talisman,\n The dull stone Reason, arm\u2019d\n\n With which to brave the skies\n And make the earth his throne.\n But to his infant eyes\n A brighter treasure shone\u2014\n\n The tinsel Fancy, flame\n Illusive; and alas,\n He flung away the gem\n And took the glittering glass.\n\n\n III\n\n Vain, vain the visions\u2014vain,\n Dreams that intoxicate\n In the dark day when men\n Come face to face with fate.\n\n Not out of knowledge grown\n The empty dogmas rise,\n But gilded bubbles blown\n From the foul froth of lies.\n\n Cease! Let the lies be hurl\u2019d\n Back to the darkling past.\n Truth, only, saves the world,\n And Science rules the vast.\n\n * * * * *\n\n TRUTH-SERVICE AND SELF-SERVICE\n\n I\n\n Alas! we know not what\n Withholds us from the goal\n For ever; an inner rot\n Consumes the seeing soul.\n\n Only the truth will serve;\n But he who follows it,\n And finds, has not the nerve\n To rule the world with it.\n\n The cunning keep the crown;\n And fate decrees that he\n Who lives with truth alone\n Shall win no victory.\n\n\n II\n\n Not to be granted great,\n Not to be crowned in youth,\n His soul is passionate\n With anger for the truth.\n\n He feels the spirit-drouth,\n He seeks the mad emprise\n To mock the mocking mouth\n And smite the lips of lies.\n\n Not his the happy guile\n To veil the flinching eye,\n Here where we sit and smile\n To hear each other lie.\n\n But ours to live, forsooth;\n We keep a decent face\n And seize the skirts of truth\n And skip into a place;\n\n With bearded wisdom thence\n Our noble plan unfold\n For gathering good\u2014pretence\n Indeed for gathering gold.\n\n But he\u2014he cannot rise;\n He slowly falls apart;\n For all these human lies\n Are needles in his heart.\n\n He has the truth, he thinks;\n He shivers in his rags;\n The laughing liar chinks\n His bursting money-bags\n\n Of lie-begotten pelf,\n And climbs the ladder of lies\n To fortune\u2014for himself,\n And not for wisdom, wise.\n\n We crown the charlatan;\n But show to him who shapes\n A priceless work for man\n The gratitude of apes.\n\n So one with toil hath writ\n The work which is his life.\n Being poor, he has no wit;\n His reader is his wife;\n\n They live in direst need;\n No fortunate patron shows\n The work for men to read;\n He dies, and no one knows.\n\n A jealous rival burns\n The work he will not save;\n The buried poet turns\n And mutters in his grave.\n\n III\n\n Old Ape, old Earth, we smile,\n Thou ancient Land of Lies,\n At all thy simple guile,\n Thy wisdom that\u2019s not wise.\n\n Scum of the populace,\n The chatterer, cheat, and fool,\n Thou puttest in high place\n To scourge thee and to rule;\n\n But him who thee hath given\n The good food of the land\n Or water out of heaven\n Thou bitest in the hand.\n\n * * * * *\n\n WRATHS\n\n My soul is full of fire,\n Wrath and tempestuous dirge;\n I feel but one desire,\n To find a sword and scourge:\n\n Since man, by right of birth\n And nature\u2019s gift at least\n A god upon the earth,\n Remaineth but a beast,\n\n Ill-ruling, blind and halt,\n And not by powers\u2019 unknown,\n Or far-off Heaven\u2019s, fault,\n But chiefly by his own.\n\n Lies!\u2014let us drink them up,\n The sweet and bitter lies!\n Man takes the maddening cup\n And drinks and dreams and dies.\n\n Pure as revealing morn\n The angel Truth stands there;\n But we, oh basely born!\n Dare not to look at her.\n\n Not by eternal laws\n Condemn\u2019d to eternal ruth,\n We suffer; but because\n We dare not face the truth.\n\n We wreath and sanctify us\n To the inferior gods;\n For things which vilify us\n We lash ourselves with rods.\n\n We rip our veins and bleed\n Before the gods of mire;\n For Moloch, without need,\n Consume our babes in fire;\n\n But the greatest God of all\n In eternal silence reigns;\n To His high audience-hall\n No human soul attains.\n\n * * * * *\n\n VISION OF NESCIENCE\n\n I\n\n A vision of the night.\n I started in my bed.\n A finger in the night\n Was placed upon my head.\n\n A ray of corruption, blue\n As in encharnel\u2019d air\n On corpses comes. I knew\n A Death, a Woman there.\n\n Delirious, knee to knee,\n They drank of love like wine,\n He skeleton thin, and she\n Most beautiful, most divine.\n\n He with his eyes half warm\u2019d\n Out of their wan eclipse\n With lipless kisses storm\u2019d\n Upon her living lips,\n\n And like a vulture quaff\u2019d,\n And raised his hideous head\n With joy aloft, and laugh\u2019d\n Like vultures sipping blood.\n\n The purple, fold by fold,\n Fell from her, and, unseen,\n The diadem of gold\n By which I knew her queen.\n\n Nor he unknown: for at\n His feet the fiery brand\n And freezing fetters that\n Endow him with command.\n\n And on his head a crown\n Of thirsty thorns of flame\n That flicker\u2019d up and down\n In words that went and came\n\n Like God\u2019s, \u2018I am of God\u2019;\n And said, \u2018Duty to me\n Is duty unto God\u2019;\n And said, \u2018Come unto me,\n\n And I will give you rest.\u2019\n Then as I wonder\u2019d, lo!\n I saw the Woman waste\n To nothing; and he, as tho\u2019\n\n Blood nourisht by her blood,\n Grow grosser in the gloom\n And leprous like the toad\n That battens in the tomb.\n\n And both corrupted pined.\n And lo! a voice that wept,\n And then a faint far wind\n Of laughter; and I slept.\n\n\n II\n\n Methought the heav\u2019ns were crusht;\n A myriad angels stood;\n A wind of thunder rusht\n Before the feet of God.\n\n He spake: \u2018Accurs\u00e8d men,\n I find your earth a hell;\n Show me what ye have done;\n I bade ye order well.\u2019\n\n They said, \u2018Well we have pray\u2019d,\n Lord, and for Heaven\u2019s hope\n A thousand temples made.\u2019\n And His lightning lickt them up.\n\n * * * * *\n\n\n\n\n V\n\n\n * * * * *\n\n THE DEEPS\n\n I\n\n Spirit, tho\u2019 without a name,\n Great, the left hand of God;\n Who coolest the quick flame\n And bendest back the rod\n\n His awful right hand bears,\n Till the dull worm of earth\n No worse in darkness fares\n Than things of brighter birth,\n\n Nor in the lapse of hell\n All everlasting gloom,\n Help us to suffer well\n These dark days of our doom.\n\n Swift Smiter of extremes,\n Who only lettest us live;\n Who feedest with bright dreams\n At midnight, and dost give\n\n Even to the poorest wretch\n Of this distressful land\n A draught, a rag, a stretch\n Of soil, a loving hand,\n\n Ours too the guardian Thou;\n And if no other good\n Thou wilt bestow, endow\n At least with fortitude.\n\n II\n\n Long, long the barren years.\n A deeper darkness grows;\n The road-side tree appears\n No more; the shadows close.\n\n Lost, I sit down with night\n And weave night-horrors here\u2014\n Sad voices heard in flight,\n And warnings in the air,\n\n And convocations of thunder\n Above tumultuous woods,\n And white stars weeping under\n Black threatening of clouds.\n\n * * * * *\n\n LOSS\n\n I\n\n Death too hath come with Sorrow.\n Sorrow enough to-day\n Brings Death with her to-morrow,\n Unwelcome guest, to stay\n\n With us. If I be sick\n I know not, care not, and\n The night is very thick;\n My tract of toil is sand.\n\n Hated the daily toil;\n Hated the toil I loved;\n Daily the worthless soil\n Sinks back as it is moved.\n\n\n II\n\n I seized the hands of Grief;\n I would not thus be thrown;\n But Death came like a thief\n Behind and seized my own\n\n I held debate with Pain,\n And half persuaded her;\n Then came the utterance plain\n Of Death, the Answerer.\n\n \u2018Cryest thou so before\n Thou sufferest?\u2019 he said;\n \u2018Wait yet a little more\n And thou shalt cry indeed.\u2019\n\n Sorrow so darkly veiled\n Will take my hand and lead.\n O Wisdom, thou hast failed,\n And Sorrow, she must lead;\n\n And Death with her. He goes\n Before and readeth plain\n The painful list of those\n Dear ones whom he hath slain.\n\n They fail, they fall, they sink,\n Torn from the treacherous sands;\n The deeps of death they drink\n And reach out madden\u2019d hands.\n\n A mist across the deep\n Of future and of past,\n The rock whereon we creep,\n The present we hold fast,\n\n Visible alone. Around,\n The rolling wreathes of fog;\n The unseen surges sound;\n Dead eyes are in the fog.\n\n We have no airy scope;\n We are not things that fly;\n We are but things that grope\n From hand to hand and die.\n\n Not many friends, O God,\n Ours, and so far, so dear.\n So far that less manhood,\n Losing, can nobly bear\n\n The loss, as, having, more\n Must love. What bitter loss\n To us so distant. For\n No dying word to us;\n\n No hand in ours; not even\n To see the well-known spot,\n The room, the chair is given;\n To visit the sacred plot.\n\n * * *\n\n\n III\n\n O Lily that to the lips\n Pal\u2019st at the name of death,\n And with\u2019rest in eclipse,\n And yieldest a sickly breath:\n\n And Rose that sheddest thy leaves\n And tremblest as they fall,\u2014\n Know ye what power bereaves\n And takes the sum of all?\n\n Now slowly perishing\n Down to the leafless core,\n Ye die; no lovely thing;\n A heart, and nothing more.\n\n\n IV\n\n If we could think that death\n As surely as we dream,\n To us who dwell beneath\n The summit of supreme\n\n Prospective\u2014Love and Peace\u2014\n Will open Heav\u2019nly sweets;\n It would be wise to cease,\n If ceasing thus completes;\n\n Unless the further faith,\n Malefiant power pursue\n In death those who in death\n Have hoped to struggle thro\u2019.\n\n\n V\n\n The tropic night is husht\n With hateful noises\u2014hark!\n The fluttering night-moth crusht\n By reptiles in the dark\n\n About the bed; the sound\n Of tiny shrieks of pain;\n Of midnight murders round;\n Of creatures serpent-slain.\n\n A moan of thunder fills\n The stagnant air; and soon\n A black cloud from the hills\n Devours the helpless moon.\n\n Those faces stampt in air\n When all the hateful night\n We toss, and cannot bear\n The heated bed, and night\n\n Is full of silent sounds\n That walk about the bed\n (The whining night-fly wounds\n The ear; the air is dead;\n\n The darkness madness; heat\n A hell): appear and gaze;\n Are silent; at the feet\n Stand gazing; going gaze.\n\n * * * * *\n\n\n\n\n VI\n\n\n * * * * *\n\n DEATH\n\n I\n\n The Sun said, \u2018I have trod\n The hateful Darkness dead,\n And the hand of approving God\n Is placed upon my head.\u2019\n\n And cried, \u2018Where art thou, Night?\n Come forth, thou Worm; appear,\n That I may slay thee quite.\u2019\n And the Night answered, \u2018Here.\u2019\n\n And the Sun said, \u2018My might\n Is next to His, Most High;\n Canst thou destroy me, Night?\u2019\n And the Night answered, \u2018Aye.\u2019\n\n\n II\n\n This moon\u00e8d Desert round,\n Those deeps before me spread,\n I sought for Hope, and found\n Him beautiful, but dead.\n\n In this resounding Waste\n I sought for Hope, and cried,\n \u2018Where art thou, Hope?\u2019\u2014Aghast,\n I found that he had died.\n\n I cried for Hope. The Briars\n Pointed the way he\u2019d gone;\n Cold were the Heav\u2019nly Fires,\n Colder the numb-lipped Moon.\n\n \u2018Where art thou, Hope?\u2019\u2014\u2018I go,\n Returning,\u2019 he had said;\n I found him white as snow\n And beautiful, but dead.\n\n He would return, he said.\n When that I heeded not,\n Lo, he had fallen dead.\n Dead; Hope is dead; is not.\n\n I tear my hands with briars,\n My face in earth I thrust;\n I curse the heav\u2019nly fires,\n I drink the desert dust.\n\n A threat of thunder fills\n Us. Lo, a voice! The waves\n A breathless horror stills;\n The sand, a sea of graves.\n\n Methought the mocking Moon\n Open\u2019d her yellow lips\n And spake. The Planets swoon\n In vapoury eclipse.\n\n \u2018Fool, all the world is dust;\n Even I who shine on thee.\n There perish and add thy dust\n To that sepulchral sea.\u2019\n\n\n III\n\n In exile here I trod\n And with presumptuous breath\n Call\u2019d out aloud for God:\n The Answer came from Death.\n\n O World, thy quest is cold;\n O World, who answereth?\n Distracted thou hast call\u2019d;\n The Answer came from Death.\n\n I call\u2019d for God and heard\n No voice but that of Death:\n Then came the bitter word,\n \u2018Fool, God himself is Death.\n\n Great Death; not little death\n That nips the flowers unfurl\u2019d\n And stays the infant\u2019s breath;\n But Death that slays the world.\n\n And in despair I ran,\n And stumbled at the marge,\n And saw from span to span\n Death\u2019s ocean rolling large;\n\n And only the breadth accursed\n Of billows barring hope,\n That thunder\u2019d, \u2018Death,\u2019 and burst\n In tears upon the slope.\n\n Nor in the Heavens hope.\n The Sun drew in and shrank\n His flashes from the cope,\n And answer\u2019d, \u2018Death,\u2019 and sank.\n\n I sought the sacred Night\n And solace of the Stars,\n For surely in their light\n No shade of Death appears.\n\n Like tears their Answer came,\n Dropt one by one from heaven;\n Their Answer was the same;\n No other word was given.\n\n\n IV\n\n But then the Silence said,\n \u2018Resolve thy visioning mind:\n Is action for the dead\n Or seeing in the blind?\n\n Cry not with fruitless breath.\n Is it not understood,\n If God had utter\u2019d Death\n Then also Death is good?\n\n Abandon Wrath and Ruth.\n Touch not the High, nor ask.\n For God alone the Truth.\n Perform thy daily task.\u2019\n\n * * * * *\n\n\n\n\n VII\n\n\n * * * * *\n\n THE MONSOON\n\n I\n\n What ails the solitude?\n Is this the Judgment Day?\n The sky is red as blood;\n The very rocks decay\n\n And crack and crumble, and\n There is a flame of wind\n Wherewith the burning sand\n Is ever mass\u2019d and thin\u2019d.\n\n Even the sickly Sun\n Is dimm\u00e8d by the dearth,\n And screaming dead leaves run\n About the desolate earth.\n\n Die then; we are accurst!\n And strike, consuming God!\n The very tigers thirst\n Too much to drink of blood;\n\n The eagle soareth not;\n The viper bites herself;\n The vulture hath forgot\n To rend the dying wolf.\n\n The world is white with heat;\n The world is rent and riv\u2019n;\n The world and heavens meet;\n The lost stars cry in heav\u2019n.\n\n * * *\n\n\n II\n\n Art thou an Angel\u2014speak,\n Stupendous Cloud that comest?\n What wrath on whom to wreak?\n Redeemest thou, or doomest?\n\n Thine eyes are of the dead;\n A flame within thy breast\n Thy giant wings outspread,\n Like Death\u2019s, upon the west\n\n Thy lifted locks of hair\n Are flames of fluttering fire;\n Thy countenance, of Despair\n Made mad with inner ire.\n\n\n III\n\n Who cries! The night is black\n As death and not as night;\n The world is fallen back\n To nothing; sound and light\n\n And moon and stars and skies,\n Thunder and lightning\u2014all\n Gone, gone! Not even cries\n The cricket in the hall,\n\n The dog without. At last\n The end of all the hours.\n Was that a Spirit pass\u2019d\n Between the slamming doors?\n\n We slept not yet we wake!\n Was it a voice that cried,\n \u2018Awake, ye sleepless; wake,\n Ye deathless who have died\u2019?\n\n No voice. No light, no sound.\n It was the fancy that\n At midnight makes rebound\n Of thoughts we labour at\n\n At mid-day. Let us sleep.\n The night is very black,\n The heat a madness\u2014sleep\n Before the day comes back.\n\n Who cries!\u2014The voice again!\n It is the storm that breaks!\n The tempest and the rain!\n The quivering crash that shakes!\n\n The thunder and the flash,\n The brand that rips and roars,\n The winds of God that dash\n And split a thousand doors!\n\n The chariots of God\n That gallop on the plain\n And shake the solid sod!\n Awake!\u2014The rain, the rain!\n\n Thunder and burst, O Sky;\n Thunder and boil, O Deep;\n Let the thick thunder cry;\n Let the live lightning leap!\n\n Smite white light like the sword\n Of Heav\u2019n from heav\u2019n\u2019s height;\n Consume the thing abhor\u2019d\n And quell the dreadful night!\n\n Smite white light like the brand\n Of God from heav\u2019n to earth;\n And purge the desolate land\n Of this destroying dearth!\n\n\n IV\n\n O Wilderness of Death,\n O Desert rent and riv\u2019n,\n Where art thou?\u2014for the breath\n Of heav\u2019n hath made thee Heav\u2019n.\n\n I know not now these ways;\n The rocky rifts are gone,\n Deep-verdured like the braes\n Of blest Avilion.\n\n Here where there were no flowers\n The heav\u2019nly waters flow,\n And thro\u2019 a thousand bowers\n Innum\u2019rable blossoms blow.\n\n * * *\n\n * * * * *\n\n REPLY\n\n I\n\n This day relenting God\n Hath placed within my hand\n A wondrous thing; and God\n Be praised. At His command,\n\n Seeking His secret deeds\n With tears and toiling breath,\n I find thy cunning seeds,\n O million-murdering Death.\n\n I know this little thing\n A myriad men will save.\n O Death, where is thy sting?\n Thy victory, O Grave?\n\n August 21, 1897.\n\n\n II\n\n Before Thy feet I fall,\n Lord, who made high my fate;\n For in the mighty small\n Thou showedst the mighty great.\n\n Henceforth I will resound\n But praises unto Thee;\n Tho\u2019 I was beat and bound,\n Thou gavest me victory.\n\n Tho\u2019 in these depths of night\n Deep-dungeon\u2019d I was hurl\u2019d,\n Thou sentest me a light\n Wherewith to mend the world.\n\n O Exile, while thine eyes\n Were weary with the night\n Thou weepedst; now arise\n And bless the Lord of Light.\n\n Hereafter let thy lyre\n Be bondsman to His name;\n His thunder and His fire\n Will fill thy lips with flame.\n\n He is the Lord of Light;\n He is the Thing That Is;\n He sends the seeing sight;\n And the right mind is His.\n\n\n III\n\n The cag\u00e8d bird awake\n All night laments his doom,\n And hears the dim dawn break\n About the darken\u2019d room;\n\n But in the day he sips,\n Contented in his place,\n His food from human lips,\n And learns the human face.\n\n So tho\u2019 his home remain\n Dark, and his fields untrod,\n The exile has this gain,\n To have found the face of God.\n\n Confounded at the close,\n Confounded standing where\n No further pathway shows,\n We find an angel there\n\n To guide us. God is good;\n The seeing sight is dim;\n He gives us solitude\n That we may be with Him.\n\n By that we have we lose;\n By what we have not, get;\n And where we cannot choose\n The crown of life is set.\n\n Lo, while we ask the stars\n To learn the will of God,\n His answer unawares\n Strikes sudden from the sod.\n\n Not when we wait the word\n The word of God is giv\u2019n;\n The voice of God is heard\n As much from earth as heav\u2019n.\n\n The voice of God is heard\n Not in the thunder-fit;\n A still small voice is heard,\n Half-heard, and that is it.\n\n * * * * *\n\n P\u00c6ANS\n\n * * * * *\n\n MAN\n\n Man putteth the world to scale\n And weigheth out the stars;\n Th\u2019 eternal hath lost her veil,\n The infinite her bars;\n His balance he hath hung in heaven\n And set the sun therein.\n\n He measures the lords of light\n And fiery orbs that spin;\n No riddle of darkest night\n He dares not look within;\n Athwart the roaring wrack of stars\n He plumbs the chasm of heaven.\n\n The wings of the wind are his;\n To him the world is given;\n His servant the lightning is,\n And slave the ocean, even;\n He scans the mountains yet unclimb\u2019d\n And sounds the solid sea.\n\n With fingers of thought he holds\n What is or e\u2019er can be;\n And, touching it not, unfolds\n The seal\u00e8d mystery.\n The pigmy hands, eyes, head God gave\n A giant\u2019s are become.\n\n But tho\u2019 to this height sublime\n By labour he hath clomb,\n One summit he hath to climb,\n One deep the more to plumb\u2014\n To rede himself and rule himself,\n And so to reach the sum.\n\n 1898.\n\n * * * * *\n\n LIFE\n\n From birth to death the life of man\n Is infinite on the earth,\n To know and do that which he can\n And be what he is worth.\n\n Our mortal life, however wrought,\n Eternity is indeed;\n For every moment brings a thought,\n And every thought\u2019s a deed;\n\n And that is so much infinite\n Which may be divided much;\n And if we live with might and mirth\n Our human life is such.\n\n For him who has not might and mirth\n That which is not now is never;\n And he who can live well on earth\n Does live in heaven for ever.\n\n 1898.\n\n * * * * *\n\n WORLD-SONG\n\n O Vision inviolate, O Splendour supernal,\n We stand in Thy white light like lamps alit in day;\n Before Thee, Omnipotent, in sight of Thy glory,\n Our countenance is wither\u00e8d like stars in the sun.\n\n Before Thee our symphonies are still\u2019d into silence;\n Thy wisdom we wot not nor ever shall we know;\n But from Thy high throne, O God, Thy voice and Thy thunder\n In utterance re\u00efterate give glory and strength.\n\n FINIS\n\n * * * * *\n\nTranscriber\u2019s Notes:\n\nPunctuation has been corrected without note. Archaic spellings and\nhyphenation have been retained. Other errors have been corrected as\nnoted below. Original list of Contents at the beginning contained only\nlistings for Parts in the section _IN EXILE_ so links for individual\npoem titles have been added for reader convenience.\n\npage 26, But but because we must. ==> But because we must.","title":"Philosophies","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":14325}