{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_79477/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_79477","id":"gutenberg_79477","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79477","summary":null,"tags":["Democracy -- Poetry","Philosophy -- Poetry","Prose poems","Utopian socialism -- Poetry"],"text":"TOWARDS DEMOCRACY\n\n\n[Illustration: _Edwd. Carpenter from a photograph by F. Holland Day, in\n1900._]\n\n\n\n\n                                TOWARDS\n\n\n                                DEMOCRACY\n\n\n                    _Complete Edition in Four Parts_\n\n\n                              Published by\n\n                     GEORGE ALLEN AND UNWIN LIMITED\n                   AT RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET,\n                              LONDON, W.C.\n\n                                 1918.\n\n\n                               COPYRIGHT\n\n                          BY EDWARD CARPENTER\n\n                         _All rights reserved_\n\n\n  First Published 1883; Second Edition 1885;\n  Third Edition 1892; Fourth Part 1902;\n  Complete Edition 1905; Reprinted 1908, 1909, 1912, 1913\n\n\n\n\n                                CONTENTS\n\n\n1. PAGE\n\n2. PART I\n\n3. TOWARDS DEMOCRACY (1881\u20132) 3\n\n4. PART II\n\n5. _O Freedom, beautiful beyond compare_ 111\n\n6. York Minster 112\n\n7. Sunday Morning after Church 115\n\n8. High in My Chamber 119\n\n9. Deep Below Deep 122\n\n10. Except the Lord 124\n\n11. I Come Forth from the Darkness 130\n\n12. Sunday Morning near a Manufacturing Town 137\n\n13. In the Drawing Rooms 139\n\n14. In a Manufacturing Town 144\n\n15. What Have I to do with Thee 146\n\n16. As to You, O Moon 149\n\n17. Squinancy Wort 152\n\n18. _Not of Myself_ 154\n\n19. Lo! I Open a Door 154\n\n20. By this Heart 154\n\n21. As one who from a high Cliff 156\n\n22. To One in Trouble 156\n\n23. These Waves of Your Great Heart 156\n\n24. Thus as I Yearned for Love 158\n\n25. Eternal Hunger 159\n\n26. Child of the Lonely Heart 160\n\n27. To One who is where the Eternal are 162\n\n28. Through the Long Night 165\n\n29. To a Stranger 166\n\n30. To a Friend 166\n\n31. Of the Love that you poured forth 167\n\n32. As a Woman of a Man 167\n\n33. O Love, to whom the Poets 169\n\n34. Who You are I Know Not 171\n\n35. Have Faith (1884) 172\n\n36. I Heard a Voice 179\n\n37. I Know that You are Self-conscious 179\n\n38. Who are You 180\n\n39. Among the Ferns 181\n\n40. I Heard the Voice of the Woods 184\n\n41. The Wind Chants Well 187\n\n42. I am a Voice 188\n\n43. O Sea with White Lines 188\n\n44. Home 190\n\n45. Off Gasp\u00e9 190\n\n46. By the Shore 192\n\n47. A Military Band 195\n\n48. Wings 201\n\n49. On an Atlantic Steamship 203\n\n50. By Lake Wachusett 213\n\n51. O Mighty Mother 215\n\n52. AFTER LONG AGES (1883\u20134) 218\n\n53. PART III\n\n54. _We are a menace to you, O civilisation_ 259\n\n55. After Civilisation 260\n\n56. The word Democracy 263\n\n57. The Meaning of it All 266\n\n58. These Populations 266\n\n59. Andromeda 268\n\n60. The Triumph of Civilisation 269\n\n61. The Dead Christ 270\n\n62. Christmas Eve 271\n\n63. _Little Heart within thy Cage_ 272\n\n64. When I am near to you 273\n\n65. Cradled in Flame 273\n\n66. All Night Long 274\n\n67. Of the Past 274\n\n68. Love\u2019s Vision 275\n\n69. Nearer than ever Now 276\n\n70. O Thou whose Form 276\n\n71. The Elder Soldier to the Younger 277\n\n72. Into the Regions of the Sun (1886) 278\n\n73. As it Happened 280\n\n74. Parted Lips 283\n\n75. Summer-heat 284\n\n76. A rivederci 284\n\n77. Who will Learn Freedom 285\n\n78. After all Suffering 286\n\n79. When a Thousand Years have Passed 287\n\n80. A Message Committed to the Waves 288\n\n81. Rest at Last 290\n\n82. The Wind of May 291\n\n83. _O Earth, scene of what toil_ 292\n\n84. A Voice over the Earth 293\n\n85. In the Chamber of Birth 301\n\n86. A Cottage among the Hills 302\n\n87. Alice 303\n\n88. Baby Song 304\n\n89. Early Morning 305\n\n90. The Golden Wedding 306\n\n91. The Mother to her Daughter 307\n\n92. A Sprig of Aristocracy 308\n\n93. A Scene in London 308\n\n94. S. James\u2019 Park 309\n\n95. The Twin Statues of Amenophis 311\n\n96. Artemidorus, Farewell 313\n\n97. From Turin to Paris 315\n\n98. To the End of Time 321\n\n99. On the Eve of Departure 322\n\n100. Arenzano 323\n\n101. O Tender Heart 324\n\n102. The Carter 326\n\n103. The Stone-cutter 327\n\n104. The Voice of One Blind 327\n\n105. A Song in Old Age 329\n\n106. In Extreme Age 331\n\n107. After the Day\u2019s Work 332\n\n108. I saw a Vision 332\n\n109. Ah! Blessed is he that hath Escaped 333\n\n110. The Great Leader 333\n\n111. I Accept You 333\n\n112. Sol 333\n\n113. A Glimpse 334\n\n114. The Long Day in the Open 334\n\n115. The Idler 335\n\n116. In the Deep Cave of the Heart 335\n\n117. _Fly Messenger! through the Streets of the Cities_ 336\n\n118. The Coming of the Lord 337\n\n119. The Curse of Property 340\n\n120. Over the Great City 342\n\n121. Underneath and After All 343\n\n122. A Hard Saying 344\n\n123. Not for a Few Months or Years 345\n\n124. Disentanglement 345\n\n125. The Mortal Lover 347\n\n126. The End of Love 349\n\n127. A New Life 350\n\n128. The Law of Equality 351\n\n129. To Thine Own Self be True 352\n\n130. Abandon Hope all Ye that Enter Here 353\n\n131. To One Dead 353\n\n132. Of all the Suffering 354\n\n133. A Long Journey 356\n\n134. The Secret of Time and Satan (1888) 358\n\n135. Brief is Pain 364\n\n136. The Body and the Book 366\n\n137. PART IV\n\n138. _Because the Starry Lightnings_ 368\n\n139. Who shall Command the Heart 369\n\n140. From Caverns Dark 370\n\n141. The Lake of Beauty 372\n\n142. The wandering Psyche 373\n\n143. I hear thy call, Mysterious Being 374\n\n144. So thin a Veil divides 376\n\n145. The open Secret 376\n\n146. The Songs of the Birds, who hears 377\n\n147. A Child at a Window 380\n\n148. Night 381\n\n149. April 381\n\n150. Lucifer 382\n\n151. The Ocean of Sex 383\n\n152. As the Greeks Dreamed 385\n\n153. In a Scotch-Fir Wood 386\n\n154. The Dream goes by 387\n\n155. Surely the Time will come 388\n\n156. The one Foundation 390\n\n157. A Mightier than Mammon 394\n\n158. _O little Sister Heart_ 407\n\n159. Forms Eternal as the Mountains 408\n\n160. Spending the Night alone 408\n\n161. O Joy divine of Friends 409\n\n162. O Child of Uranus 410\n\n163. One at a Time 411\n\n164. The dead Comrade 412\n\n165. Philol\u00e4us to Diocles 413\n\n166. Hafiz to the Cup-bearer 416\n\n167. In the stone-floored Workshop 417\n\n168. The Trysting 419\n\n169. The Lover far on the Hills 422\n\n170. The Babe 423\n\n171. _O Gracious Mother_ 425\n\n172. I saw a fair House 426\n\n173. A Dream of Human Life 428\n\n174. The Coast of Liguria 429\n\n175. Easter Day on Mt. Mounier 431\n\n176. At Mentone 433\n\n177. Monte Carlo 435\n\n178. India, the Wisdom-land (1890) 440\n\n179. Tanzb\u00f6deli 442\n\n180. A Village Church 445\n\n181. Sheffield 450\n\n182. A Lancashire Mill-hand 452\n\n183. A Trade 454\n\n184. The Ploughboy 455\n\n185. The Jackdaw 456\n\n186. By the Mersey 457\n\n187. In the British Museum Library 459\n\n188. Empire 462\n\n189. The British, A. D. 1901 467\n\n190. Portland 468\n\n191. China, A. D. 1900 471\n\n192. _Standing beyond Time_ 476\n\n193. Who but the Lover should know 477\n\n194. The Everlasting Now 479\n\n195. Now is the accepted Time 479\n\n196. A Summer Day 480\n\n197. The central Calm 481\n\n198. Widening Circles 482\n\n199. When I Look upon your Faces 483\n\n200. Life behind Life 483\n\n201. The stupid old Body 484\n\n202. The wandering lunatic Mind 485\n\n203. As a Mould for some fair Form 487\n\n204. Nothing less than All 487\n\n205. Believe yourself a Whole 490\n\n206. The Body within the Body 491\n\n207. In an old Quarry 494\n\n208. The Soul to the Body 494\n\n209. To become a Creator 497\n\n210. After Fifty Years 499\n\n211. Out of the House of Childhood 500\n\n212. Little Brook without a Name (1902) 502\n\n213. Lo! what a World I Create 506\n\n214. A NOTE ON \u201cTOWARDS DEMOCRACY\u201d 509\n\n\n\n\n                                 PART I\n                           TOWARDS DEMOCRACY\n\n\n                           TOWARDS DEMOCRACY\n\n_The sun, the moon and the stars, the grass, the water that flows round\nthe earth, and the light air of heaven:_\n\n_To You greeting. I too stand behind these and send you word across\nthem._\n\n\n                                   I\n\nFreedom at last!\n\nLong sought, long prayed for\u2014ages and ages long:\n\n\nThe burden to which I continually return, seated here thick-booted and\nobvious yet dead and buried and passed into heaven, unsearchable;\n\n[How know you indeed but what I have passed into you?]\n\nAnd Joy, beginning but without ending\u2014the journey of journeys\u2014Thought\nlaid quietly aside:\n\n\nThese things I, writing, translate for you\u2014I wipe a mirror and place it\nin your hands.\n\n\n                                   II\n\nThe sun shines, as of old; the stars look down from heaven; the moon,\ncrescent, sails in the twilight; on bushy tops in the warm nights,\nnaked, with mad dance and song, the earth-children address themselves to\nlove;\n\nCivilisation sinks and swims, but the old facts remain\u2014the sun smiles,\nknowing well its strength.\n\nThe little red stars appear once more on the hazel boughs, shining among\nthe catkins; over waste lands the pewit tumbles and cries as at the\nfirst day; men with horses go out on the land\u2014they shout and chide and\nstrive\u2014and return again glad at evening; the old earth breathes deep and\nrhythmically, night and day, summer and winter, giving and concealing\nherself.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI arise out of the dewy night and shake my wings.\n\nTears and lamentations are no more. Life and death lie stretched below\nme. I breathe the sweet \u00e6ther blowing of the breath of God.\n\nDeep as the universe is my life\u2014and I know it; nothing can dislodge the\nknowledge of it; nothing can destroy, nothing can harm me.\n\nJoy, joy arises\u2014I arise. The sun darts overpowering piercing rays of joy\nthrough me, the night radiates it from me.\n\nI take wings through the night and pass through all the wildernesses of\nthe worlds, and the old dark holds of tears and death\u2014and return with\nlaughter, laughter, laughter:\n\nSailing through the starlit spaces on outspread wings, we two\u2014O\nlaughter! laughter! laughter!\n\n\n                                  III\n\nFreedom! the deep breath! the word heard centuries and centuries\nbeforehand; the soul singing low and passionate to itself: Joy! Joy!\n\nNot as in a dream. The earth remains and daily life remains, and the\nscrubbing of doorsteps, and the house and the care of the house remains;\nbut Joy fills it, fills the house full and swells to the sky and reaches\nthe stars: all Joy!\n\nO freed soul! soul that has completed its relation to the body! O\nsoaring, happy beyond words, into other realms passing, salutations to\nyou, freed, redeemed soul!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhat is certain, and not this? What is solid?\u2014the rocks? the mountains?\ndestiny?\n\nThe gates are thrown wide open all through the universe. I go to and\nfro\u2014through the heights and depths I go and I return: All is well.\n\nI conceive the purport of all suffering. The blear-eyed boy, famished in\nbrain, famished in body, shivering there in his rags by the angle of the\nhouse, is become divine before me; I hold him long and silently by the\nhand and pray to him.\n\nI conceive a millennium on earth\u2014a millennium not of riches, nor of\nmechanical facilities, nor of intellectual facilities, nor absolutely of\nimmunity from disease, nor absolutely of immunity from pain; but a time\nwhen men and women all over the earth shall ascend and enter into\nrelation with their bodies\u2014shall attain freedom and joy;\n\nAnd the men and women of that time looking back with something like envy\nto the life of to-day, that they too might have borne a part in its\ntravail and throes of birth.\n\nAll is well: to-day and a million years hence, equally. To you the whole\nuniverse is given for a garden of delight, and to the soul that loves,\nin the great coherent Whole, the hardest and most despised lot is even\nwith the best; and there is nothing more certain or more solid than\nthis.\n\n\n                                   IV\n\nFreedom! the deep breath!\n\nThe old Earth breathes deep and rhythmically, night and day, summer and\nwinter; the cuckoo calls across the woodland, and the willow-wren\nwarbles among the great chestnut buds; the laborer eases himself under a\nhedge, and the frog flops into the pond as the cows approach;\n\nIn the theatre Juliet from her balcony still bends in the moonlight, and\nRomeo leans up from the bushes below; in the pale dawn, still, faint\nwith love he tears himself away; the great outlines of the fields and\nhills where you were born and grew up remain apparently unchanged.\n\nIf I am not level with the lowest I am nothing; and if I did not know\nfor a certainty that the craziest sot in the village is my equal, and\nwere not proud to have him walk with me as my friend, I would not write\nanother word\u2014for in this is my strength.\n\nMy thoughts are nothing, but I myself will reach my arms through time,\nconstraining you.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThese are the days which nourished and fed me so kindly and well; this\nis the place where I was born, the walls and roofs which are familiar to\nme, the windows out of which I have looked. This is the overshadowing\nlove and care of parents; these are the faces and deeds, indelible, of\nbrothers and sisters\u2014closing round me like a wall\u2014the early world in\nwhich I lay so long.\n\nThis is to-day: the little ship lies ready, the fresh air blowing, the\nsunlight pouring over the world. These are the gates of all cities and\nhabitations standing open; this is the love of men and women\naccompanying me wherever I go; these are the sacred memories of that\nearly world, time may never change.\n\nAnd this is the word which swells the bosom of the hills and feeds the\nsacred laughter of the streams, for man: the purpose which endures for\nyou in those old fields and hills and the sphinx-glance of the stars.\n\n\n                                   V\n\nI, Nature, stand, and call to you though you heed not: Have courage,\ncome forth, O child of mine, that you may see me.\n\nAs a nymph of the invisible air before her mortal beloved, so I glance\nbefore you\u2014I dart and stand in your path\u2014and turn away from your\nheedless eyes like one in pain.\n\nI am the ground; I listen the sound of your feet. They come nearer. I\nshut my eyes and feel their tread over my face.\n\nI am the trees; I reach downward my long arms and touch you, though you\nheed not, with enamored fingers; my leaves and zigzag branches write\nwonderful words against the evening sky\u2014for you, for you\u2014say, can you\nnot even spell them?\n\nO shame! shame! I fling you away from me (you shall not know that I love\nyou). Unworthy! I strike you across the face; does the blood mount to\nyour cheek now? my glove rings at your feet: I dare you to personal\ncombat.\n\nWill you come forth? will you do the daring deed? will you strip\nyourself naked as you came into the world, and come before me, and\nregard unafraid the flashing of my sword? will you lose your life, to\nMe?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nO child of mine!\n\nSee! you are in prison, and I can give you space;\n\nYou are choked down below there, by the dust of your own raising, and I\ncan give you the pure intoxicating air of the mountains to breathe;\n\nI can make you a king, and show you all the lands of the earth;\n\nAnd from yourself to yourself I can deliver you, and can come, your\nenemy, and gaze long and long with yells of laughter into your eyes!\n\n\n                                   VI\n\nThe caddis worm leaves the water, and takes on wings and flies in the\nupper air; the walking mud becomes amorous of the winged sunlight, and\nbehaves itself in an abandoned manner.\n\nThe Earth (during its infancy) flies round the Sun from which it sprang,\nand the mud flies round the pond from which it sprang.\n\nThe earth swims in space, the fish swim in the sea, the bird swims in\nthe air, and the soul of man in the ocean of Equality\u2014towards which all\nthe other streams run.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHere, into this ocean, everything debouches; all interest in life begins\nanew. The plantain in the croft looks different from what it did before.\n\nDo you understand? To realise Freedom or Equality (for it comes to the\nsame thing)\u2014for this hitherto, for you, the universe has rolled; for\nthis, your life, possibly yet many lives; for this, death, many deaths;\nfor this, desires, fears, complications, bewilderments, sufferings,\nhope, regret\u2014all falling away at last duly before the Soul, before You\n(O laughter!) arising the full grown lover\u2014possessor of the password.\n\nThe path of Indifference\u2014action, inaction, good, evil, pleasure, pain,\nthe sky, the sea, cities and wilds\u2014all equally used (never shunned),\nadopted, put aside, as materials only; you continuing, love\ncontinuing\u2014the use and freedom of materials dawning at last upon you.\n\nO laughter! the Soul invading, looking proudly upon its new kingdom,\npossessing the offerings of all pleasures, forbidden and unforbidden,\nfrom all created things\u2014if perchance it will stoop to accept them; the\neverlasting life.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nFrom that day forward objects turn round upon themselves with an\nexceedingly innocent air, but are visibly not the same;\n\nFate is leveled, and the mountains and pyramids look foolish before the\nglance of a little child; love becomes possessed of itself, and of the\ncertainty of its own fruition (which it never could have before).\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHere the essence of all expression, and the final surrender of Art\u2014for\nthis the divine Artists have struggled and still struggle;\n\nFor this the heroes and lovers of all ages have laid down their lives;\nand nations like tigers have fought, knowing well that this life was a\nmere empty blob without Freedom.\n\nWhere this makes itself known in a people or even in the soul of a\nsingle man or woman, there Democracy begins to exist.\n\nOf that which exists in the Soul, political freedom and institutions of\nequality, and so forth, are but the shadows (necessarily thrown); and\nDemocracy in States or Constitutions but the shadow of that which first\nexpresses itself in the glance of the eye or the appearance of the skin.\n\nWithout that first the others are of no account, and need not be further\nmentioned.\n\n\n                                  VII\n\nInevitable in time for man and all creation is the realisation: the\nhusks one behind another keep shelling and peeling off.\n\nRama crosses to Ceylon by the giant stepping-stones; and the Ganges\nfloats with the flowers and sacred lamps of pilgrims; Diotima teaches\nSocrates divine lore; Benedict plunges his midnight lust in nettles and\nbriars; and Bruno stands prevaricating yet obstinate before his judges.\n\nThe midnight jackals scream round the village; and the feigned cry of\nthe doe is heard as she crosses the track of the hunter pursuing her\nyoung; the chaffinch sits close in her perfect nest, and the shining\nleaping waters of the streams run on and on.\n\nThe great stream of history runs on.\n\nOver the curve of the misty horizon, out of the dim past (do you not see\nit?) over the plains of China and the burning plains of India, by the\ntombs of Egypt and through the gardens beneath the white tower of Belus\nand under the shadow of the rock of Athens, the great stream descends:\n\nSoft slow broad-bosomed mother-stream\u2014where the Ark floats, and Isis in\nher moon-shaped boat sails on with the corpse of Osiris, and the\nchild-god out of the water rises seated on a lotus flower, and Brahma\ntwo-sexed dwells amid the groves, and the maidens weep for Adonis.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nMighty long-delaying vagrant stream! Of innumerable growing rustling\nlife! Out of some cavern mouth long ago where the cave-dwellers sat\ngnawing burnt bones, down to to-day\u2014with ever growing tumult, and glints\nof light upon thee in the distance as of half-open eyes, and the sound\nof countless voices out of thee, nearer, nearer, past promontory after\npromontory winding, widening, hastening!\n\nNow to-day, turbid wild and unaccountable in sudden Niagara-plunge\ntoward thy nearer oceanic levels descending\u2014\n\nHow wonderful art thou!\n\n\n                                  VIII\n\nLo! to-day the falling waters\u2014the ribbed white perpendicular\nseas\u2014shaking the ground with their eternal thunder! Lo! above all rising\nlike a sign into the immense height of the sky, the columned vapor and\ncalm exhalation of their agony\u2014\n\nThe Arisen and mighty soul of Man!\n\n[The word runs like fire along the ground; who shall contain it? the\nword that is nothing\u2014as fire is nothing and yet it devours the land in a\nmoment.]\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nLo! to-day the eagle soul that stretches its neck into the height,\nlooking before and after; the living banner calling with audible\ninaudible voice through all times; the spirit whose eyes are heavy with\ngazing out over the immense world of MAN!\n\n[O spirit! spirit! spirit! spirit! stretching thy arms out over the\nworld,\n\nCalling to thy children\u2014spirit of the brow of love and feet of war and\nthunder\u2014\n\nThou art let loose within me!\n\nNo delicate fiction art thou to me now\u2014the sound of thy steps appals me\nwith joy as thou stridest\u2014fills me with joy and power.\n\nGo, go, my soul, stream out on the wind with this one\u2014I laugh as the\nancient cities shake like leaves in the din and tumult;\n\nGo shout on the winds that the world is alive, that the Arisen one\ncontrols it\u2014\n\nI laugh as the ground rocks under my feet, I laugh as I walk through the\nforest, and the trees reel to and fro, and their great dead branches\nchatter\u2014\u2014\n\nShout on the winds, though the foaming hell grows hoarse with gusty\nthunder, shout that the crashing distracted hurrying eddying world is\ntaken\n\nPrisoner in the highest!]\n\nAh! the live Earth trembles beneath thy footsteps; the passionate deep\nshuddering words run along the ground: who shall contain, who shall\nunderstand them?\n\nSurely, surely, age after age out of the ground itself arising, from the\nchinks of the lips of the clods and from between the blades of grass, up\nwith the tall-growing wheat surely ascending\u2014\u2014\n\nDeep-muttered, vast, inaudible\u2014they come\u2014the strange new words, through\nthe frame of the great Mother and through the frames of her children\ntrembling:\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nFreedom!\n\nAnd among the far nations there is a stir like the stir of the leaves of\na forest.\n\nJoy, Joy arising on Earth!\n\nAnd lo! the banners lifted from point to point, and the spirits of the\nancient races looking abroad\u2014the divinely beautiful daughters of God\ncalling to their children.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe nations of the old and of the new worlds!\n\nSee, what hastening of feet, what throngs, what rustling movement!\n\nLo! the divine East from ages and ages back intact her priceless jewel\nof thought\u2014the germ of Democracy\u2014bringing down! [Gentle and venerable\nIndia well pleased now at last to hear fulfilled the words of her\nancient sages.]\n\nLo, Arabia! peerless in dignity, eternal in manhood of love and\nwar\u2014pivoting like a centre the races of mankind; Siberia, the aged\nmother, breaking forth uncontrollable into exultant shouting, from Kokan\nto farthest Kamschatka and the moss-morasses of the Arctic Sea!\n\nSee how they arise and call to each other! Norway with wild hair\nstreaming, dancing frantic on her mountain tops? Italy from dreams, from\nlanguid passionate memories amid her marble ruins, to deeds again\narising; Greece; Belgium; Denmark; Ireland\u2014liberty\u2019s deathless flame\nleaping on her Atlantic Shore!\n\nO the wild races of Africa, beautiful children of the sun, hardy and\nsuperb, givers of gifts to the common stock without which all the other\ngifts were useless! The native tribes still roaming in the freedom of\nthe earth and the waters: the Greenlander and his little boy together in\ntheir canoe towing the dead seal, the tawny bronzed Malay, and Papuan,\nand Australian through the interminable silent bush tracking infallibly\nfor water or the kangaroo!\n\nLo! the great users and accumulators of materials, the proud and\nmelancholy Titans struggling with civilisation! England, ringed with\niron and with the glitter of her waves upon her; Germany; France;\nRussia\u2014and the flow of East and West, and the throes of womanhood and\nthe future; lo! Spain\u2014dark, proud, voiceless, biting her lips, with high\nwhite arm beckoning beckoning! And you, too, ye manifold Stars and\nStripes\u2014unto what great destiny!\n\nThe peoples of the Earth; the intertwining many-colored streams!\n\nChina, gliding seemingly unobservant among the crowd, self-restrained,\nof her own soul calmly possessed; the resplendent-limbed Negro and\nhalf-caste (do you not see that old woman there with brow and nose and\njaw dating conclusively back from far away Egypt?); the glitter-eyed\ncaressing-handed Hindu, suave thoughtful Persian, and faithful Turk;\nMexico and the Red Indian (O unconscious pleading eyes of the dying\nraces!); Japan and the Isles of the Pacific, and the caravan wanderers\nand dwellers in the oases of Sahara.\n\nO glancing eyes! O leaping shining waters! Do I not know that thou\nDemocracy dost control and inspire, that thou, too, hast relations to\nthese\u2014and a certainty\u2014\n\nAs surely as Niagara has relations to Erie and Ontario?\n\n\n                                   IX\n\nLo! the spirit floats in the air.\n\nOn his lips it kisses the young man from China, and the patient old man,\nand the spiritual-faced boy;\n\nAnd on his lips the long-eyed Japanee; and on his thick lips the Negro:\n\nCome!\n\nAnd to the forlorn emigrant, to the old Irish woman with shriveled brown\nanxious face, and to her barefoot beautiful daughter, and to the young\nfair-haired woman from Sweden:\n\nCome!\n\nAnd to the Portuguese lad with shining teeth and smiling mouth, and to\nthe long-haired Italian, and to the ruddy Scot;\n\nAnd to the young Tamil boy holding up flowers and pouring his morning\nlibation of water to the Sun, and to his grandmother superintending the\nhousehold with quiet loving care; and to the rows of Hindu villagers\nsquatted by the water tanks at early morning, bathing and chatting, and\nto the women their wives cleaning their brass-glancing waterpots; and to\nthe noble Mahratta women, and to the beautiful almond-eyed women of\nEgypt, and to the shifty clever Eurasian, and to the stunted dweller by\nthe sacred unfrozen lake of Thibet:\n\nCome!\u2014and to the wanderers lighting their camp-fires at the feet of the\nworld-old statues at Thebes; and to the sacred exiles on the march to\nIrkutsk; to the wild riders across the plains of Wallachia;\n\nAnd to the sweet healthy-bodied English girl, and to the drink-marked\nprostitute, and to the convicted criminals, the diseased decrepit and\ndestitute of all the Earth:\n\nLo! my children I give myself to you; I stretch my arms; on the lips\neach one in the name of all I kiss you:\n\nCome! And out of your clinging kisses, see! I create a new world.\n\n\n                                   X\n\nWho understands?\n\nWho draws close as a little child?\n\nAh! who is he who stands closest? And has heard the word, himself,\nuttered out of the ground from between the clods?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWho is the wise statesman who walks hand in hand with his people,\nguiding and guided?\n\nWho is the child of the people, moving joyous, liquid, free, among his\nequals, touching nearest the serene untampered facts of earth and sky?\n\nWho is the poet whom love has made strong strong strong with all\nstrength?\n\nAh! who is he who says to the great good Mother: _Cling fast, O Mother,\nand hold me; clasp thy fingers over my face and draw me to thee for\never?_\n\n\n                                   XI\n\nThe scene changes; the sun and the stars are veiled, the solid earth\nalone is left. I am buried (I too that I may rise again) deep underfoot\namong the clods.\n\nEach one a transparent miracle, competent with man and his vast-aspiring\nreligions and civilisations\u2014but for me they are only dirt.\n\nLevel wastes of sand and scrub; mudflats by the mouths of rivers; old\ndisheveled rocks and oozy snow; trickling slime-places and ponds and\nbogs and mangrove marshes and chattering shale-slopes and howling\ndeserted ridges and heaps of broken glass and old bones and shoes and\npots and pans in blind alleys and fogs along flat shores and crimes\nbetrayals murders thefts respectability, bad smells by house doors,\nfilthy-smelling interiors of factories and drawing-rooms, stale scents,\ngas, dirt, evil faces, drunkenness, cruelty to animals, and the cruelty\nof animals to each other\u2014\u2014\n\nThis is the solid earth in the midst of which I am buried.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nO I am mad! the lightning flashes on evil raw places. I stretch uneasily\nin my grave and tumble the towers of great cities with my feet; the\nvolcanos lurch and spill their molten liquor.\n\nI hate those nearest me, and am closed, captious and intolerant. I sweep\na great space round me and sulk in the middle of it.\n\nNow underneath the earth on which you walk I sport in the fire of Hell;\n\nSatan is my friend and vicious blood-spilling lusts and clenched teeth\npush the way for me to destruction. I dance in the flames and will claw\nevery one in: take care how you cross me!\n\nYour talk of goodness I despise. To every conceivable sin I hold out my\nhand. My touch blackens you. I crawl forth out of slime and worms and\nblink at the sun. I press my way madly through the gallows-crowd to him\nwho bears my reprieve held up on high.\n\nThis is the Cross; these are the eyes of Christ\u2014and of the\ncrossing-sweeper;\n\nThis is the Divine love which encloses and redeems all evil. Ah! here is\npeace!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nFlat curtains hang round me in every direction (as they hang round you),\nand behind them the live people go dancing and laughing: but we are not\ngoing to be baffled.\n\nSex still goes first, and hands eyes mouth brain follow; from the midst\nof belly and thighs radiate the knowledge of self, religion, and\nimmortality.\n\n\n                                  XII\n\nThe clods press suffocating closer and closer\u2014grit and filth accumulate\nin the eyes and mouth, I can neither see nor speak\u2014the devil and the\nworms dance around.\n\nThe immortal worms make their obeisance to you, and the religious devil\ngrins at you\u2014they compliment you on your superiority.\n\nThe Earth is for you, and all that is therein\u2014save what anyone else can\ngrab; and universal love is for you\u2014and to sleek yourself smoother than\nothers in the glass; and to fly on from world to world, leaving sweet\nodors behind you, and to get cleverer and cleverer and better and better\nas you go, and to be generally superior!\n\nHow very nice! the devil and the worms thank you for your kind\ninvitation to accompany them; but regret that they are engaged.\n\n\n                                  XIII\n\nThis is poison! do not touch it\u2014the black brew of the cauldron out of\nwhich Democracy firks its horned and shameless head.\n\nO disrespectable Democracy! I love you. No white angelic spirit are you\nnow, but a black and horned Ethiopian\u2014your great grinning lips and teeth\nand powerful brow and huge limbs please me well.\n\nWhere you go about the garden there are great footmarks and an uncanny\nsmell; the borders are trampled and I see where you have lain and rolled\nin a great bed of lilies, bruising the sweetness from them.\n\nI follow you far afield and into the untrodden woods, and there remote\nfrom man you disclose yourself to me, goat-footed and sitting on a\nrock\u2014as to the Athenian runner of old.\n\nYou fill me with visions, and when the night comes I see the forests\nupon your flanks and your horns among the stars. I climb upon you and\nfulfil my desire.\n\n\n                                  XIV\n\nThe heights heighten and the depths deepen; from beneath the eyelids of\nman look forth new heavens and a new earth. The glitter of sunlight upon\nthe waves is there.\n\nHere underneath, the great lubricous roots grasp downward in darkness at\nthe rocks; there the tall shaft shoots into air, and the leaves float\npoised in the sunshine\u2014but the word conceals itself.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nOf the goat-legged God peering over the tops of the clouds; of the wild\ncreature running in the woods of whom the rabbits are not afraid; of him\nwho peeps his horns in at the windows of the churches, and the\ncongregation cross themselves and the parson saws his loudest; of the\nshameless lusty unpresentable pal; of the despised one hobbling on\nhoofs\u2014I dream.\n\nOf the despised and rejected, arising with healing in his wings, of the\nsane sweet companion in the morning, of the Lover who neither adorns nor\ndisguises himself\u2014I dream.\n\n\n                                   XV\n\nO Democracy, I shout for you!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nBack! Make me a space round me, you kid-gloved rotten-breathed paralytic\nworld, with miserable antics mimicking the appearance of life.\n\nEngland! for good or evil it is useless to attempt to conceal yourself\u2014I\nknow you too well.\n\nI am the very devil. I will tear your veils off, your false shows and\npride I will trail in the dust,\u2014you shall be utterly naked before me, in\nyour beauty and in your shame.\n\nFor who better than I should know your rottenness, your self-deceit,\nyour delusion, your hideous grinning corpse-chattering death-in-life\nbusiness at top? (and who better than I the wonderful hidden sources of\nyour strength beneath?)\n\nDeceive yourself no longer.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nDo you think your smooth-faced Respectability will save you? or that\nCowardice carries a master-key of the universe in its pocket\u2014scrambling\nmiserably out of the ditch on the heads of those beneath it?\n\nDo you think that it is a fine thing to grind cheap goods out of the\nhard labor of ill-paid boys? and do you imagine that all your Commerce\nShows and Manufactures are anything at all compared with the bodies and\nsouls of these?\n\nDo you suppose I have not heard your talk about Morality and Religion\nand set it face to face in my soul to the instinct of one clean naked\nunashamed Man? or that I have not seen your coteries of elegant and\nlearned people put to rout by the innocent speech of a child, and the\napparition of a mother suckling her own babe!\n\nDo you think that there ever was or could be Infidelity greater than\nthis?\n\nDo you grab interest on Money and lose all interest in Life? Do you\nfound a huge system of national Credit on absolute personal Distrust? Do\nyou batten like a ghoul on the dead corpses of animals, and then expect\nto be of a cheerful disposition? Do you put the loving beasts to torture\nas a means of promoting your own health and happiness? Do you, O\nfoolishest one, fancy to bind men together by Laws (of all ideas the\nmost laughable), and set whole tribes of unbelievers at work year after\nyear patching that rotten net? Do you live continually farther and\nfarther from Nature, till you actually doubt if there be any natural\nlife, or any avenging instinct in the dumb elements?\u2014 And then do you\nwonder that your own Life is slowly ebbing\u2014that you have lost all\ngladness and faith?\n\nI do not a bit. I am disgusted with you, and will not cease till I have\nabsolutely floored you. I do not care; you may struggle; but I am the\nstronger.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAh, England! Have I not seen, do I not see now, plain as day, through\nthy midst the genius of thy true life wandering\u2014he who can indeed, who\ncan alone, save thee\u2014\n\nSeeking thy soul, thy real life, out of so much rubbish to disentangle?\n\nPlaintive the Divine Child haply a moment by some cottage door, or by\nthe side of some mechanic at his bench, lingering, passes on;\n\nThrough the great magnificent land, through its parks and country\npalaces and bewildering splendors of the resorts of wealth and learning,\nshy and plaintive, passes:\n\nIs there no hand held out?\n\nDo not the learned people know him? Have the wealthy nothing to give?\nWill not the philanthropic reach a hand to this one?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe guides are all talking. They are settling the affairs of the\nuniverse. [They never cease.]\n\nThey have not settled yet which way to go themselves: how shall they\ngive help to an ignorant child?\n\nThey are busy moreover distributing money and pamphlets: and surely\nnothing more can be needed.\n\nThey are very busy. They are worn out and rest not. Their faces are\nwithout sleep.\n\nNevertheless they go on. Was it said that any man could be contented? It\nis a lie;\u2014or happy? It is mere foolishness. These things are the dreams\nof youthful ignorance.\n\nThe affairs of the universe and the continual fluctuations of the Stock\nExchange are too great an anxiety.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nMeanwhile the old woman was staggering homeward under a load of\nsticks\u2014but none offered to relieve her of her burden. But indeed when\nyou think of it, how could they? for it would have spoiled their\nclothes.\n\nThe poor boy was taken with a fit upon the doorstep, but it was best not\nto take him all dirty and slavering into the nicely-carpeted house!\n\nThe criminal had suffered shipwreck in life and was deserted; but of\ncourse it would not have done to be seen consorting with him.\n\nO happy happy guides! to whom such mighty issues are confided!\n\nHappy happy Child! who need not stay to hear the end of their talk! whom\nI saw, in vision, silent and musing within itself, pass away from among\nthose people.\n\n\n                                  XVI\n\nWill you continually deny yourself, you? Will you for ever turn aside?\nThese are not the times, remember, of canary birds\u2014when the thunder\ngrowls along the horizon.\n\nO England, do I not know thee\u2014as in a nightmare strangled tied and\nbound?\n\nThy poverty\u2014when through thy filthy courts from tangles of matted hair\ngaunt women with venomous faces look upon me?\n\nWhen I see the thin joyless faces of their children, and the brick walls\nscarcely recognisable as brick for dirt, and the broken windows; when I\nbreathe the thick polluted air in which not even plants will live; when\noaths and curses are yelled in my ears, and the gibbering face of drink\nstarts upon me at every corner;\n\nWhen I turn from this and consider throughout the length and breadth of\nthe land, not less but more hateful, the insane greed of riches\u2014of which\npoverty and its evils are but the necessary obverse and counterpart;\n\nWhen I see deadly Respectability sitting at its dinner table, quaffing\nits wine, and discussing the rise and fall of stocks; when I see the\nstruggle, the fear, the envy, the profound infidelity (so profound that\nit is almost unconscious of itself) in which the moneyed classes live;\n\nWhen the faces of their children come to me pleading, pleading\u2014every bit\nas much as the children of the city poor\u2014pleading for one touch of\nnature: Of children who have been stuffed with lies all their lives, who\nhave been told that they cannot do without this and that and a thousand\nthings\u2014all of which are wholly unnecessary, and a nuisance, (as who\nshould tell one that it were not safe to walk on the naked Earth, but\nonly on ground embarrassed with straw and all manner of rubbish up to\none\u2019s knees;)\n\nOf children who have been taught to mix the nonsense manners and\ndiarrh\u0153a of drawing-rooms with their ideals of right and wrong; to\ndespise manual labor and to reverence ridicule; to eat and drink and\ndress and sleep in unbelief and against all their natural instincts; and\nin all things to mingle the disgust of repletion with the very thought\nof pleasure\u2014till their young judgments are confused and their instincts\nactually cease to be a guide to them;\n\nOf strong healthy boys who positively believe they will starve unless\nthey enter the hated professions held out to them;\n\nWhen I see avenues of young girls and women, with sideway flopping\nheads, debarred from Work, debarred from natural Sexuality, weary to\ndeath with nothing to do, (and this thy triumph, O deadly respectability\ndiscussing stocks!)\n\nWhen I see, flickering around, miserable spectrums and nostrums of\nreform\u2014mere wisps devoid of all body\u2014philanthropic chatterboxes, [Nay, I\ndo not hold with you! For if you kill me to death talking to me in a\ndrawing-room, what in the name of heaven are you going to do to the\nunfortunate in hospital?]\n\nWhen I hear and see the droning and see-sawing of pulpits; when the\nvision of perfect vulgarity and commonplaceness arises upon me\u2014of\nsociety\u2014and of that which arrogates to itself the sacred name of\nEngland;\n\nThe puppet dance of gentility\u2014condescension, white hands, unsoiled\ndress, charitable proprietorship\u2014in the street, the barracks, the\nchurch, the shop, the house, the school, the assembly,\n\nIn eating drinking and saying Good morning and Good night\u2014of the theory\nof what it is to be a lady or a gentleman;\n\nOf exclusiveness, and of being in the swim; of the drivel of\naristocratic connections; of drawing-rooms and levees and the theory of\nanimated clothespegs generally; of belonging to clubs and of giving\npence to crossing-sweepers without apparently seeing them; of helplessly\nliving in houses with people who feed you, dress you, clean you, and\ndespise you; of driving in carriages; of being intellectual; of prancing\nabout and talking glibly on all subjects on the theory of setting things\nright\u2014and leaving others to do the dirty work of the world; of having\nread books by the score, and being yet unable to read a single page; of\nwriting, and yet ignorant how to sign your name; of talking about\npolitical economy and politics and never having done a single day\u2019s\nlabor in your life; of being a magistrate or a judge and never having\ncommitted a common crime, or been in the position to commit one; of\nbeing a parson and afraid to be seen toping with Christ in a public; a\nbarrister and to travel in a third class carriage; an officer and to\nwalk with one of your own men;\n\nWhen I see the sea, spreading, of infidelity, of belief in\nexternals\u2014in money, big guns, laws, views, accomplishments, cheap\ngoods\u2014towncouncilors, cabinet ministers, M.P.\u2019s, generals, judges,\nbishops\u2014all alike;\n\nWhen I look for help from the guides and see only a dead waste of\naimless abject closeshaven shabby simpering flat pompous peaked\npunctilious faces:\n\nO England, whither\u2014strangled tied and bound\u2014whither whither art thou\ncome?\n\n\n                                  XVII\n\nI choke!\n\n[Or should choke\u2014did I not know very well I could tear all these bonds\nto pieces like withes of dry grass: did I not know too that these are\nafter all in place as they are, nor could be better than they are:\n\nThe natural sheath protecting the young bud\u2014fitting close, stranglingly\nclose, till the young thing gains a little more power, and then falling\ndry, useless, their work finished, to the ground.]\n\nStrangled, O God? Nay\u2014the circle of gibbering faces draws closer, the\ndroning noises become louder, the weight gets heavier, unbearable\u2014One\ninstant struggle! and lo!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is Over!\u2014daylight! the sweet rain is falling and I hear the songs of\nthe birds.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nBlessings and thanks for ever for the sweet rain; blessings for the\nfresh fresh air blowing, and the meadows illimitable and the grass and\nthe clouds;\n\nBlessings and thanks for you, you wild waters eternally flowing: O come\nflowing, encroaching, over me, in my ears: I salute you who are pure and\nsweet (ah! what designs, what love, are hid within you!)\u2014\n\nI praise you for your faithfulness for ever.\n\n\n                                 XVIII\n\nTo descend, first;\n\nTo feel downwards and downwards through this wretched maze of shams for\nthe solid ground\u2014to come close to the Earth itself and those that live\nin direct contact with it;\n\nTo identify, to saturate yourself with these, their laws of being, their\nmodes of life, their needs (the Earth\u2019s also), thoughts, temptations and\naspirations;\n\nThis\u2014is it not the eternal precept?\u2014is the first thing: to dig\ndownwards. Afterwards the young shoot will ascend\u2014and ascending easily\npart aside the overlying rubbish.\n\nThese are not the times of canary birds\u2014nor of trifling with art and\nphilosophy and impertinent philanthropic schemes; this is the time of\ngrown Men and Women:\n\nOf or among the people; always living close to the earth and the people,\nand creating what they create, out of them.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nYoung Men and Women, I\u2014though not of myself alone\u2014call you: the time is\ncome. (Is not the sweet rain falling?)\n\nYou\u2014for whom the bitter cup and the sweet are so strangely mixed\u2014how\nstrangely none but you can tell;\n\nYou\u2014in whom divine strength is one with the uttermost weakness;\n\nIn soberness of spirit, as to some long and patient task in death alone\nending, I call.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nStrong in peace, strong in turmoil and conflict, strong in yourselves,\nundaunted, with large hearts, with large strong hands,\n\nSpreaders of health (better than any doctor) to individuals, to the\ndiseased prostrate nation, sustainers of ridicule, clearers of the\nground laden with the accumulated wreck and rubbish of centuries,\n\nLovers of all handicrafts and of labor in the open air, confessed\npassionate lovers of your own sex,\n\nArise!\n\nHeroes of the enfranchisement of the body (latest and best gift long\nconcealed from men), Arise!\n\nAs the North wind in summer runs over the world, making a clear light\ndown to the very horizon\u2014so is the world prepared for you.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nCome! I too call you. I too have looked in your eyes, O you of great\nfaith and few words; you cannot escape, now.\n\nUnder your eyelids I have seen, shy, hidden away, pure without taint,\none with the fresh air to sweeten all the world\u2014lo! the greatest faith\nof all.\n\nYou sacred ones, first interpreters, you holders up of new ideals, you\ngreatest and least,\n\nYou who are and by your mere presence create Democracy\u2014Arise!\n\nThou Woman, gentleborn and sensitive, yet incapable of being shocked or\ndisgusted\u2014Arise!\n\nThou one strong Man in love sufficient, out of the heart of the\npeople\u2014Arise!\n\n\n                                  XIX\n\nHeroes, lovers, judges; despised, outcast, ridiculed; princes and kings\nand destitute; drudges and slaves; mothers, free women and feminine\nneuters; actors, parsons, squires, capitalists, rich dinners, fine\nhouses (it is all the same: I go back upon my own words), the parks and\nthe opera; unobtrusive, unguessed, day by day, and year by year; talking\nloud, talking soft, in the fashion, and out; dreaming of duty, love,\nrelease, nature, organisation, hatred, death; ascetic, lusty, genial,\nmaimed, incoherent, proud; by tradition military, money-broking,\nofficial, commercial, idle, literary, church, chapel and club; in all\nforms and in all places; weary yet unwearied; before dawn rising and\nthrough the window peering at the untroubled sky; weak yet indomitable;\nsuffering yet filled with exceeding joy\u2014\n\nAge after age, under the Earth, hidden, the womb of the dead generations\narising to life again, myriads of seeds, chrysalids, pup\u00e6, cysts,\nrootlets, transparent white bulbs of souls in Hades, by faith working\nmany miracles; thrills of magnetism through the whole vast frame, summer\nheat and winter cold and the kiss of the living air; death and decay and\nweakness and prostration and poisonous inbreaths, and nearer nearer\nnearer nearer life and joy everlasting.\n\nThrough the city crowd pushing wrestling shouldering, against the tide,\nface after face, breath of liquor, money-grubbing eye, infidel skin,\nshouts, threats, greetings, smiles, eyes and breasts of love,\nbreathless, clutches of lust, limbs, bodies, torrents, bursts, savage\nonslaughts, tears, entreaties, tremblings, stranglings, suicidal, the\nsky, the houses, surges and crests of waves, white faces from afar\nbearing down nearer nearer, almost touching, and glances unforgotten and\nmeant to be unforgotten.\n\n\n                                   XX\n\nI do not forget you: I see you quite plainly.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nTangles of social claims, convenances, toy-duties, fine soft-carpeted\nhouse, array of servants, failing and failing health, growing and\nsettled sadness, ennui, wearisome pleasures, hyper-sensitiveness.\n\nGolden hand-cuffs, the prison life of Custom without one touch of\nnature, desperate beating of wings and breast against the bars, trailing\nslime and winding web of lies impossible to escape from.\n\nCareful obediences; sleek hat and well-brushed coat; blameless deference\nto public opinion; the desk, the counter, the Exchange, the walk home,\nthe favorable comments of passers-by;\n\nAnd within, blinding burning hatred, bottomless yawning pits opening in\nthe midst of life\u2014of love, of jealousy, of desire\u2014vast gales and\nwhirlwinds carrying away the superstructure and the plans of years.\n\nWaves and storms of the ocean within; shipwreck and disaster of life;\nfortune, health, honor, love, gone down seeming irretrievably in the\ngreat signless waste; and still the stars shining calm on the flying\nspray, and the immense placid heaven unmoved going back to innumerable\nother worlds and radiant birth-places and pilgrimages and possessions of\nthe Soul without end.\n\n\n                                  XXI\n\nI do not forget you. I see you quite plainly.\n\nBut why should one god leave his throne to scrape favors at the feet of\nother gods?\n\nSurely it is enough to be here\u2014and always to be Here.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI weave these words about myself to form a seamless web without\nbeginning or ending. I do not spin a yarn for you to reel off at your\nleisure; nor do I pour out water into pots.\n\nThis is one of my bodies\u2014of the female\u2014which if you penetrate with true\nsexual power, clinging it shall conceive, and you shall know me in\npart\u2014by the answer of the eyes of children, yours and mine, looking up\nfrom the grass and down from the sky upon you as you walk.\n\nAnd if you understand me I will draw you away from all sorrow\u2014so that no\nevil can happen to you. Not at first will it be so, but afterwards,\nafter a time.\n\n\n                                  XXII\n\nYou cannot escape me (and this place of my Presence I will never leave\ntill I have saturated myself, till the waves of my love have traveled\nover the whole vast ocean of existence from where I stand):\n\nThe horse galloping over the plains cannot escape the plains it gallops\nover.\n\nLeagues and leagues out in the sunlight I lie, the winds of heaven blow\nover me\u2014I desire nothing more, I am perfectly content.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nYes, you cannot escape me.\n\nAt night I creep down and lie close in the great city\u2014there I am at\nhome\u2014hours and hours I lie stretched there; the feet go to and fro, to\nand fro, beside and over me.\n\nOaths and curses and obscene jokes; the group of laughing men and girls\ntumbling out of the doors of the beershop, the haggard old woman under\nthe flaring gas-jet by the butcher\u2019s stall (the butcher sometimes gives\nher a bit of waste meat in charity), the butcher himself with his smooth\ngrisled hair and florid face\u2014you cannot escape me.\n\nYou, soaring yearning face of youth threading the noisy crowd, though\nyou soar to the stars you cannot escape me.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI remain where I am. I make no effort. Wherever you go it is the same to\nme: I am there already.\n\nThe murmuring of many voices is in my ears. As I lie on my side hour\nafter hour the drowse of myriads of feet is upon me:\n\nHour after hour, hour after hour,\u2014and I sleep, well content.\n\n\n                                 XXIII\n\nCloser and closer will I come, till I lay hold of you\u2014myself and none\nother.\n\nAs one grasps a drowning man with a grasp that will not be relaxed, so\nwill I grasp you\u2014you shall not escape me.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAh! Death, and Hell with thy gaping jaws, into thee at length I am\ncurious to descend; curious am I to go where the old empty masks of Fear\nand Disaster are kept, and to see where they hang\u2014hereafter useless for\never.\n\n\n                                  XXIV\n\nAre you laughed at, are you scorned? Do they gaze at you and giggle to\neach other as you pass by? Do they despise you because you are\nmis-shapen, because you are awkward, because you are peculiar, because\nyou fail in everything you do\u2014and you know it is true?\n\nDo you go to your chamber and hide yourself and think that no one thinks\nof you, or when they do only with contempt?\n\nMy child, there is One that not only thinks of you, but who cannot get\non at all without you.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAre you alone in the world?\n\nHave you sinned? have you a terrible secret within you which must out,\nyet you dare not reveal it?\n\nHave you a face so disfigured that no one will look straight in your\neyes?\n\nHave you a mortal disease? do you feel the beating pulse of it in the\ndead of the night? At midday when the passers by go to and fro in the\nbright sunshine, do you feel the shadowy call of it to another world?\n\nAre you tormented with inordinate clutching lusts which you dare not\nspeak? are you nearly mad with the sting of them, and nearly mad with\nterror lest they should betray you?\n\nMy child, there is One who understands perfectly. There is nothing\nbetrayed, and there is nothing to betray.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is all straightforward.\n\nThere is no fraction of your days, your body, your thoughts, your\npassions, which has not deliberately and calmly been prepared\u2014and which\nshall not deliberately and calmly be removed again when it has played\nits part.\n\nThere is no prejudice here, or weakness or self-righteousness, nor any\napartness at all;\n\nYou are included, and all that is done and felt by you is done and felt\nat the same instant by not you;\n\nWhatever you are and whatever you do, there is One who will and does\nlook you candidly in the face, and understands you.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nYou may recoil from that gaze; but if you learn to encounter and return\nit (whether in one or many lifetimes) you will see that from it at\nlength all secret terrors, shams, disfigurements, death itself, vanish\naway;\n\nAnd you will not only not be alone in the world, but you will be a\nsovereign lord over the world.\n\n\n                                  XXV\n\nApart from all evil\u2014from all that seems to you evil\u2014your Soul, my\nfriend, that towards which you aspire, which will become you one\nday\u2014your true Self\u2014rides,\n\nAbove your phantasmal self continually.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nDo not fear: it is there.\n\nThrough all the baffling and confusion, through all the seeming\nhaphazard and labyrinth darkness of life, it is there\u2014overseeing;\nquietly selecting, directing, ordaining. It is lord of all.\n\nIf there were chance, it were evil: but there is not. The soul surrounds\nchance and takes it captive;\n\nAnd all experience\u2014what you call good and what you call evil, alike\u2014it\ntakes and greedily absorbs, nor ever can have enough.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAre you not sometimes aware of your own body how it goes about, moving\nhither and thither? are you not aware of it in the street among others,\nexchanging greetings (and those who exchange the greetings absolutely\nequal before you)?\n\nAre you not aware of it at night, lying awake, perhaps in pain? Are you\nnot aware of it wandering over the hills at sunrise, or out at sea\u2014in\nthe agonised white faces of the people on board\u2014and the ship is\nfoundering?\n\nAre you not aware of it North and South, East and West, by day and\nnight, in winter and summer, in childhood and in age, gathering,\nculling, assimilating, without end, and with unerring instinct?\n\nAnd You, all the time\u2014YOU?\n\nWhat?\u2014Like some great Egyptian King-God, seated, marble, with wide eyes\nlooking out over the procession, chariots and horsemen, which creeps\npast in his honour\u2014over them to the plains and the winding river.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nDo not fear; do not be discouraged by the tiny insolences of people. For\nyourself be only careful that you are true.\n\nThe dreams of the dark-faced yearning swift-souled Egyptians, conceiving\ninto stone eternal types of calm passion, the dreams of Pheidias, the\ndreams of the dreamers of all the earth falling passionate before the\nvisionary beauty of womanhood and manhood\u2014Are true.\n\nThe dust, the wretched blur and distortion are but for a moment. They\nare no more than they are. When you shall behold yourself in the clean\nmirror of God you shall be wholly satisfied.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe body is a root of the soul. As the body in air, so the soul sustains\nitself in love.\n\nThe medium in which the Knowledge of Yourself subsists is Equality. When\nyou have penetrated into that medium (as the young shoot penetrates into\nthe sunlight) you shall know that it is so\u2014you shall realise\nYourself\u2014but not till then.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHereafter the face of Nature, the faces of the sea and the fields, the\nfaces of the animals\u2014hereafter the faces of them that pass in the\nstreet\u2014are changed.\n\nNothing escapes, the line is cast over them all, they cannot choose but\nyield themselves\u2014to you, my friend\u2014delivering the essence of their life\nto you.\n\nHereafter certain things, all-important before, become indifferent;\ncertain thoughts with which you had tormented yourself torment you no\nlonger; the chains fall off. On the other hand the ways which were\nforbidden and inaccessible become accessible\u2014on all hands the doors\nstand open to your touch.\n\n\n                                  XXVI\n\nWonderful! The doors that were closed stand open. Yet how slight a thing\nit is.\n\nThe upturning of a palm? the curve of a lip, an eyelid? Nothing.\n\nNothing that can be seen with the mortal eye or heard by the ear,\nnothing that can be definitely thought, spoken, or written in a book\u2014\n\nYet the doors that were trebled-bolted and barred, and the doors\nweed-overgrown and with rusty old hinges,\n\nFly open of themselves.\n\n\n                                 XXVII\n\nDid you once desire to shine among your peers\u2014or did you shrink from the\nknowledge of your own defect in the midst of them?\n\nDid you, friend, covet so to be more beautiful, witty, virtuous\u2014to be\nable to tell a story or sustain an argument well, or to be able to\ndiscourse on any subject, or to be a skilful rider or a good shot?\n\nOr shrank from the ridicule which the reverse of these excited\u2014which was\ncertain and is still certain to come upon you?\n\nWas it really your own anxious face you used to keep catching in the\nglass? was it really you who had so many things, one way or another, you\nwanted to conceal from others\u2014so many opinions too to disguise?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll that is changed now.\n\nBut what if your prayers had been granted? What if you had become\nexceptional and had secured for yourself a place with the strong and the\ngifted and the beautiful?\n\nWhat if when you arrived the eyes of all had been turned upon you; and\nwhen you had passed by\u2014one by one, sad, thoughtful, depressed, the weak\nmore conscious of his or her weakness, the stupid more conscious of\nstupidity, the deformed more painfully conscious of his or her\ndeformity, to their solitary chambers they had gone apart and prayed\nthey had never been born?\n\nWhat if you had taken advantage of the weak and defenceless and\noppressed of the whole Earth\u2014and had bartered away belief in the Soul\nstanding omnipotent in the most despised things?\n\nWhat if you had gladly disguised and covered your own defect, allowing\nthus the ignorant ridicule of the world to fall more heavily on those\nwho could not or would not act a lie?\n\nWhat if you had been a rank deserter, a cowardly slave, taking refuge\nalways with the stronger side?\n\nAh! what if to one weary traveler in the world, in the steep path\npainfully mounting, you making it steeper still had added the final\nstone of stumbling and despair?\n\nBetter to be effaced, crazy, criminal, deformed, degraded.\n\nBetter instead of the steep to be the most dull flat and commonplace\nroad.\n\nBetter to go clean underfoot of all weak and despised persons\u2014so that\nthey shall not even notice that you are there;\n\nNone so rude and uneducated but you shall go underfoot of them, none so\ncriminal but you shall when the occasion serves go underfoot of them,\nnone so outcast but they shall pass along you and not even notice that\nyou are there.\n\n\n                                 XXVIII\n\nThe undistinguished old Earth! the dusty clods!\n\nThe mere brown handfuls crumbled through the fingers, out of which\nproceed the trees and the grasses and the animals roaming through them,\nand man with his vast-aspiring religions and civilisations.\n\nThe common and universal;\n\nThe servant girl tying up her hair before the broken mirror hung from a\nnail in the wall; the daisy child-face looking at you from the side of\nthe path as you pass; the slow humor of old gaffers on the village seat\nin the sun:\n\nThese contain you. With all your ambitions you cannot escape and go\nbeyond these. It is impossible.\n\nThe bride attiring herself in her white veil, the brilliant and admired\nwit of the salons, the mathematician in his study, cannot go beyond\nthese,\n\nAny more than the earth can go beyond and fly out of space. It is\nimpossible; it is unthinkable.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nFar around and beyond whatever is exceptional and illustrious in human\nlife stretches that which is average and unperceived;\n\nAll distinctions, all attainments, all signal beauty, skill, wit, and\nwhatever a man can exhibit in himself, swim and are lost in that great\nocean.\n\nThe subtle learning of the learned, the beauty of the exceptionally\nbeautiful, the wit of the witty, the fine manners and customs of the\ncourtly\u2014all these things proceed immediately out of the common and\nundistinguished people and those who stand in direct contact with\nNature, and return into them again.\n\nThe course of all is the same; they are tossed up thinner and thinner,\ninto mere spray at last\u2014like a wave from the breast of the Ocean\u2014and\nfall back again.\n\nYou try to set yourself apart from the vulgar. It is in vain. In that\ninstant vulgarity attaches itself to you.\n\nIf it did not, you would cease to exist.\n\n\n                                  XXIX\n\nGold is not finer than lead, nor lead than gold (every atom of each has\nits own life movement intelligence, and ridicules epithets);\n\nThe stars are not more human to the soul than is the deep background of\nNight behind them. And what would the shoal of merry leaping children\nplaying there in the sun be without the mother-love in which they swim\nall the while as in an ocean?\n\nTo be Yourself, to have measureless Trust; to enjoy all, to possess\nnothing.\n\nThat which you have, your skill, your strength, your knack of pleasant\nthoughts\u2014they belong to all. It is a fact, and the others looking on you\nknow it.\n\nThat which you have not, your scornful defects, your dumbnesses, your\naches and pains and silent hours of suffering, to understand that you\ncan give of them too, inexhaustible store\u2014as the old brown earth gives\nout of her heart, to men; and she knows it, but they do not know it.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo walk along the path which has an equal good on either hand; to give\nthe sign of equality;\n\nTo entertain no possible fear or doubt about the upshot of things\u2014to be\nYourself, to have measureless Trust:\n\nPerhaps that is best of all.\n\n\n                                  XXX\n\nCurious how much\u2014and the disentangling of self\u2014depends upon Ideals!\n\nWho is this, for instance, easy with open shirt, and brown neck and\nface\u2014the whites of his eyes just seen in the sultry twilight\u2014through the\ncity garden swinging?\n\nThe fountain plashes cool in its basin, and mixes its murmur with the\nsound of feet going to and fro upon graveled walks;\n\nThe massed foliage above catches the evening light, catches the rising\nwind, and sways like the sea on a calm day; the voices of children are\nheard\u2014but who is this?\n\n[Who anyhow is he that is simple and free and without afterthought? who\npasses among his fellows without constraint and without encroachment,\nwithout embarrassment and without grimaces, and does not act from\nmotives?\n\nWho is ignorant or careless of what is termed politeness, who makes life\nwherever he goes desirable, and removes stumbling-blocks instead of\ncreating them?]\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nGrave and strong and untamed,\n\nThis is the clear-browed unconstrained tender face, with full lips and\nbearded chin, this is the regardless defiant face I love and trust;\n\nWhich I came out to see, and having seen do not forget.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd not I alone.\n\nSee! on the little public round the fountain scattered\u2014on the seats\nlounging, or walking to and fro\u2014the strange effect!\n\nThe dressed-up man of the world eyes him curiously\u2014and does not forget;\n\nThe pale student eyes him: he envies his healthy face and unembarrassed\nmanner;\n\nThe delicate lady sees him well, though she does not seem to; secretly\nnow she loathes her bejeweled lord and desires piteously the touch of\nthis man\u2019s muscular lithe sun-embrowned body;\n\nThe common people salute him as their equal and call him by his name;\nthe children know him: they run after him and catch him by the hand.\n\nCurious! how all the poetry, the formative life, of the scene\u2014the\nrushing scent of the lime trees, the evening light, the swaying of the\nfoliage, the rustle of feet below,\n\nThe yearning threads of the fine lady\u2019s life\u2014how the sympathy of the\nlittle public by the fountain\u2014all gathers round this figure.\n\nThere was a time when the sympathy and the ideals of men gathered round\nother figures;\n\nWhen the crowned king, or the priest in procession, or the knight\nerrant, or the man of letters in his study, were the imaginative forms\nto which men clung;\n\nBut now before the easy homely garb and appearance of this man as he\nswings past in the evening, all these others fade and grow dim. They\ncome back after all and cling to him.\n\nAnd this is one of the slowly unfolded meanings of Democracy.\n\n\n                                  XXXI\n\nThe world travels on\u2014and shall travel on.\n\nA few centuries shall not exhaust the meanings of it. In you and me too,\ninevitably, its meanings wait their unfolding.\n\nNo old laws, precedents, combinations of men or weapons, can retard it;\nno new laws, schemes, combinations, discoveries, can hasten it; but only\nthe new births within the Soul, you and me.\n\nSacred for this is the Day and sacred is the Night, sacred are Life and\nDeath because, O wonderful, of this!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen Yes has once been pronounced in that region then the No of millions\nis nothing at all; then fire, the stake, death, ridicule, and bitter\nextermination, are of no avail whatever;\n\nWhen the Ideal has once alighted, when it has looked forth from the\nwindows with ever so passing a glance upon the Earth, then we may go in\nto supper, you and I, and take our ease\u2014the rest will be seen to;\n\nWhen a new desire has declared itself within the human heart, when a\nfresh plexus is forming among the nerves\u2014then the revolutions of nations\nare already decided, and histories unwritten are written.\n\n\n                                 XXXII\n\nI charge you, O traveler, that you disbelieve not\u2014a voice comes in the\ncool of the evening:\n\nI charge you that in the secret unspoken word you disbelieve not,\nsacred, and the first almighty Thing,\n\nMoving among cities and over the open sea\u2014advancing to deliverance in\nus;\n\nNight and day, youth and old age, willing and unwilling\u2014advancing to\ndeliverance in us.\n\nDumb and of no account, her beauty now and then only (or at night when\nno one is near) before the glass disrobing, trembling, lonely,\nunresponded\u2014yet mightier than all the array and splendor of the Earth\u2014I\ncharge you that you do not disbelieve!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nOutwards all proceeds: Brahma from himself sheds and shreds the\nuniverses; I from myself, you from yourself.\n\nTo-day the slave goes first, in his chains, and the voiceless, and those\nthat are without arguments and always in the wrong;\n\nAnd the prisoner with slouched head, and the suspected and insulted in\nrags, and those whose hearts bleed silently because of what they see;\n\nAnd the old forsaken mother, and the cast-aside woman, and the child,\nand the favorless and the drunkard shall go first;\n\nThe mechanic to-day shall go before his master, the bricklayer shall be\nsaluted in the street before the architect, the navvy shall be accounted\nmore than the politician, and I will give the illiterate the advantage\nof those that read and write.\n\nThe scouted and the exiled and the unheard-of, laborers in the fields\nand in mines, quarrymen and limekilners and brickburners and makers and\ncleaners of drains and household drudges, shall be nearest in honor: the\nburdened of every day, and the sufferers, the over-worked and\nhope-forlorn, and the concealers of sin and sorrow and despair, shall\nhead the procession.\n\nAnd with them One (of whom I have spoken) moving unseen hither and\nthither\u2014side by side first with one and then with another\u2014shall resume\nand make all plain, shall be himself the beginning and ending of it all.\n\n\n                                 XXXIII\n\nWhen He descends, when He comes to take dominion\u2014\n\nDo you think that anything else will do? do you think that he will\nperhaps be put off by offers sufficiently liberal, and arguments?\n\nDo you think that he will be deeply impressed by your grave How, how?\nand It cannot be?\u2014or that he will ascend into your high houses and take\nhis ease with you, and lounge smoking and looking wearily at the sky\ntill he forgets what he has come for?\n\nDo you think he will pay great attention to your hat and boots, or to\nwhat they write before or after your name, or to what they say of you\nnext door\u2014or will ask what church you go to, or what conventicle or\nschism-shop, or enquire into the soundness of your investments?\n\nDo you think he will drive about with you in your carriages dispensing\ncharities like an Oriental prince\u2014and occasionally even say a few words\nto the coachman\u2014or that it will be pretence or mere kindly patronage if\nhe prefers the coachman\u2019s company to yours?\n\nDo you think that perhaps he will be very bland and gentle, and never be\nrude or coarsely dressed, and that he will be highly interested in what\nyou tell him, and that he won\u2019t at a single look know all that ever you\ndid?\n\nDo you suppose that he will not know which is the top and which is the\nbottom of things, or that he will be impressed by your cleverness and\nsmart repartees, or that he will reckon you up by the number of books\nyou have read?\n\nDo not deceive yourself\u2014for it is yourself that you are trying to\ndeceive\u2014not Him.\n\n\n                                 XXXIV\n\nThe magistrate sits on the bench, but he does not exercise judgment; the\ndoctor dispenses medicine but has heard no tidings of what health is;\nthe parson opens his mouth, but no intelligible sound comes forth; the\nmerchant distributes evils just the same as goods.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nDo you suppose it is all for nothing that disbelief has gone out over\nthe world; that weariness has taken possession of the souls of the rich,\nand that fatal darkness enfolds the head of wealth and education;\n\nThat men disbelieve in the human heart and think that the source of\npower is set otherwhere than in its burning glowing depths: that the\npowers which they worship are but so many withered emblems of power\u2014dead\nscori\u00e6 nodding and jostling over the living lava-stream?\n\nDo you suppose it is all for nothing that the eyes of brothers avoid in\nthe street, and none sees what is before him; that the heel is upon the\nhead, and Earth alone regards the faces of them that are oppressed\u2014that\nthe stones in the wintry fields are become confidants, and the ground is\nsown with compressed thought, like seeds?\n\n[When yet there is peace over the world, as of the Sea swooning away\ninto its hollows; and differences are sullen like rocks at ebb-tide, and\nbrackish dismal mudflats lie between, and the sun stands motionless\noverhead, and Contempt trickles malarious, and Avoidance and Negation\nand Fear loom up against the sky, and men cling like rotting weeds about\ntheir bases, and the soul stifles for the swingeing life of the waves\nand the breath of the wind that blows from one end of the world to the\nother.]\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nDo you suppose it means nothing that that which satisfied once satisfies\nnow no more (not till the whole round has been made), but unrest and\nhunger are eating through men\u2019s souls?\n\nThat a new need gone up is more than all precedent, and History shrivels\nbefore the will, even if it be only of one man; that the pilgrimage has\nbegun, and men are leaving their long-loved homes by thousands\u2014and the\ntenderest-hearted are the first to sever the old ties?\n\nThat centuries of suffering have compressed thought and purpose into\none\u2014till they are harder than rock; so that you shall remove mountains,\nbut you shall not remove the word which has gone forth?\n\nThat expediency and logic expostulate in vain, and man has become wholly\nunreasonable, and is calm to drop utility into the bottomless pit; and\nthe wise cover their lights, but the fools flash theirs and are whirled\naway\u2014like fireflies in a thunderstorm?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nDo you suppose it means nothing when the godlike Hand comes forth\u2014the\nawful hand, sacred with the kisses of the generations of men?\n\nWhen the hand of Necessity comes forth from the cloud and covers dark\nthe faces of them who have never known it, turning them back from their\nruin\u2014but stands in the clear sky, beckoning bright, like a pillar of\nfire for weary fugitives?\n\nWhen the awful vision moves across the sky, and the earth is electric\nunder it\u2014and the grass stands stiffly, and the blue thistle in the hedge\nis erect with meaning,\n\nAnd men are amorous for the naked stinging touch of the world, and to\nwrestle limb to limb with the wind and the waves;\n\nWhen poverty and hardship smile for their espousal, and fierce endurance\nis fused in one passion with love, and the glitter of concealment is\ntorn away, and the loins are compressed and the eyes aflame with lust,\n\nTowards that which shall surely be born?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen Wealth is slowly and visibly putrefying and putrefying the old\norder of things;\n\nWhen the surface test is final\u2014the rainbow-colored scum\u2014and society\nrotting down beneath it; a trick of clothing or speech, metallic chink\nin the pocket, white skin, soft hands, fawning and lying\nlooks\u2014everywhere the thrust of rejection, the bond of redemption\nnowhere; the sacred gifts all violated stale and profaned\u2014men and women\nfalling off from them listless, like satiated leeches;\n\nWhen Labor is not loyal and true, nor the Laborers loyal and true to\neach other; when a man has no pride in the creation of his hands, nor\nrejoices to make it perfect; when machinery is perfectly organised and\nhuman souls are hopelessly disorganised;\n\nDo you think all these things mean nothing?\n\n\n                                  XXXV\n\nAh, England! Ah, beating beating heart!\n\nNo wonder you are weary! weary of talk!\n\nWeary seeking amid the scramble, amid the scramble of words and the\nscramble of wealth,\n\nAmid the fashionable, the scientific, the artistic, the commercial, the\npolitical, the learned and literary scramble\u2014weary,\n\nSeeking, seeking, seeking for a God!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAs it ever was and will be\u2014\n\nAs a thief in the night, silently and where you least expect,\n\nUnlearned perhaps, without words, without arguments, without influential\nfriends or money\u2014leaning on himself alone\u2014\n\nWithout accomplishments and graces, without any liniments for your old\ndoubts, or recipes for constructing new theological or philosophical\nsystems\u2014\n\nWith just the whole look of himself in his eyes\u2014\n\nThe Son of Man shall\u2014yes, shall\u2014appear in your midst. O beating heart,\nyour lover and your judge shall appear.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHe will not bring a new revelation; he will not at first make any reply\nto the eager questions about death and immortality; he will present no\nstainless perfection;\n\nBut he will do better: he will present something absolute, primal\u2014the\nliving rock\u2014something necessary and at first hand, and men will cling to\nhim therefor;\n\nHe will restore the true balance; he will not condemn, but he will be\nabsolute in himself;\n\nHe will be the terrible judge to whom every one will run;\n\nHe will be the lover and the judge in one.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Son of Man\u2014\n\nPonder well these words.\n\nAfter all I cannot explain them: it is impossible to explain that which\nis itself initial and elementary.\n\nYou will look a thousand times before you see that which you are looking\nfor\u2014it is so simple\u2014\n\nNot science, O beating heart, nor theology, nor rappings, nor\nphilanthropy, nor high acrobatic philosophy,\n\nBut the Son\u2014and so equally the Daughter\u2014of Man.\n\n\n                                 XXXVI\n\nI hear the sound of the whetting of scythes.\n\nThe beautiful grass stands tall in the meadows, mixed with sorrel and\nbuttercups; the steamships move on across the sea, leaving trails of\ndistant smoke. I see the tall white cliffs of Albion.\n\nI smell the smell of the newmown grass, the waft of the thought of\nDeath; the white fleeces of the clouds move on in the everlasting blue,\nwith the dashing and the spray of waves below.\n\nIt comes and recedes again, and comes nearer\u2014out of the waves and the\ntall white cliffs and the clouds and the grass.\n\n\n                                 XXXVII\n\nThe towers of Westminster stand up by the river, and, within, the\nsupposed rulers contend and argue, but they hear nothing. It comes to\nthem last.\n\nThe long lines of princely mansions stretch through Belgravia and\nKensington\u2014closelipped, deaf, plaguestricken.\n\nLines of carriages crowd the Park; tier above tier at the Opera are\nfaces and flowers; there are clubs and literary cliques and\nentertainments, but of the voice of human joy, native once more in the\nworld, there is scarcely a note.\n\nOver all the towns and villages of the land the fingers of the spires\npoint dumb to the driving clouds.\n\nYork Minster stands up like a watchtower in the rising sun, and from the\nmidst of its Roman walls looks out over leagues of meadows and\ncornfields; Salisbury stands up, and Ely lonesome among its old-world\nfens; but they report nothing seen.\n\nFrom the Hoe at Plymouth the promenade loafers look down upon the decks\nof passing vessels; the line of the breakwater stretches, and the wild\nsea beyond;\n\nThe convicts, thousands, motionless-faced, in yellow-dressed gangs dot\nthe thinly-grassed rocks and fortress walls of the Isle of Portland.\n\nVictoria, the Queen, peers from the high windows of Osborne back upon\nPortsmouth crowded with shipping, and the grass downs of the Island that\nlies behind it.\n\nThe mail-steamers go to and fro, of Dover and Folkestone, the passengers\narrive from the Continent, idlers are watching the arrivals, and police\nofficers in disguise\u2014but they report nothing;\n\nWinchelsea and Rye stand forgotten by the water, on rocks beaten now\nonly by the waving meadows; the old martello towers dot the long low\nshores.\n\nDown the Thames with the tide the great vessels come swinging; St.\nPaul\u2019s looks out upon them, white, in far glimpses over the great city;\nthe sea-gulls dip and hover where the waters meet. The cutters of\nYarmouth leave the river and make between the long sands for the open\nsea and the banks.\n\n\n                                XXXVIII\n\nEngland spreads like a map below me. I see the mud-flats of the Wash\nstriped with water at low tide, the embankments grown with mugwort and\nsea-asters, and Boston Stump and King\u2019s Lynn, and the squaresail brigs\nin the offing.\n\nBeachy Head stands up beautiful, with white walls and pinnacles, from\nits slopes of yellow poppy and bugloss; the sea below creeps with a grey\nfog, the vessels pass and are folded out of sight within it. I hear\ntheir foghorns sounding.\n\nFlamborough Head stands up, dividing the waves. Up its steep gullies the\nfishermen haul their boats; in its caves the waters make perpetual\nmusic.\n\nI see the rockbound coast of Anglesey with projecting ribs of wrecks;\nthe hills of Wicklow are faintly outlined across the water. I ascend the\nmountains of Wales; the tarns and streams lie silver below me, the\nvalleys are dark. Moel Siabod stands up beautiful, and Trifan and Cader\nIdris in the morning air.\n\nI descend the Wye, and pass through the ancient streets of Monmouth and\nof Bristol. I thread the feathery birch-haunted coombs of Somerset.\n\nI ascend the high points of the Cotswolds, and look out over the rich\nvale of Gloucester to the Malvern hills, and see the old city clustering\nround its Church, and the broad waters of the Severn, and the distant\ntowers of Berkeley Castle.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe river-streams run on below me. The broad deep-bosomed Trent through\nrich meadows full of cattle, under tall shady trees runs on. I trace it\nto its birthplace in the hills. I see the Derbyshire Derwent darting in\ntrout-haunted shallows over its stones. I taste and bathe in the clear\nbrown moor-fed water.\n\nI see the sweet-breathed cottage homes and homesteads dotted for miles\nand miles and miles. It comes near to them. I enter the wheelwright\u2019s\ncottage by the angle of the river. The door stands open against the\nwater, and catches its changing syllables all day long; roses twine, and\nthe smell of the woodyard comes in wafts.\n\nThe Castle rock of Nottingham stands up bold over the Trent valley, the\ntall flagstaff waves its flag, the old market-place is full of town and\ncountry folk. The river goes on broadening seaward. I see where it runs\nbeneath the great iron swing-bridges of railroads, there are canals\nconnecting with it, and the sails of the canal-boats gliding on a level\nwith the meadows.\n\nThe great sad colorless flood of the Humber stretches before me, the\nlow-lying banks, the fog, the solitary vessels, the brackish marshes and\nthe water-birds; Hull stretches with its docks, vessels are\nunlading\u2014bags of shell-fish, cargoes of oranges, timber, fish; I see the\nflat lands beyond Hull, and the enormous flights of pewits.\n\nThe Thames runs down\u2014with the sound of many voices. I hear the sound of\nthe saw-mills and flour-mills of the Cotswolds, I can see racing boats\nand hear the shouts of partisans, villages bask in the sun below me;\nSonning and Maidenhead; anglers and artists are hid in nooks among tall\nwillow-herbs; I glide with tub and outrigger past flower-gardens,\nmeadows, parks; parties of laughing girls handle the oars and tiller\nropes; Teddington, Twickenham, Richmond, Brentford glide past; I hear\nthe songs, I hear Elizabethan echoes; I come within sound of the roar of\nLondon.\n\nI see the woodland and rocky banks of the Tavy and the Tamar, and of the\narrowy Dart. The Yorkshire Ouse winds sluggish below me; afar off I\ncatch the Sussex Ouse and the Arun, breaking seaward through their gaps\nin the Downs; I look down from the Cheshire moors upon the Dee.\n\nIn their pride the beautiful cities of England stand up before me; from\nthe midst of her antique elms and lilac and laburnum haunted gardens the\ngrey gateways and towers of Cambridge stand up; ivy-grown Warwick peeps\nout of thick foliage; I see Canterbury and Winchester and Chester, and\nWorcester proud by her river-side, and the ancient castles\u2014York and\nLancaster looking out seaward, and Carlisle; I see the glistening of\ncarriage wheels and the sumptuous shine of miles of sea frontage at\nBrighton and Hastings and Scarborough; Clifton climbs to her heights\nover the Avon; the ruins of Whitby Abbey are crusted with spray.\n\nI hear the ring of hammers in the ship-yards of Chatham and Portsmouth\nand Keyham, and look down upon wildernesses of masts and dock-basins. I\nsee the observatory at Greenwich and catch the pulses of star-taken time\nspreading in waves over the land. I see the delicate spider-web of the\ntelegraphs, and the rush of the traffic of the great main lines, North,\nWest, and South. I see the solid flow of business men northward across\nLondon Bridge in the morning, and the ebb at evening. I see the eternal\nsystole and diastole of exports and imports through the United Kingdom,\nand the armies of those who assist in the processes of secretion and\nassimilation\u2014and the great markets.\n\nI explore the palaces of dukes\u2014the parks and picture\ngalleries\u2014Chatsworth, Hardwicke, Arundel; and the numberless old Abbeys.\nI walk through the tall-windowed hospitals and asylums of the great\ncities and hear chants caught up and wandering from ward to ward.\n\nI see all over the land the beautiful centuries-grown villages and\nfarmhouses nestling down among their trees; the dear old lanes and\nfootpaths and the great clean highways connecting; the fields, every one\nto the people known by its own name, and hedgerows and little straggling\ncopses, and village greens; I see the great sweeps of country, the rich\nwealds of Sussex and Kent, the orchards and deep lanes of Devon, the\nwillow-haunted flats of Huntingdon, Cambridge and South Lincolnshire;\nSherwood Forest and the New Forest, and the light pastures of the North\nand South Downs; the South and Midland and Eastern agricultural\ndistricts, the wild moorlands of the North and West, and the\nintermediate districts of coal and iron.\n\nThe oval-shaped manufacturing heart of England lies below me; at night\nthe clouds flicker in the lurid glare; I hear the sob and gasp of pumps\nand the solid beat of steam and tilt-hammers; I see streams of pale\nlilac and saffron-tinted fire. I see the swarthy Vulcan-reeking towns,\nthe belching chimneys, the slums, the liquor-shops, chapels, dancing\nsaloons, running grounds, and blameless remote villa residences.\n\nI see the huge warehouses of Manchester, the many-storied mills, the\nmachinery, the great bale-laden drays, the magnificent horses; I walk\nthrough the Liverpool Exchange; the brokers stand in knots; the\ngreetings, the frock-coats, the rosebuds; the handling and comparing of\ncotton samples.\n\nLeeds lies below me; I hear the great bell; I see the rush along Boar\nLane and Briggate. I enter the hot machine shops, smelling of oil and\nwooldust. I see Sheffield among her hills, and the white dashing of her\nmany water-wheels, and the sulphurous black cloud going up to heaven in\nher midst.\n\nNewcastle I recognise, and her lofty bridge; and I look out over the\nriver gates of the Mersey.\n\n\n                                 XXXIX\n\nI see a great land poised as in a dream\u2014waiting for the word by which it\nmay live again.\n\nI see the stretched sleeping figure\u2014waiting for the kiss and the\nre-awakening.\n\nI hear the bells pealing, and the crash of hammers, and see beautiful\nparks spread\u2014as in toy show.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI see a great land waiting for its own people to come and take\npossession of it.\n\n\n                                   XL\n\nThe clouds fly overhead still, and the waves curdle in the blue beneath;\nthe smell of the newmown grass comes, and the tall white cliffs stand\nup.\n\nAll depends upon a Word spoken.\n\nDo you think perhaps that there is no answer? do you think that the high\nlighthouses looking out over the water, the sea itself careering beyond\nthem, that the ploughed lands, and the rocks that are hewn into great\ncities, are indifferent to who own, to who trespass upon them? that they\nare dumb, dead, and of no account?\n\nDo you think that they have nothing to say to all this, that they will\nnot deliver themselves upon whom they choose, that they have it not in\ntheir power to bless and to curse, ah! that they cannot repay love a\nhundredfold?\n\nDo you not know that the streets, houses, public buildings of the city\nwhere you live, have tongues, arms, eyes? that they are on the watch?\nthat the trees and streams around you are alive with answers, and that\nthe common clay knows the tread of its true owner?\n\nDo you think that England or any land will rise into life, will display\nher surpassing beauty, will pour out her love, to the touch of false\nowners\u2014to people who finger banknotes, who make traffic, buying and\nselling her, who own by force of titledeeds, laws, police\u2014who yet deny\nher, turning their backs upon her winds and her waves, and ashamed to\ntouch her soil with their hands?\n\nDo you think that she will arise to the call of these? O do you not know\nhow she yearns for the mastery of her true owners, how she leans herself\nbackward, displaying her charms, inviting\u2014breathing courage even into\nfaint souls to know their manhood\u2014to come upon her boldly, to let none\nstand between?\n\nO know well that it shall be. That the land they dwell on, that the\nEarth, for whatsoever people is worthy, shall become impossible to be\nseparated from them\u2014even in thought.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nOf those who are truly the People, they are jealous of their land; the\nwoods and the fields and the open sea are covered with their\nlove\u2014inseparable from life.\n\nEvery hedgerow, every old lumb and coppice, the nature of the soils in\nevery field and part of a field, the suffs, the bedrock, pastures,\nploughlands and fallows; the quarries and places of the best stone for\nroadmending, building, walling, roofing, draining; the best stuff for\nmending footpaths; the best water for miles round, and the taste and\nquality of the various wells and springs; the clays for puddling and for\nbrickburning, the basseting out and dips of the beds; the cattle and\nlivestock up and down, their various breeds, treatment and condition;\nthe moors, forests, streams, rivers, seacoasts, familiar by sunlight,\nmoonlight, starlight, and on dark nights\u2014every nook and corner of them;\nthe old trees and their histories, the waterside trees, and where\npheasants frequently roost, and the places for netting rabbits and\nhares, or for spearing trout by lantern-light; or where the crab-apple\nand cluster-berry and mountain-flax and agrimony grow;\n\nThe haunts of the wild duck and snipe, the decoy of the corncrake, the\nnests of the storm-cock and the water-hen and the pewit; the legends\ntold of old hollows and caves and crags; the bold and beautiful\nheadlands, the taste of the air upon them; the old streets in the towns,\nand their histories, and the histories of the houses in them, and of\nthose who lived in the houses; the old villages and their traditions,\ncustoms, specialties, notorious characters, feasts and frolics;\n\nThe knowledge of the arts of sea and river fishing, oyster and scallop\ndredging, the trawl, the seine and the drift-net, farming,\nfruit-growing, timbergrowing pilling and dressing, canal-making,\nsea-walling, ship-building, irrigation; the great crafts in stone, wood,\niron\u2014of the mason\u2019s, the smith\u2019s, the joiner\u2019s, the tool-maker\u2019s work;\nof the clean use of tools, of all faithful and perfect work, and the joy\nand majesty that comes of it\u2014\n\nEverything that the land has\u2014calls an answer in the breasts of the\npeople, and quickly grows love for the use of those that live on it.\n\nWithout this love no People can exist; this is the creation nourishment\nand defence of Nations. It is this that shall save England (as it has\nsaved Ireland); which ultimately\u2014of the very Earth\u2014shall become the\nnurse of Humanity.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nBetween a great people and the earth springs a passionate attachment,\nlifelong\u2014and the earth loves indeed her children, broad-breasted,\nbroad-browed, and talks with them night and day, storm and sunshine,\nsummer and winter alike.\n\n[Here indeed is the key to the whole secret of education.]\n\nOwners and occupiers then fall into their places; the trees wave proud\nand free upon the headlands; the little brooks run with a wonderful new\nmusic under the brambles and the grass.\n\n[Determined\u2014is the word henceforth\u2014to worship nothing, no ownership,\nwhich is unreal; no title-deeds, money-smells, respectabilities,\nauthorities;\n\nTo be arrogant, unpersuadable, faithful, free\u2014not unworthy of the trees\nwaving upon the high tops and of the earth rolling through the starlit\nnight.]\n\nGovernment and laws and police then fall into their places\u2014the earth\ngives her own laws; Democracy just begins to open her eyes and peep! and\nthe rabble of unfaithful bishops, priests, generals, landlords,\ncapitalists, lawyers, kings, queens, patronisers and polite idlers goes\nscuttling down into general oblivion.\n\nFaithfulness emerges, self-reliance, self-help, passionate comradeship.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nFreedom emerges, the love of the land\u2014the broad waters, the air, the\nundulating fields, the flow of cities and the people therein, their\nfaces and the looks of them no less than the rush of the tides and the\nslow hardy growth of the oak and the tender herbage of spring and stiff\nclay and storms and transparent air.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll depends upon a word spoken or unspoken.\n\nThe clouds fly overhead still, and the smell of the new-mown grass is\nwafted by. It comes and recedes again.\n\nI hear the awful syllable Change, and see all things, qualities,\nimpersonations, gliding from the embraces of their own names; but I hear\nbeyond;\n\nI hear beyond the sound of the hone and strickle, and look in the eyes\nof the Mower, under the shade of his broad straw hat.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt comes and recedes again, and comes nearer.\n\nThe little waves lip up against the great black ship as she glides down\nriver\u2014\n\nO sailor sitting on a plank over the side, beware!\n\nThe ship itself, the rigging, the tidal river, the docks, the wharves,\nand long busy streets, and country beyond\u2014the shows of life and death\u2014\n\nWho makes and who unmakes them?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI touch you lightly. I am the spray.\n\nI touch you that you remember, and forget not who you are.\n\n\n                                  XLI\n\nI look upon him who makes all things.\n\nI sit at his feet in silence as he lights his pipe, and feel the\ncareless resting of his fingers upon my neck.\n\nI see the fire leaping in the grate; I see the nodding of grasses and\nblackberry sprays in the hedges; I hear the long surge and hush of the\nwind;\n\nI hear his voice speaking to me.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nO rivers and hills of Albion, O clouds that sail from the Atlantic to\nthe North Sea, and wrinkled old Abbeys and modern towers and streets of\nheavily laden drays,\n\nBehind your masks I am aware of an imperceptible change: surely it must\nbe the appearance of a Face.\n\n\n                                  XLII\n\nThe word travels on.\n\nI have been on tramp, and my boots are dusty and hobnailed, and my\nclothes are torn: do not ask me into your house; (God knows; I might\nspoon my food with a knife!)\n\nGive me a penny on the doorstep and let me pass on. I have sat with you\nlong, and loved you well, unknown to you, but now I go otherwhere.\n\n\n                                 XLIII\n\nThe word travels on.\n\nOut of the mists of time, out of innumerable births, of endless\njourneys, transfigurements, lives, deaths, sorrows, emerging, my voice\nsounds to myself, to you, nearer than all thought: tentatively trying\nthe first notes, wonderingly at its beauty, of the Song\u2014strange word!\u2014of\nJoy.\n\nTo spread abroad over the earth, to be realised in time: Freedom to be\nrealised in time, for which the whole of History has been a struggle and\na preparation:\n\nThe dream of the soul\u2019s slow disentanglement.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n[O Blessed is he that has passed away!\n\nBlessed, alive or dead, whom the bitter taunts of existence reach\nnot\u2014nor betrayals protruded from dear faces, nor weariness nor cold nor\npain\u2014dwelling in heaven, and looking forth in peace upon the world.\n\nBlessed, thrice blessed, by day, by night! Blessed who sleeps with him,\nblessed who eats walks talks, blessed who labors in the field beside\nhim; blessed whoever, though he be dead, shall know him to be eternally\nnear.]\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI am the poet of hitherto unuttered joy.\n\nA little bird told me the secret in the night, and henceforth I go about\nseeking to whom to whisper it.\n\nI see the heavens laughing, I discern the half-hidden faces of the gods\nwherever I go, I see the transparent-opaque veil in which they hide\nthemselves; yet I dare not say what I see\u2014lest I should be locked up!\n\nChildren go with me, and rude people are my companions. I trust them and\nthey me. Day and night we are together and are content.\n\nTo them what I would say is near; yet is it in nothing that can be\nnamed, or in the giving or taking of any one thing; but rather in all\nthings.\n\nLaughter, O laughter! O endless journey! O soul exhaled through\nsuffering, arising free! Little bird petrel through the stormy seas\ndiving darting\u2014thy boundless home\u2014O clouds and sunshine shattering! Elf\nin thine own dark eyes gazing! O beckoner of companions, hastening\nonward\u2014winged spirit divine, girt round with laughter, laughter,\nlaughter.\n\n\n                                  XLIV\n\nI am come to be the interpreter of yourself to yourself;\n\n[Do I not stand behind the sun and moon, do I not wait behind the air\nthat you breathe, for this!]\n\nBorn beyond Maya I now descend into materials.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe dandelion by the path, and the pink buds of the sycamore, and the\nface of the sweep who comes to sweep your chimney, shall henceforth have\na new meaning to you, (how do you know that I am not the chimney-sweep?)\n\nThe nettles growing against the gate post, and the dry log on the grass\nwhere you stop and sit, the faithful tool that is in your hand and the\nsweat on your forehead, the sound of the dear old village band across\nfar fields\u2014\n\nThese shall be for memorials between us, and I in them will surely draw\ntowards you.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd to you, when I am dead, they shall deliver the words which still I\nhad not sense and courage to speak. Hear them.\n\nWhere I was not faithful these shall be faithful to you; where I was\nvain and silly these shall look you clear of all vanity and silliness;\nwhere I was afraid to utter my thoughts dumb things shall utter for you\nwords impossible to be misunderstood.\n\nThe sun shall shine, the clouds draw across the sky, the fire leap in\nthe grate, the kettle boil\u2014to purposes which you cannot fathom; the\nsimplest shall look you in the face to meanings ever profounder and\nprofounder than all Thought.\n\nBehind them, behind the woven veil\u2014accepting, not rejecting, my own\nvanities, cowardices, giving them also their due place\u2014I too wait in\nsilence, till the full-armed shall come to give me birth again.\n\n\n                                  XLV\n\nIn silence I wait and accept all\u2014the glare of misapprehension I accept\u2014I\nsit at the fashionable dinner-table and accept what is brought to me.\n\nI am a painter on the house-side, the sight of the distant landscape\npleases me, and the scraps of conversation caught from the street below.\nMy back aches singling turnips through the long hot day; my fingers\nfreeze getting potatoes.\n\nI help the farmer drive his scared cattle home at midnight by the fitful\nflicker of lightning. I go mowing at early morning while the twilight\ncreeps in the North East\u2014I sleep in the hot hours\u2014and mow again on into\nthe night.\n\nI am a seeing unseen atom traveling with others through space or\nremaining centuries in one place; again I resume a body and disclose\nmyself.\n\nI am one of the people who spend their lives sitting on their haunches\nin drawing-rooms and studies; I grow gradually feebler and fretfuler. I\nam a boy once more in tall hat and gloves walking wearily among crowds\nof well-dressed (hopelessly well-dressed) people, up and down a certain\npromenade.\n\nI enter the young prostitute\u2019s chamber, where he is arranging the\nphotographs of fashionable beauties and favorite companions, and stay\nwith him; we are at ease and understand each other.\n\nI dance at the village feast in the upper room of a public; my partner\nshows me the steps and figures. The elderly harper, so noble and\ndignified, accompanies his son\u2019s fiddle\u2014or goes round to collect the\npence\u2014but all the while his thoughts are with his only daughter in\nAustralia.\n\nThe wheel turns, but whatever it brings uppermost is well.\n\n\n                                  XLVI\n\nI lie abed in illness, and experience strange extensions of spirit. I am\nclose to those afar off, and the present and near at hand are\ndiscounted. I spend nights of pain and loneliness.\n\nI dream of the beautiful life. I go down to the sea with fisher folk,\nand spend chill nights on the great deep under the stars; the sun rises\non faces round me of freedom and experience. I see everywhere the old\nsimple occupations\u2014the making and mending of nets, the growing of flax\nand hemp, the tending of gardens, cattle\u2014the old sweet excuses for\nexistence, their meaning now partly understood\u2014the faith that grows in\nthe open air and out of all honest work till it surrounds and redeems\nthe soul.\n\nThe blacksmith blows up his fire; he listens for the sound of the great\nheat. He taps the glowing iron in advance of the blows of the striker,\nand turns it deftly with the tongs.\n\nThe budder of roses bends among the low bushes; with a quick motion he\nflirts out the wood and binds the bud on the wild stock. The wire-weaver\nstands at his loom, working the treadles with his foot and throwing the\nshuttle with alternate hand.\n\nThe old coach-body maker stands at his bench, grey-haired, worn,\nthoughtful\u2014the young apprentice comes down whistling from the trimming\nshop to ask him a question.\n\nThe sunlight streams in broad shafts through the chinks of the blinds\ninto the carpenter\u2019s shop; with grizzled beard and hair, and something\nof a stoop in his shoulders, the governor stands penciling out a fresh\njob; a tall young fellow sits astride of a door-style, cutting a\nmortise, and a dab of light on the floor sends a reflection up in his\narch-humored face.\n\nThe bathers in the late twilight, almost dark, advance naked under the\ntrees by the waterside, five or six together, superb, unashamed,\nscarcely touching the ground.\n\nThe budding pens of love scorch all over me\u2014my skin is too tight, I am\nready to burst through it\u2014a flaming girdle is round my middle. Eyes,\nhair, lips, hands, waist, thighs\u2014O naked mad tremors; in the dark\nfeeding pasturing flames!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nO soul, spreading, spreading\u2014impalpable sunlight behind the sunlight!\n\nThe tall thin grey-bearded man I meet daily in the street\u2014with lined\nbrow, silent, full of experience;\n\nThe stout matron in the greengrocer\u2019s shop, loquacious, clear-eyed, with\nclear indubitable voice;\n\nThe thick-thighed hot coarse-fleshed young bricklayer with the strap\nround his waist;\n\nThe young printer (but he has a wife and family at home) with large\ndreamy projecting eyes, going absent, miles away, over his work\u2014thinking\nof Swedenborg and the dance of atoms and angels;\n\nThe young woman at the refreshment bar, her thick light-colored hair,\nher well-formed features, and the bored look in her eyes as she returns\nthe chaff of the carefully-dressed young man across the counter;\n\nThe military-looking official at the door of the hotel\u2014the despondency\nof drink which he conceals beneath his loud-voiced smart exterior;\n\nThe ragged boy with rare intense eyes not to be misunderstood\u2014in the\nmidst of much dirt and ignorance the soul through suffering\nenfranchised, exhaled\u2014here too shining like the sunlight, redeeming\njustifying all it lights on;\n\nThe slut of a girl who has become a mother, the ready doubt among her\nneighbors who was the father; the stupid loving way in which she crams\nthe child to her breast\u2014sitting on a stone by the fire-side utterly\noblivious of opinion;\n\nThe good-natured fair-haired Titan at work in the fields; the little\nwoman with large dark eyes who is so clever and managing among the poor,\nand with their children;\n\nThe thin close-lipped friz-haired commercial traveler, unwearied,\nwalking long distances to save railway or coach fare, well posted in all\nlocal information for fifty miles round;\n\nHis wife, so comfortable and fore-thoughtful at home, so evil-tongued\nabroad, and the bevy of red-haired red-cheeked girls, well drilled in\nscrubbing and cooking, and not without a veneer of accomplishments;\n\nThe railway lamp-foreman, tall, strong, fleet of foot, with gentle\nvoice\u2014lover of the fields and flowers, going long walks Sundays or late\nevenings by moonlight\u2014sending the balance of his earnings to support his\naged father and mother;\n\nThe bright sunny girl-child with long beautiful hair (envied of the\nother children) and poignant blossoming lips and eyes;\n\nThe girl in the tobacconist\u2019s shop, her drooping lashes, her taper\nfingers, and provocative inimitable composure\u2014and all the time her\nmother is incurably dying;\n\nThe hunch-backed cobbler, young, thwarted, thinking incessantly of\nJesus\u2014praying night and day for the gift of preaching;\n\nThe drunken father reeling home in the rain across country\u2014he has more\nthan a mile to go\u2014singing, cursing, tumbling hands and knees in the\nmire; his son following unbeknown at a little distance (he had been\nwatching a long time for his father outside the beershop); the late moon\nrising on the strange scene, the hiccuped oaths of the old man through\nthe silence of the night.\n\n\n                                 XLVII\n\nLo! I touch you.\n\nSoftly yearningly I touch you, and pass on\u2014dreaming the dream of the\nsoul\u2019s slow disentanglement.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nSharp-cut, thin-lipped, sad, scholastic; plain-featured, unembarrassed,\naffectionate; and you, beautiful careless boy! and you, strange eternal\nanxious mother-face!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHow shall I say what I have to say? How shall I speak the word which\nsums up all words that are spoken? How shall I speak that for which the\nmoon and the stars and running waters and the universe itself subsist,\nto speak it?\u2014which if it could be uttered in a word there were no need\nof all these things.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nO Death, take me away.\n\nTake me away, kindly Death; lead me forth, lead me through the entire\nuniverse.\n\nLet me pass; hold me back, I say, no longer; for I am tired, I am sick,\nof talking\u2014and I forebode other ways.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nFor I would be the dust;\n\nAnd I would be the silver rays of the moon and the stars, and the\nwashing sound of the midnight sea;\n\nAnd nourishing sweet air and running water, for the lips of them that I\nchoose;\n\nTo pass, to put on the invisible cap, to run round about the world,\nunseen.\n\nAnd I will be the plain ungarnished facts of life, with continual\nnearnesses;\n\nThe train arriving at the station shall not be nearer or more solid; nor\nthe lifting and transporting of boxes and goods, nor the grasp of the\nhandles to them that open and shut the doors.\n\nI will be the ground underfoot and the common clay;\n\nThe ploughman shall turn me up with his ploughshare among the roots of\nthe twitch in the sweet-smelling furrow;\n\nThe potter shall mould me, running his finger along my whirling edge (we\nwill be faithful to one another, he and I);\n\nThe bricklayer shall lay me: he shall tap me into place with the handle\nof his trowel;\n\nAnd to him I will utter the word which with my lips I have not spoken.\n\n\n                                 XLVIII\n\nI arise and pass.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI am a spirit passing by, a light air on the hills saying unto you: In\ndeath there is peace.\n\nOut of all mortal suffering, out of the bruised and broken heart, out of\ntears, tears\u2014falling seen, falling inward and unseen\u2014out of the\nwithering flame of desire, and out of all illusion,\n\nMy spirit exhaled\u2014floats free\u2014my brother and sister\u2014for you\u2014over the\nworld eternally.\n\n[Joy, O joy!]\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nFor you, too, beyond this visible\u2014through the gates of mortal passion\nand suffering\u2014for the exhaled spirit,\n\nFor you, too, beyond this broken dream, this bitter waking in tears,\n\nSomething\u2014how can I tell it?\u2014which I have seen, which I might perhaps\ngive you: and yet which I cannot give you, but in me waits also for\nyou\u2014O how long?\n\nSomething that I have promised. I give you the token. Faithfully when\nyou recognise and return it shall you have that you desire.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI am the light air on the hills\u2014deny me not; my desire which was not\nsatisfied is satisfied, and yet can never be satisfied.\n\nI pass and pass and pass.\n\nFrom the hills I creep down into the great city\u2014fresh and pervading\nthrough all the streets I pass;\n\nHim I touch, and her I touch, and you I touch\u2014I can never be satisfied.\n\nI who desired one give myself to all. I who would be the companion of\none become the companion of all companions.\n\nThe lowest and who knows me not, him I know best and love best;\n\nThe child of the suffering heart I take; my arms pass under his\nshoulders and under the hollow of his thighs; his arm lies around my\nneck, my lips yearn close to his\u2014on my breast at length he slumbers\npeacefully and long.\n\nThe blind and aged woman descends the steps leading to the basement of\nthe tall London house; the east wind blows bitter with dust along the\nstreet; she feels along the wall, and for the door, and timidly knocks.\nI cannot see who opens the door, but it is slammed immediately in her\nface. I take her by the hand and speak words to her, and her sightless\neyes are as though they saw once more.\n\nOnce I walked the world of rocks and grass, of space and time, of\nambition and action, and could imagine no other\u2014for I was in that one;\nnow I roam through other fields and have the freedom of worlds\ninnumerable, and am familiar where before was darkness and silence.\n\n\n                                  XLIX\n\nI arise and pass.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn her tall-windowed sitting room\u2014alone\u2014\n\n[The setting sun casts long shafts of light across the path and beneath\nthe trees where knee-deep in grass a milkwhite calf is browsing,]\n\nIn her tall-windowed sitting room, with its antique pierglasses and\nprofuse handsome ornaments\u2014alone\u2014\n\nThe old dowager sits.\n\nHer silver-grey hair lies smooth under a lace cap; lace and silk are her\ndress, her thin fingers are well stocked with rings.\n\nLonely is the great house; her old life and the voices of children have\nlong passed away. She goes to the window to pass the time and through\nthe glass looks out upon the still landscape; after a while she turns\nand rings a bell\u2014a tall young footman appears.\n\nHer voice is quiet and gentle as she gives her order, and flexible still\nwith intelligence; very taking with their old-fashioned refinement are\nher manners;\n\nBut in a moment what she requires is there, and she is alone\nagain\u2014everything is done for her.\n\nInto her chair once more she resigns herself, to knit an antimacassar.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWithout, how peaceful the scene!\n\nThe crisp sound of browsing, the liquid blue-violet eyes of the white\ncalf, her budding horns, her sweet breath, her muscular tongue\nencircling the tufts of grass, the impatient sideway thrust of the head\nwith which she tears them,\n\nThe fearlessness with which she gives her head to be caressed and hugged\nby the little girl just come down from the farm.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe sun withdraws his rays; the many shadows are merged in one;\n\nThe sweet odor of the white campion comes floating, and of the wild\nroses in neighboring hedgerows, and of the distant bean-fields;\n\nTwilight comes, and dusk comes, and the height of the sky lifts and\nlifts;\n\nThe last of the long daylight fades:\n\nOver the fields and by the hedgerows and along the sprawling suburban\nstreets of London the last of the long daylight fades:\n\nOver the roof of the high opera-house\u2014late grey and ghostly in contrast\nwith the myriad twinkling lamps below\u2014by those within unthought of, it\nfades:\n\nWhere\u2014amid a blaze of light and color, elate, to her full height drawn,\ntier upon tier of faces, thousands of eyes confronting, and saturated\nwith the excitement of the moment, every vein in her beautiful body\nbounding\u2014\n\nThe prima donna lifts clear and unfaltering in the finale her splendid\nvoice,\n\nAnd retires amid a storm of flowers.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe sower goes out to sow, alone in the morning, the early October\nmorning so beautiful and calm.\n\nThe flanks of the clods are creeping with thin vapor, and the little\ncopse alongside the field is full of white trailing veils of it;\n\nWhile now like a flood the rising yellow sunlight pours in, among the\nbrambles and under the square oak-boughs, and splashes through in great\nstreaks of light over the ploughed land.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nBeautiful is the morning. Alone over the field, to and fro, to and fro,\nwith ample alternate hand-sweep he goes. At every step, right and left,\nthe grain broadcast flies in a glittering shower.\n\nWith the Sun and the Earth for companions, with browned arms and face\nand dazzle-lidded eyes, thick-booted, untiring, all day the sower goes\nsowing\u2014\n\nWhat in due time shall become daily bread in the mouths of thousands.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe caravan has halted: it is the hour of prayer, the tents are already\npitched;\n\nOn his carpet the old Sheikh kneels upright\u2014his arms and eyes uplifted;\nabove, the living blue breathless miracle bends\u2014the sky!\n\nThe others are round him with their faces buried in the sand; the camels\nare tethered a few paces off.\n\nHis voice ascends. By the doors of the tents from the scanty fires just\nlighted three columns of smoke, perfectly straight, also ascend.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThat is all. The smoke creeps upward and is lost continually in the\nblue; his voice who prays creeps upward and is lost.\n\nAround spreads, silent, with loose stones and a few weeds, the desert;\nabove, the sky.\n\nThe Sky!\n\n\n                                   L\n\nI arise and pass.\n\nAfter eighty years, having been once like the rest a little vacant-eyed\nchild in his mother\u2019s arms; having thence lived and toiled and enjoyed\nmuch hither and thither over the earth; Now being very weary, and day\nafter day and week after week growing more and more weary; all all old\ninterests refusing, for death longing\u2014the old lawyer lies down to sleep.\n\nIt is but for an hour or two. Death comes not yet. The leaves still\ntremble in the evening wind, the clouds in solemn transformation float\non, voices of children call in the garden below.\n\nThe last few miles, the old familiar country\u2014the well-known roads and\ngarden-lands\u2014yet no glance thereon.\n\nThe strange immortal instinct pressing\u2014the veiled figure always in\nfront, beckoning.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nNow at this time the creatures of the forest to their lairs retiring\nawait the approach of night; the great mountains stand in awe amid the\nhush of their own waters; twilight fades and the stars once more appear.\n\nDeep under dead leaves in the wood or buried in the earth, the baby fly,\nwhite and unformed\u2014the two dark specks which will be its eyes just\nappearing\u2014in its oakspangle cradle sleeps. With their mother plaited in\na ball of dry grass, warm and soft, the young fieldmice lie quiet, or\nchirrup nosing for their food. The pools of water are full of creatures\nthat cannot rest; to the starlit surface rising they spread wings and\nfly forth into the fields of air. In heaven whirled by resistless\ntradition and necessity descending from God knows when, Jupiter the\ngreat planet swims\u2014and swathes itself wondrous in clouds\u2014prophetic.\n\nHeaven bends above, the Earth opens disclosing innumerable births\nbeneath. He lies weary, slumbering for a moment. The pen, the desk, the\nhalf-finished letter, are there; the gas makes a slight singing noise\noverhead.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nSolid walls and stones grow transparent and penetrable: the earth and\nall that is in it fade and recede to make way for the Traveler.\n\n\n                                   LI\n\nI arise and pass.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAn unfinished house standing at the edge of a field is burning\u2014and the\nroof has caught first.\n\nOne vast sheet of flame ascends spiral in the night, and casts its glare\nupon thousands of faces in the street and fields below.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nLo! the wonderful colors of the flame! The pitchy night above; the\ndazzling white and red mixed with the greens and blue-greens of the\nburning metals; and the great twisted column of tawny smoke, with red\nsparkles flying on the wind.\n\nLo! the strange light cast upon the wall of full-foliaged elms; and far\nmore wonderful than all, at their feet, the crowd of living faces\u2014\n\nThe mad pushing sweating crowd, the flushed eager faces\u2014dominated all,\ncontrolled and riveted by that flaming sign.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHoly! holy! holy!\n\nNight and flame, night and flame, entering in! entering (O arched wonder\nof many eyes!) through the visible into the invisible\u2014\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHoly! holy! holy!\n\nNight and flame entering in (and one with you, treading softly through\nthe myriad marvelous chambers)\u2014\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo dwell; to dwell for months, years; to transfuse, enlarge, to touch\nwith wonder, ardor, exultation; to be remembered afterwards, years and\nyears perhaps, upon his bed, by that child there: the jets of flame\nthrough the roof, the strange wreathing smoke, the solemn dark of the\nsky, the bravery of the firemen, the thrill of the falling timbers; to\nmix with the yearnings of the growing lonely boy, to be a strange symbol\nburning in his heart; to fire the slumbering train (in some compressed\ngirl-soul) of adventurous resolve; to mingle with the fears of\nmotherhood;\n\nAt last to merge and become indistinguishable\u2014in each one of these to\nmerge, night and flame!\u2014leaving out not one.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHoly! holy! holy!\n\nAnd lo! the crowd still standing.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd now out of all two alone.\n\nBy the curbstone, in the forefront of the crowd, a man\u2014a navvy\u2014with his\nhands clasped in front of him on the breast of his little son!\n\nThe boy, timid, standing between his father\u2019s feet, pressing back\nagainst his legs, with his own little hands the great hands clasping;\n\nThe two, equal childlike, with parallel upward eyes by the flame\nriveted,\n\nTheir rapt unconscious demeanor, the strong likeness between them,\n\nAnd the meanings, apart, which the wonderful roaring gesticulating flame\nin the night signifies secretly to each.\n\n\n                                  LII\n\nI arise and pass.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWith struggles and strange exhausting birth-leapings, with long\nintervals of sleep,\n\n[When it is all over, with long long sweet sleep;]\n\nWith the unwashed wet of birth, of love, still upon me;\n\nWith the clinging of the love of men and women, with the sweat of\nnight-long companions, with the bruised sweetness of love;\n\nWith sleep, sleep, with the wine of life and death, with kisses given\nand received, with the reaching of arms round neck and shoulder, and the\nanswer of quiet eyes;\n\nWith nakedness unashamed, with divine comradeship, and laughter; with\nthe enclosing shadow of Death, far lost in daring outposts on the verge\nof the Unknown; with soldiership and armor unremitted, exultant;\n\nWith childhood and the least trifle content; with eternal Nowness; with\nperfected Carelessness; with night, day, rain, sun, winter, summer,\nmorning, evening, solitude, pain, pleasure, and the looking forth of\ninnumerable faces;\n\nWith Chastity and Ascendancy; with invulnerability and superhuman power;\nwith Unchastity and Effusion; with live clinging threads of love\nreaching down to the remotest time;\n\nWith the endless journey begun; with trades by sea and land; simple\nfood, coarse clothing, common features; with the breath of the common\nair, and the freemasonry of the old crafts all over the world;\n\nShaggy coat-shakings, revolts, rejections of accepted things, travels,\ndisappearances, re-appearances, swoonings away, oblivions; arising again\non earth, irresistible, to supreme mastery,\n\nTo Savagery and the wild woods, with unfettered step; to rocks and\nhanging branches; to the dens of the animals, to wind and sun, blowing\nshining through, and I through them, to evade and arise;\n\nWith joy over the world, Democracy, born again, into heaven, over the\nmountain-peaks and the seas in the unfathomable air, screaming, with\nshouts of joy, whirling the nations with her breath, into heaven arising\nand passing,\n\nI arise and pass\u2014dreaming the dream of the soul\u2019s slow disentanglement.\n\n\n                                  LIII\n\nWhere you are:\n\nWhere the firelight flickers about your room, and the wind moans in the\nwindow, and the railway whistle over suburban roofs sounds hollow\nthrough the night;\n\nWhere you sit alone, and your thoughts spread making a great space about\nyou;\n\nWhere you go forth at early morning with your bass of trusty tools, and\nyour shadow shoots long before you down the frosty sparkling road\u2014where\nyou return at evening weary and out of humor with your life,\n\nI dream the dream.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhere you open your eyes upon the world, and the beauty of it is upon\nyou like the touch of beloved fingers;\n\nWhere the still flame burns in your soul, hidden away from the lightest\nbreath of curious man; where the fire of consecration burns;\n\nYet the world closes in at last, and the lamp grows dim, and you lie\nlike one half dead\u2014of the bitter wounds of the faces of men and the\ntaunts of existence;\n\nI dream the dream: I dream the dream of the soul\u2019s slow disentanglement.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhere you bend ankle-deep in mud all day in the rice plantations for a\nfew half-pence; and the sun sails on\u2014slow, slow\u2014over the steamy land;\n\nWhere you walk following the old employ, shepherding sheep in the sweet\ncrisp air of the high lands;\n\nWhere you stand pale and worn-eyed in the gloomy North amid the hot\nsmell of machinery and the wicked scream of wheels; where you stand\nadjusting the threads, making the same answering movement of the hand\nfor the millionth time;\n\nWhere you lie wedged in under a coal seam, working by the light of a\ntallow dip stuck in clay; or grind scythes all day, bending over, or\nrace your wheel with the racing steel;\n\nWhere you sit high up on the fragrant mountains of Ceylon, with a great\nflood of moonlight at your feet, leaning your soul out from the verandah\nto the slow lifting and floating of palm-fronds in the exquisite breeze;\nand memories come trooping back upon you like the clouds of small yellow\nbutterflies that along your coasts\u2014between the sand and the sea\u2014beat\nannually up against the wind;\n\nWhere you recline by your camp-fire in the African wild, watching the\nmoonlight dances of the natives\u2014the fantastic leaps of the dancer, the\nrhythmical hand-clapping of the spectators;\n\nWhere you drop down the river in the sun, past the dreaded mud-banks and\nwildernesses of mangroves;\n\nI dream the dream.\n\n\n                                  LIV\n\nWhere you sit in your armchair by the hearth, sleeping long and long;\nwhere you wake to look back upon your life lying hushed below you\u2014like\none who looks back from the summit of a mountain;\n\nAnd the children that came to you in the morning have gone from you at\nevening dusk,\n\nAnd the lesson of unfulfilled longing is yours, and of the inflow of\nimmortality;\n\nWhere they go out over the earth, where the children of the universal\nmother go; and the wind carries them over the sea, blowing them into all\nlands; where they flow through the straits and narrows and over the\ngreat oceans of the earth, dwelling for nights together among the white\nleaping crests under the stars;\n\nWhere strange faces meet, under other-slanting suns, amid new scenes and\ncolors;\n\nWhere light encounters dark, and in their meeting glance lie new social\nideals and civilisations slumbering;\n\nWhere the mother of them all sits dreaming;\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhere the young poet peers in by moonlight through the bars of the tomb\nof Dante, and turns away with a silent prayer;\n\nWhere the artist with easel and palette sits swathed in coats upon a\nhillside watching the untroubled dawn;\n\nWhere the old Hindu feeling the approach of death leaves his family and\nretires to a hut in the jungle, there to spend his last days in prayer\nand solitude;\n\nWhere royalty dwells lonely in spacious chambers, or moves along\ncorridors past scarlet-coated footmen;\n\nWhere young and old at eventide in the dreamy flicker of firelight sit\nsilent, or go away wandering in thought after the brother, the son, and\nlover of their dreams, following quickly softly with each and kissing\nthe sacred footsteps through the dark;\n\nWhere the young mother prays for hours bending over the face of her\nsleeping child; where the young man dreams all night of the face of his\nnew-found friend and the kisses of his lips;\n\nWhere the river glides down by night past the great city broadening to\nthe sea;\n\nI dream the dream.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe wind blows up fresh and cold where the waves are slapping against\nthe jetty; red and green lights skim rapidly over the water;\n\nThe cold light of the half moon stands overhead, breaking its way\nthrough combed fleece clouds, the horizon stretches misty white like the\nedge of an ice-bound sea;\n\nThe moon pushes her way for a moment through the clouds, to look down\nupon the stilled scene of human toil and suffering; the wind blows up\nkeen against those who still linger on the jetty;\n\nKeenly it blows away over the waste sea, and wraps itself round a\nthousand solitary watchers of the deep.\n\nOn the wind I ride,\n\nAnd dream the dream of the soul\u2019s slow disentanglement;\n\n\n                                   LV\n\nI have passed away and entered the gate of heaven. I am absolved from\nall torment. All is well to me.\n\nA tiny infant am I once more, leaning out from my mother\u2019s arms as one\nleans from a balcony. But the world hangs flat before me like a painted\ncurtain: the sun and the moon and men\u2019s faces are all alike. This is my\ndream. The sound of music comes calling to me, calling, calling.\nListening I lean forward with open mouth and far-distant gaze, and am\nprofoundly still. [Let who looks upon me see with his own eyes my dark\nsoul\u2019s myriad re-awakening.]\n\nI am a wild cat crouching at night in the angle of a bough. I am Arjuna\nreasoning on the battle-field with Krishna\u2014learning the lessons of\ndivine knowledge. I am a teacher scanning the faces of those who sit\nopposite to me. All is well.\n\nI labor all day in the drizzle with pick and shovel; the smell of fire I\nstrike from the rock pleases me; I return home tired and wet in the\nearly dusk to my tea.\n\nI am one of a rustic party of actors; in the old farm-parlor we rehearse\nour parts, with shouts of laughter. I go into the cowshed last thing at\nnight with my lantern to see that all is well.\n\nI am a shepherd on the breezy hills; the wholesome aromatic odors of the\ngrass transfuse me; my sheep graze on and on through the noonday; I lie\nin the sun and think and speak of little beside ewes and tups.\n\nI stand in the chamber of Death and gaze upon the swathed larval\nform\u2014the solid world recedes around it; through the just open window\ncome the cries of hawkers and the creak of cart-wheels.\n\nI laugh and chat with the other girls and women in the edge-tool\nwarehouse; I run home in the evening to my old mother and to prepare the\ndinners for next day.\n\nThe din of the riveting shop goes on round me; I hate the bully\nred-faced master coming on his rounds\u2014with his insulting voice\u2014and\nanswer him not: murderous thoughts haunt my mind.\n\nI plot with others to murder the captain on board ship. I am satisfied\nwith the deed and experience no remorse. It is off the coast of China. I\ngo ashore afterwards and spend the night at a sing-song shop.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll is well. The least action as well as the greatest. The beautiful and\nthe deformed are alike beautiful. I am happy now and not to-morrow, and\nam absolved from motives.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nOn the northern-most point of Australia, decent in my single\ncowry-shell, I stand. The white man comes ashore in his boat from the\ngreat ship, and gives me some old hoop-iron, and I give him a few wooden\nlances in return.\n\nI am a long-eyed Japanee. In the shadow of the sacred thicket I\nlie\u2014where the great seated image of Buddha (hollow within for a shrine)\nbreaks above me against the blue sky. The sharp shadows lie under his\nsleepy lids and soft mouth smiling inwardly. I see on his forehead the\nsacred spot, and from between his feet the emblematic lotus springing.\n\n[All is well.]\n\nIn the shadow of the thicket I lie spreading my fevered limbs to the\ncool breeze, bruising their unslaked passion against the stony earth\u2014in\nthe cool shadow I lie and gaze at his face I know so well, and through\nthe immortal calm of it the spirit of the Holy One steals upon me; the\nfever of life departs.\n\nI stand near the door of my cottage, busy with the week\u2019s washing,\nthinking of my husband; in the doorway to and fro my baby swings in the\nlittle seat he has made; petulant soft wafts of spring air steal in,\nthis warm February morning. I am very happy.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI am very happy. By the door of my own little house at last I stand\nentranced. I look out upon the world and know not which way to go.\n\nO world you have been very gentle to me! Strangely as to the dead your\nbeauty comes to me now. Little house where I have lived so long, I thank\nyou too: I know well that you are different from what you appear.\n\nDisembodied I cry, I cry, over the earth\u2014I shake the sleepers in their\ntombs with unutterable joy:\n\nO arise! O air and elements break forth into singing! Great sea washing\nthe shores of earth! O earth of countless tombs! the hour of your\ndisclosure is at hand; the bounds of mortality at length are past!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI arise and pass once more: I travel forth into all lands: nothing\ndetains me any longer. By the ever beautiful coast-line of human life,\nin all climates and countries, wandering on, a stranger, unwearied, I\nmeet the old faces: I come never away from home.\n\nI lift the latch of the cottage door, and the place I love is laid for\nme for supper; I depart, yet never to depart again.\n\nLaws and limitations fade, time and distance are no more, no bars can\nhold me, no chamber shut me in: on those that bear me to the grave I\ndescend in peace.\n\nThe arched doors of the eyebrows of innumerable multitudes open around\nme: new heavens I see, and the earth made new because of them.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI will stop here then. I will not leave the earth after all. I am\ncontent and need go no farther.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd was this, O love, the cause of your so long aching?\n\nThat you might have the adit, that you might enter in at last and be at\nrest?\n\n\n                                  LVI\n\nSlowly on You, too, the meanings: the light-sparkles on water, tufts of\nweed in winter\u2014the least things\u2014dandelion and groundsel.\n\nHave you seen the wild bees\u2019 nest in the field, the cells, the grubs,\nthe transparent white baby-bees, turning brown, hairy, the young bees\nbeginning to fly, raking the moss down over the disturbed cells? the\nparasites?\n\nHave you seen the face of your brother or sister? have you seen the\nlittle robin hopping and peering under the bushes? have you seen the sun\nrise, or set? I do not know\u2014I do not think that I have.\n\nWhen your unquiet brain has ceased to spin its cobwebs over the calm and\nmiraculous beauty of the world;\n\nWhen the Air and the Sunlight shall have penetrated your body through\nand through; and the Earth and Sea have become part of it;\n\nWhen at last, like a sheath long concealing the swelling green shoot,\nthe love of learning and the regard for elaborate art, wit, manners,\ndress, or anything rare or costly whatever, shall drop clean off from\nyou;\n\nWhen your Body\u2014for to this it must inevitably return\u2014is become shining\nand transparent before you in every part (however deformed);\n\nThen (O blessed One!) these things also transparent possibly shall\nsurrender themselves\u2014the least thing shall speak to you words of\ndeliverance.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe stones are anywhere and everywhere: the temple roof is the sky.\n\nThe materials are the kettle boiling on the fire, the bread in the oven,\nthe washing dolly, the axe, the gavelock\u2014the product is God;\n\nAnd the little kitchen where you live, the shelves, the pewter, the\nnightly lamp, the fingers and faces of your children\u2014a finished and\nbeautiful Transparency of your own Body.\n\n\n                                  LVII\n\nI saw the cow give birth to her first-born calf; I saw the beautiful\nhelpless creature laid under her nose; I saw the calm woman who\nsprinkled the young thing with meal and tended the exhausted mother.\n\nI see the many women who manage cattle well, and gardens, and understand\nthe breeding of sheep;\n\nI see the noble and natural women of all the Earth; I see their\nwell-formed feet and fearless ample stride, their supple strong frames,\nand attitudes well-braced and beautiful;\n\nOn those that are with them long Love and Wisdom descend; everything\nthat is near them seems to be in its place; they do not pass by little\nthings nor are afraid of big things; but they love the open air and the\nsight of the sky in the early morning.\n\nBlessed of such women are the children: and blessed are they in\nchildbirth. The open air and the sun and the moon and the running\nstreams they love all the more passionately for the sake of that which\nlies sleeping within them.\n\n\n                                 LVIII\n\nRecurved and close lie the little feet and hands, close as in the\nattitude of sleep folds the head, the little lips are hardly parted;\n\nThe living mother-flesh folds round in darkness, the mother\u2019s life is an\nunspoken prayer, her body a temple of the Holy One.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI am amazed and troubled, my child, she whispers\u2014at the thought of you;\nI hardly dare to speak of it, you are so sacred;\n\nWhen I feel you leap I do not know myself any more\u2014I am filled with\nwonder and joy\u2014Ah! if any injury should happen to you!\n\nI will keep my body pure, very pure; the sweet air will I breathe and\npure water drink; I will stay out in the open, hours together, that my\nflesh may become pure and fragrant for your sake;\n\nHoly thoughts will I think; I will brood in the thought of mother-love.\nI will fill myself with beauty: trees and running brooks shall be my\ncompanions;\n\nAnd I will pray that I may become transparent\u2014that the sun may shine and\nthe moon, my beloved, upon you,\n\nEven before you are born.\n\n\n                                  LIX\n\nOut of Night and Nothingness a Body appears.\n\nThe threads of a thousand past ages run together in it; out of its loins\nand the look of its eyes a thousand ages part their way into the future.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nEyes out of which I see, Ears through which I hear\u2014formed in my mother\u2019s\nwomb in silence;\n\nMother of mine, walking the earth no more (to me closer than ever), out\nof all tears, suffusing light over the world, equal with God\u2014for whose\nsake Night and Day evermore are sacred;\n\nBody, by which I ascend and know Myself\u2014Mysteries of life and death\nslowly parting and transforming around me:\n\nO glad, not for one year or two but for how many thousands, I out of\ndeep and infinite Peace salute you.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe doctor does not give Health, but the winds of heaven;\n\nHappiness does not proceed by chance, nor is got by supplication, but is\ninevitable wherever the Master is.\n\nDoubt parts aside. I hear grown and bearded men shouting in the woods\nfor joy, shouting singing with the birds; I hear the immense chorus over\nall the world, of the Return to Joy.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nCome, my friend, in the still autumn morning, while the sun is yet low\nupon the hills, among the dead leaves come walk with me.\n\nThose and the like of those that have been my companions are with You\nalso, and shall be to all time. I give you but a hint and a word of\ncommendation. I open a door outwards.\n\nThe gentle and stormy winds, the clouds sailing in heaven; the\nplough-stilts, the boat-tiller; sitting at dinner with the winter sun\nlooking in at the open door, natural men and women (common as unquarried\nrock) around you; love, granted or not granted; the companionship of the\ndead;\n\nThe savage eternal peaks, the solitary signals\u2014Walt Whitman, Jesus of\nNazareth, your own Self distantly deriding you\u2014\n\nThese are always with you.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHave you doubted?\u2014It is well. But now you shall forget your doubts.\n\nHave you suffered?\u2014It is good to suffer; but soon you shall suffer no\nlonger.\n\nHave you looked at the sky and the earth and the long busy streets and\nthought them dead of all poetry and beauty?\u2014It is you have been ill,\nnigh to death; but be at peace: life shall surely return to you.\n\nI have seen your struggles, your long wakeful nights; I have sat by you.\nI have heard the voice which calls you. Come with me. Here is Rest, here\nis Peace I give you. A little while by the edge of this wood sitting, I\nwith You; then to depart; yet never to depart again.\n\nWords unspoken, yet wafted over all lands, through all times, eternal;\nno more mine than yours\u2014I give them again to the wide embracing Air.\n\nHaply a little breath for you to breathe\u2014to enter, scarcely perceived,\ninto your body\u2014a little time to dwell, transforming, within you.\n\nHaply mementos, indications, broken halves of ancient changeless\nSymbols, eternal possessions, treasures incorruptible,\n\nOf Love which changes not\u2014to be duly presented again\u2014the broken halves\nto be joined.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI a child sitting at your feet, content\u2014the odor of dead leaves all\naround; or walking with you, your comrade, through the night (often we\nlean and touch each other\u2019s lips as we go); or very old, and near and\ndear to Death:\n\nAre you sure you know me when you look upon me?\n\nBehold a mystery!\u2014these eyes, these lips, this hair, these loins\u2014see you\nme in them, you shall see me where they are not.\n\nLong looking, the face of the world shall change\u2014surely by the edge of\nthe little wood I will come and sit with you.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll riches promised, and far more, I give to you.\n\nHave you used the Summer well, then the Winter shall be beautiful to\nyou. Have you made good use of Life, then Death shall be exceeding\nglorious.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll this day we will go together; the sun shall circle overhead; our\nshadows swing round us on the road; the winter sunshine shall float\nwonderful promises to us from the hills; the evening see us in another\nland;\n\nThe night ever insatiate of love we will sleep together, and rise early\nand go forward again in the morning;\n\nWherever the road shall lead us, in solitary places or among the crowd,\nit shall be well; we shall not desire to come to the end of the journey,\nnor consider what the end may be: the end of all things shall be with\nUs.\n\n\n                                   LX\n\nThis is my trade; teach me yours and I will teach you mine.\n\nAre you a carpenter, a mason, a grower of herbs and flowers, a breaker\nof horses? a wheel-wright, boat-builder, engine-tenter,\ndockyard-laborer? do you take in washing or sewing, do you rock the\nyoungest in the cradle with your foot while you knit stockings for the\nelder ones? It is well\u2014Weaning yourself from external results learn the\ntrue purposes of things.\n\nWherever the sea and the land are, is my trade, and it has been known\nsince the eldest Time: the ancient Mysteries and Oracles hinted at it,\nthe venerable sages of India knew it, and men and women who walked this\nearth before all history; in the remotest stars it is exactly the same\nas here, and in all the circles of intelligences whether they dwell in\nfire or water or in the midst of what is solid, or in the thinnest\nvacuum.\n\nMany an old woman sitting by her cottage door is far more profoundly\nversed in it than I am. Many a fisherman pouncing on crabs along the\nshores of the Mediterranean has in it long ago served his\napprenticeship. If you think or desire by coming with me to know more or\nbe better than these, you mistake me and what I have to tell you.\n\nLearning and superiority are of no use in the face of all this: they\ndepart much as they came. But to come near to understanding the use of\nmaterials is divine, and he that has never despised a weaker or more\nignorant than himself is nearest to this.\n\nMany are the roads, but there is one end to which they all lead; there\nare many profitable trades, but there is one whose profits are past all\nreckoning.\n\n\n                                  LXI\n\nHand in hand for an hour I sit with you in the Great Garden of Time\n\nEquals We, possessors and enjoyers, ask no more than simply to be. This\nhour, equal of all others that were or shall be, itself perfect: the\nother hours as they come or go, perfect.\n\nMeeting once, to meet often and often again (is not the whole garden\nours?), we shall not forget, we will not hasten or delay.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nFrom this day it is not so much we that change, as the hours that glide\npast us; each bends low as it passes with a gift.\n\nEarth-kings on their thrones faintly fore-shadowed this; the old myths\nand legends of heaven were the indistinct dreams of the everlasting\npeace of the soul.\n\n\n                                  LXII\n\nAnd you too, ye hours of suffering and warfare, grim unrest, we\nconfront, each perfect; we contain you; storms and darkness surging\naround, we have seen round you.\n\nHours of pain and darkness within, evil conscience and heavy burdens of\nconcealment! hours of black and obstinate desire, eyes turning aswerve,\ntrembling guilty tongue\u2014hungry mortal hours! caught in the cleave of\nyour jaws, I deny you not.\n\nFar from it: I welcome you. You are my friends as good as any, I give\nyou equal places with the rest, if not better\u2014for what indeed should I\nunderstand if you had not taught me?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nEach beautiful, countless myriads to be known,\n\nOver the hills and green plains of Eternity pasturing, for ever\nwidening\u2014mortal, immortal, swift-footed, slow-footed\u2014O ye Hours and\nDesires, you are all mine!\n\nMy herd, my beauties! my glossy, supple, with arched necks, my gentle\nand caressing, my wild, fierce, passionate\u2014divine, satanic\u2014there is\nroom, and plenty, for you all!\n\nO beautiful creatures! not because sometimes you show your teeth at each\nother will I disown you; not if you should all turn upon one to rend\nhim, will I cast that one out\u2014never so black or ungainly be he.\n\nAvaunt! Over the hills with lightning speed fly, tossing your nostrils:\nbut know that I easily outspeed you all\u2014you cannot delude or escape Me.\n\nWild herd! begetting and begetting innumerable progeny (all mine),\n\nSee if to my chariot at length harnessed I will not drive you,\nirresistible and triumphant, through all the kingdoms of Space.\n\n\n                                 LXIII\n\nBeautiful is the winter by the sea; the gray waves come rolling with\nlocks tossed back by the North wind.\n\nIn his hut on the beach the fisherman cooks his dinner; the clock that\nbelongs in the herring-boat ticks against the wall; the drift-nets are\nmended; the boat is overhauled and repaired, the boat-lanterns and the\npump are painted.\n\nOut on the great deep the balance and plunge goes on; the sail steadies\nin the wind; the land and well-known points fade; the circle of water\ncompletes itself.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nBeautiful is the winter inland; the wind and wild clouds with rain rush\nover the world; the valleys are full of the sound of streams.\n\nThe farmer cleans out his ditches and drains, and mends the foot-paths\nacross his fields; the turnip-pit is completed; and the apples and\npotatos are picked over in the store-room.\n\nThe snow descends upon the young blade of corn; the soft-fingered flakes\nwrap all the world in white; frost seals the earth in silence.\n\nHe stands by the door of the house-place at night; the moon leans out,\nand the stars and the great planets from heaven; Orion hunts with his\ndogs. In the morning the field-fares and starlings go by in flights.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nDo I ask of you perfections? do you think that Winter is perhaps less\nperfect than Summer? or that there is not perfection everywhere, where\nthe soul casts its light?\n\nBe not careful about perfections: I declare to you the day shall come\nwhen everything shall be perfect to you.\n\nTo be ungainly or deformed shall after all be no hindrance, your\nignorance and rags shall not avail for a disguise;\n\nPast your own futility and vanity you shall walk unfettered, and just\ngaze upon them as you go by; if learning and skill admit you to wonders,\nignorance and awkwardness shall give you entrances equally or more\ndesirable.\n\nTake care (I have warned you before) how you touch these words: with\ncurious intellect come not near, lest I utterly destroy you; but come\nwith bold heart and true and careless, and they shall bless you beyond\nimagination.\n\nI do not turn you back from self-seeking; on the contrary I know that\nyou shall never rest till you have found your Self;\n\nIf you seek it in money, fame, and the idle gratification of inordinate\norgans and bumps\u2014that is all very well for a time; but you will have to\ndo better than that.\n\nIf you seek it in Duty, Goodness, Renunciation, they also are very well\nfor a time; but you will do better.\n\n\n                                  LXIV\n\nBeautiful is the figure of the lusty full-grown groom on his superb\nhorse: the skin of the animal is saturated with love.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nRadiant health!\n\nO kisses of sun and wind, tall fir-trees and moss-covered rocks! O\nboundless joy of Nature on the mountain tops\u2014coming back at last to you!\n\nWild songs in sight of the sea, wild dances along the sands, glances of\nthe risen moon, echoes of old old refrains coming down from unimagined\ntimes!\n\nO rolling through the air superb prophetic spirit of Man, pulse of\ndivine health equalising the universe, vast over all the world expanding\nspirit!\n\nO joy of the liberated soul (finished purpose and acquittal of\ncivilisation), daring all things\u2014light step, life held in the palm of\nthe hand! O swift and eager delight of battle, fierce passion of love\ndestroying and destroying the body!\n\nEternal and glorious War! Liberation! the soul like an eagle\u2014from gaping\nwounds and death\u2014rushing forth screaming into its vast and eternal\nheaven.\n\nSee! the divine mother goes forth with her babe (all creation circles\nround)\u2014God dwells once more in a woman\u2019s womb; friend goes with friend,\nflesh cleaves to flesh, the path that rounds the universe.\n\nO every day sweet and delicious food! Kisses to the lips of\nsweet-smelling fruit and bread, milk and green herbs. Strong well-knit\nmuscles, quick-healing glossy skin, body for kisses all over!\n\nRadiant health! to breathe, O joy! to sleep, ah! never enough to be\nexpressed!\n\nFor the taste of fruit ripening warm in the sun, for the distant sight\nof the deep liquid sea!\n\nFor the sight of the naked bodies of the bathers, bathing by the hot\nsea-banks, the pleasant consciousness of those who are unashamed, the\nglance of their eyes, the beautiful proud step of the human animal on\nthe sand;\n\nFor the touch of the air on my face or creeping over my unclothed body,\nfor the rustling sound of it in the trees, and the appearance of their\ntall stems springing so lightly from the earth!\n\nJoy, joy and thanks for ever.\n\n\n                                  LXV\n\nFor the face of the farm-lad who came and sat beside me, the handfuls of\npease that he offered me\u2014for the taste of their juicy sweet pods;\n\nThe pressure of the Earth against me as I lay on it, the light sense\nriding on it of tremendous forces charioting me onward; for the like\nsense in my will and actions, of being borne along!\n\nO the splendid wind careering over earth and ocean, the sun darting\nbetween the great white clouds! O the lifting of arms to Nature\u2014heaven\nwrapped around one\u2019s body!\n\nThe unflagging pleasure of food, the crisp and toothsome growths of the\nsoil! draughts of running water in summer;\n\nThe evenings by the fire in winter, the ease after labor, the steady\nsleepy heat, the sleepy flicker on the wall, the presence of others in\nthe room; for the voices of children;\n\nFor the beautiful faces\u2014and ever more beautiful appearing\u2014of those I\nmeet in the doorway or at meals, the mortal father mother sister brother\nfaces;\n\nFor the glorified face of him I love: the long days out alone together\nin the woods, the nights superb of comradeship and love.\n\nO joy returning morn noon and night! day-long as in a dream walking over\nearth enchanted, waking deep midnight out of sleep in the ocean of joy!\n[Lo! the beautiful surface, the rippling of waves, the moon shining\ndown.]\n\nDeep deep draughts of all that life can give, drawn in to feed the\nflame\u2014\n\nJoy, joy and thanks for ever.\n\n[O burning behind all worlds, immortal Essences, Flames of this\never-consuming universe, never-consumed\u2014to laugh and laugh with you, and\nof our laughter\n\nShake forth creation!]\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWonderful! wave after wave; clouds, rain, wind, day and night;\n\nThe sea by night in storms, and the morning over the hills, for grief\nand joy, for solitude and companionship; for the birth of babes and the\nputting away of the husks of the feeble and aged in the ground;\n\nFor the great processions of the seasons over the Earth, and the dead\nlying below; and the dead rising again in the pure translucent air to\nbegin a new existence, with unutterable joy bursting outwards from them\nbeyond all mortal bounds\u2014\n\nWith shouts and p\u00e6ans into the blue \u00e6ther of God\u2014\n\nJoy, joy and thanks for ever.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd for the strange individual decree of each one,\n\nThe daily hunger and thirst after sympathy, ever-new, for the pleasant\nputting-forth of affection, and for the excess\u2014for prostrate unspeakable\nlove!\n\nFor the pleasant moods of the soul, for the finite masterly enjoyment of\nthe world; and for the painful moods, for the vicious agony and the vast\ndark after-death of desire\u2014for the transcendent pouring and pouring of\nthe soul out into other worlds!\n\nFor the tragic moments of life, and for the long same stretches of the\ncommonplace;\n\nFor the wonderful looming rise upon one of the great Arch of Death as\none approaches it, for the dim perception of the infinite stretches\nbeyond!\n\nFor the final deep abiding sense of rest\u2014in Thee;\n\nFor the touch of Thyself growing continually out of everything more\nactual, starlike, perfect;\n\nAnd for all experience;\n\nJoy, joy and thanks for ever.\n\n\n                                  LXVI\n\nO the sound of trumpets, the wild clangor of wings! forging aloft into\nthe air! O Freedom for men!\n\nSounds of innumerable voices singing! Starry lamps twinkling to each\nother across the huge concave of Time!\n\nDread Creators of the flying earth through space! Travelers yourselves\nupon it! Fliers through all forms! Enduers of all disguises!\n\nIn your hut by the sea shore looking back upon the myriad constellations\nwhence you descended! In the eyes of her you love, in the faithful face\nof your enemy in battle, aware at last of the drift of Creation!\n\nO joy! joy! inextinguishable joy and laughter!\n\nLo! the Conscience, the tender green shoot in each one, growing,\narising, Ygdrasil casting its leaves, elements and nations, over the\nuniverse!\n\nLo! the Moral laws so long swathing the soul, loosing, parting at last\nfor the liberation of that which they prepared.\n\nLo! Death in majesty appearing, tender and beautiful, walking on earth\nthe floor of heaven, through the night, through the long transparent\nnight singing singing\u2014\n\nIn her arms the children of all creation, all creatures of the field and\nthe children of men, nursing,\n\nIn their ears singing low, singing soft, the song\u2014the interpreting\nsong\u2014that the darting sun sings, and the maiden by her window, the song\nof the leaping waters and of love\u2014\n\nAnd of joy, of inconceivable joy, O ecstasy! thrilling every object of\nthought.\n\n\n                                 LXVII\n\nI hear the electric thunderbolt strike the earth. It shivers and it\nstaggers in its orbit.\n\nLeap, children of men, arise! Set your faces dead as flint. For great is\nthe prize before you.\n\nThe hour has struck! the Masters appear! Back, O elements and destiny!\n\nFrom this hour, War! ever more splendid and glorious War! the long\ntradition of the Earth!\n\nThe flame of the Soul, burning through all materials!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nLong the battle, clouds of dust hiding heaven. Earth trembles like a\nstartled horse.\n\nThey that fight descend, radiant with eternal lightnings. The gods blaze\nforth upon each other.\n\nThe flags fly of all nations up and down. The long result of history,\nand penetrating and preceding all history, completes itself.\n\nLo, Freedom! haughty, magnificent, moving like a dream before the\nhalf-awakened eyes of men\u2014never faithless to her, never at last one\nfaithless.\n\n\n                                 LXVIII\n\nAnd so I heard a voice say What is Freedom?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI have heard (it said) the lions roaring in their dens; I have seen the\npolyp stretching its arms upward from the floor of the deep;\n\nI have heard the cries of slaves and the rattling of their chains, and\nthe hoarse shout of victims rising against their oppressors; I have seen\nthe deliverers dying calmly on the scaffold.\n\nI have heard of the centuries-long struggle of nations for\nconstitutional liberty\u2014the step-by-step slowly-won approaches as to some\ninner and impregnable fastness;\n\nI know the wars that have been waged, the flags flying to and fro over\nthe earth; I know that one tyranny has been substituted for another, and\nthat the forms of oppression have changed:\n\nBut what is Freedom?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nVilleins and thralls become piece-men and day-tal men, and the bondsmen\nof the land become the bondsmen of Machinery and Capital; the escaped\nconvicts of Labor fit admiringly the bracelets of Wealth round their own\nwrists.\n\nI have seen the slaves of Opinion and Fashion, of Ignorance and of\nLearning, of Drink and Lust, of Chastity and Unchastity:\n\nOne skin cast leaves another behind, and that another, and that yet\nanother;\n\nI have seen over the world the daily fear of Death and Hell, of Pain and\nmomentary overhanging Chance;\n\nI have seen recluses craning their lives up into impossible heavens,\nthinkers hopelessly meditating after philosophic Truth, incurables lying\ncovered with bed-sores, household drudges running from the hearth to the\nslopstone and from the slopstone to the hearth all their lives;\n\nSomething of all these slaveries I know\u2014they are very well in their way\u2014\n\nBut what is Freedom?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd I heard (in the height) another voice say:\n\nI AM.\n\nIn the recluse, the thinker, the incurable and the drudge, I AM. I am\nthe giver of Life, I am Happiness.\n\nI am in the good and evil, in the fortunate and the unfortunate, in the\ngifted and the incapable, alike; I am not one more than the other.\n\nThe lion roaring in its den, and the polyp on the floor of the deep, the\ngreat deep itself, know ME.\n\nThe long advances of history, the lives of men and women \u2014the men that\nscratched the reindeer and mammoth on bits of bone, the Bushmen painting\ntheir rude rock-paintings, the mud-hovels clustering round medi\u00e6val\ncastles, the wise and kindly Arab with his loving boy-attendants, the\nSwiss mountain-herdsman, the Russian patriot, the English mechanic,\n\nKnow ME. I am Happiness in them, in all\u2014underlying. I am the Master,\nshowing myself from time to time as occasion serves.\n\nI am not nearer to one than the other; they do not seek me so much as I\nadvance through them.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nOut of all would YOU emerge?\n\nWould you at last, O child of mine, after many toils and endless warfare\n(for without such all is in vain) emerge and become MY EQUAL?\n\n[Wonderful, wonderful is this that I tell you! Would you too become a\nMaster\u2014when you have seen and known all slaveries, and have ceased to\nput one before the other?]\n\nWould you, whom I have often silently been with, to whom in the early\nmorning I have come kissing you on the lips to leave Happiness for your\nwaking, whom I have taught long and long my own ways, even for\nthis\u2014become my Equal? would you look me at last in the face?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt shall be then. The way is long but the centuries are long. Faint not.\nDoes my voice sound distant? Faint not.\n\nEven now for a moment round your neck, advancing, I stretch my arms; to\nmy lips I draw you, I press upon your lips the seal of a covenant that\ncannot be forgotten.\n\n\n                                  LXIX\n\nI\u2014who write\u2014translate for you these thoughts: I wipe a mirror and place\nit in your hands [look long, O friend, look long, satiate yourself]\u2014\n\nI bring you to your own, to take, or leave for a while, as pleases you\nbest. I have perfect faith in you.\n\nAnd can wait: the whole of Time is before me.\n\n\n                                  LXX\n\nThe little red stars appear once more shining among the hazel catkins;\nthe pewit tumbles and cries as at the first day, the year begins again,\n\nThe wind blows east, the wind blows west, the old circle of days and\nnights completes itself;\n\nBut henceforth the least thing shall speak to you words of deliverance;\nthe commonest shall please you best;\n\nAnd the fall of a leaf through the air and the greeting of one that\npasses on the road shall be more to you than the wisdom of all the books\never written\u2014and of this book.\n\n\n\n\n                                PART II\n                          CHILDREN OF FREEDOM\n\n\n_O Freedom, beautiful beyond compare, thy kingdom is established!_\n\n_Thou with thy feet on earth, thy brow among the stars, for ages us thy\nchildren_\n\n_I, thy child, singing daylong nightlong, sing of joy in thee._\n\n\n                              YORK MINSTER\n\nSolid and ghostly in the pale winter morning\u2014\n\nThy vast floor worn, worn by the tiny foot-falls of centuries,\n\nThe great grey Alps, thy columns, cutting sharply their strong lines\nagainst the delicate tracery of roof and window\u2014\n\nSolid and ghostly, in visionary beauty thou stretchest O nave,\n\nAll desolate\u2014vast and desolate.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe murmurs of the outer world tremble faintly along the roof like the\nmurmur of the sea in some vast sea-shell;\n\nBelow, nothing visible moves save one ancient verger, pacing to and fro\nor drowsing in his armchair by the stove.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut hark now; from behind the screen the droning mumble of morning\nprayers!\n\nIt ceases, and the thin boy-voices of the scanty choir take up the\nchant.\n\nStrangely from its invisible source, like some river once running strong\nbut now losing itself in runlets in the sand,\n\nAs from out the old medi\u00e6val world, faint and far comes sounding that\nrefrain\u2014\n\nThe quaint barbaric tentative uncertain-toned Gregoric refrain, soaring,\n\nSoaring, soaring, through the great desolate nave wandering, in the ears\nof the one drowsy verger dying.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd all around over the world spreads winter,\n\nHeavy and silent;\n\nThere is no music heard in the streets, nor sound of hope or of\npleasuring\u2014but pinched faces are there,\n\nAnd in wretched homes reign cold and starvation.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Church is dead. Snow covers the ground. Silence and heavy misery\nspread their wings dull against the faces of the people. The Church is\ndead.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll the long years of Christianity have come to this;\n\nAll the preaching and the prayers and the psalm-singing of centuries\nhave come to this;\n\nAll the rapt outpourings of the soul to God, and hidden yearnings of\nages, to this?\n\nThe Church is dead. Snow covers the ground. Snug in their firelit homes,\nwith closed shutters and surrounded by every luxury, the Wealthy the\nPious and the Respectable sit\u2014\n\nAnd without, the People are dying of cold and starvation.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nA nation is dying\u2014\n\nDying slowly and surely of Unbelief\u2014and there can be no deadlier\ndisease: no plague of the middle ages, no cholera epidemic, deadlier.\n\nA nation is dying\u2014\n\nRotting down piece-meal, lethargic even in its misery, weary and\ncareworn even in its luxury, to the grave.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd I sit and sing.\n\nAll the dark winter night, and though the night were ten times pitchier\nthan it is,\n\nI sit and sing.\n\nThough the gloom spread all around me, though the wan pinched faces\nplead terribly upon me, in the midst still I sit and sing: Joy! Joy!\u2014for\nI have seen;\n\nDeep in the wide wan eyes I have seen:\n\nAnd what I have seen\u2014is sufficient.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nO what lies deeper far than the life and death of nations\u2014\n\nAs the calm Ocean lies deep below the storms which vex its surface;\n\nWhat all the ages and ages of human life on earth has never never\nfailed;\n\nWhat is to humanity as the sun rising in the morning is to nature\u2014\n\nEver fresh and young and potent, creating new worlds for itself as it\nwere by merely looking forth upon them;\n\nWhat rises winged out of all graves\u2014with laughter\u2014leaving the long\nvistas of corpses behind; and out of the graves of nations;\n\nWhat for each man rises out of his own grave, and is never vanquished;\n\nDeep deep\u2014below all words\u2014in the eyes of these wan children,\n\nI have seen\u2014and that is sufficient.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nO the fresh fresh air blowing!\n\nHere on the summit of this leafless poplar, under the immense night,\nwhile the tender growing light just outlines the distant hills,\n\nTo sit and sing\u2014for pure joy simply to sit and sing!\n\n\n                      SUNDAY MORNING AFTER CHURCH\n\nSunday morning just after church\u2014and a light warm wind from the North\nflutters laden with the scent of hay out to sea;\n\nThe sea lies crisp and calm, slate-green, stretching itself miles and\nmiles to the wind\u2014wonderful, ecstatic, pushing back with liquid-velvet\npaws upon the shore.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nOn the sea-side esplanade there is a good-sized crowd\u2014perhaps a thousand\ngrown men and women walking up and down on one exclusive and fashionable\nstretch of grass.\n\nIt is quite a sight. Scarlet parasols and blue and white lined with\npink, tall hats shining speckless, kid-gloves reaching to the elbow\u2014with\nglitter of gold and silver bangles, and soft sheen and rustle of\ndresses. All subdued and polite, colors carefully chosen, voices low,\nmovements measured.\n\nLet us take a seat here. How pleasant the air is! and the shade of the\ngreat clouds! and the dazzling effect of so many going to and fro!\n\nHere comes one\u2014her face not very easy to be seen for her parasol\u2014but her\nchin is softly rounded, and the tinge and tissue of her skin most\ndelicate. She wears a very light salmon-pink silk slashed with blue. She\nis with her mother and an elder sister, and seems to be doing her best,\ngentle child, to be the correct thing.\n\nHere another of bolder sort\u2014dark handsome eyes, just flashing often\nenough to keep him amused on the man who is walking beside her; lips a\ntrifle too red, but contrasting well with the great yellow rose on her\nshoulder and the violet velveteen tunic; figure admirable, but her face\nsomewhat wan beneath its petulance and inquisitiveness.\n\nThere goes an old beau, carefully brushed grizzled hair, faultless\nboots\u2014knows everybody, a good-natured and amusing crony; here a\ngrey-haired baronet and his wife, both demure and short-sighted (no\nquestion but they have been to church); there again, a few steps to the\nleft, three young men arm in arm, carefully got up, exchanging whispered\ncomments.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHist! this elderly matron and her daughter are coming to sit beside us!\n\nHeavy and heated, in rich silks deeply flounced and embroidered, and\ntight spindle-heeled boots\u2014they seem glad of a rest.\n\nThe dress of the elder one especially is a study\u2014the flounces, the\ninnumerable quantity of beads, the formless mass of plaits and gathers,\nthe wonderful arrangement of whale-bones in the body, the strict lacing\ndown the back, the frills and lace round neck and shoulders, the several\nrings seen on the for a moment ungloved hand, the lump of trinkets\nsuspended from her waist, and the usual headgear [\u2014one cannot help\nthinking of the chaotic mass of human work this idle red easy-tempered\nwoman carries about on her body].\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI close my eyes for a moment. How pleasant still and soft the air is!\n\nA vision goes past of dark and unspoken things\u2014of criminals in prison,\nof rags and disease and destitution.\n\nNaked and outcast forms hurry by;\n\nThe mother snatches some half-pence from her boy match-seller, and makes\nfor the nearest gin-shop; squalid streets and courts are in the\nbackground, and filthy workshops;\n\nForms of humanity pass before me, unclothed; voices hover round,\nwordless;\n\nStrange clinging voices call; through the long high arches floating,\nthrough the night strange voices call.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nO freedom! O shadow and night! and forms half-shapen in the womb of\nnight\u2014to the outlet of deliverance!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThese naked and outcast\u2014I contemplate them long, undisguised; what they\nare is not hidden from me, I go back of them and beyond.\n\nI pass as one among them, and feel the touch of their bodies, and of\ntheir arms twining\u2014and turn down tired and sleep beside those who sleep;\n\nHalf-human, crazy, hungry, condemned, bitter-lipped, forsaken,\n\nThe young man with divine face so pale and misshapen I see\u2014I see the\npoor thin body of the dying mother.\n\n[She is ignorant and unlettered, but when she talks to me in perfect\nchild-like trust of the future of her orphaned children I think I have\nheard the words of the profoundest Wisdom that ever were uttered.]\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe rags fall off, the prison doors fly wide.\n\nIn vast phalanx, as out of night and oblivion,\n\nUnclothed, majestic, with wounds and disfigurements, as of him who hung\nupon the Cross\u2014\n\nWith stretched arms, shadow-gigantic and shining, as just alighted on\nthe earth\u2014they stand. I hear their voices call\u2014\n\nStrange wild and inarticulate\u2014\n\nThrough the long high arches floating, through the night their voices\ncall.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI open my eyes again. The gay crowd still glides past, exchanging\ngreetings, the flounces and lace are still on the chair beside me. I\ncatch the fluffy smell.\n\nI rise and pass down towards the sea. It lies there, unnoticed as\nbefore, slate-green and solemn, stretching miles and miles away; but the\nwind has risen and is rising, and in the distance here and there it is\nfretful with sharp white teeth.\n\n\n                           HIGH IN MY CHAMBER\n\nHigh in my chamber I hear the deep bells chime\u2014Midnight.\n\nThe great city sleeps with arms outstretched supine under the\nstars\u2014deep-breathing, hushed;\n\nInto the kennels of sleep are gone the loud-baying cares of day, and\nhunted man rests for a moment.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe spangled stream has gone.\n\nThe long procession of carriages through fashionable quarters, the\nstream of faces past gay shop-windows,\n\nAnd high above them the weary face of the needle-woman straining the\nlast hour of daylight\u2014\n\nAll are gone.\n\nInto the hidden chamber of the dark the stream of life has poured\nitself,\n\nFor the conception of a new day.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe note of sorrow sleeps;\n\nThe weary throbbing brain and heart are lulled\u2014assuaged is the tossing\nsea;\n\nThe wretched prisoner\u2014the prisoner of the needle and dingy attic\u2014is\nreleased: she dreams her impossible dream;\n\nThe prisoners of here and there, and of Necessity gripping close as a\nvice, are at liberty: they roam out beyond the star-circled walls of\ntime and hear strange secrets whispered.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut the hour swings onward.\n\nTo good and evil alike\u2014to the watching and the sleeping heart alike;\n\nTo the mother as she lies beside her infant, sleeping, yet wakeful to\nits slightest movement; to the father as he sleeps beside the mother;\n\nTo the young man as he lies beside his new-made bride, worshiping\nsleepless on her bosom;\n\nTo the folded bud of childhood, sleeping deep as on a tranquil sea\u2014to\nthe bud just disclosed from Eden; and to the child-like relaxed sleep\nagain of extreme old age;\n\nThe hour swings onward.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo the waking fever of remorse;\n\nTo the long cadaverous vigil of physical pain;\n\nAnd to the long vigil of the heart-broken wife praying vainly for\nrespite from thought;\n\nThe hour swings onward.\n\nHigh in heaven over the supine city\u2014over the wilderness of roofs beneath\nthe stars\u2014\n\nThe hour swings surely onward.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAgain the great bell booms.\n\nBlossoming out of silence the rich music swells\u2014\n\nThen dies away\u2014the second stroke of midnight.\n\nAnd now as if awoken by that note of warning, over the vast city clash a\nthousand brazen chattering tongues,\n\nDing, ding, clack, clack,\n\nFrom far and near, from railway-tower and steeple\u2014blurring the\nthoughtful night\u2014ding ding, clack clack,\n\nWith scrambling stroke they hurry to tell the hour\u2014and so straightway\nare silent.\n\nBut the great bell goes booming slowly on,\n\nHigh in its tower in heaven among the stars,\n\nThoughtful, deep-voiced, alone\u2014till it has finished.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nSo pass the hours, the spacious solemn hours, the shrill chattering\nhours,\n\nOut into the night they pass, out into the morning,\n\nFor the conception of a new day.\n\n\n                                   2\n\nHigh in my chamber I hear the deep bells chime,\n\nDeep deep deep, past all mortal hearing, down in the kennels of sleep\nbelow the world\u2014\n\nThe slow and muffled chime.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe strokes of the changing hours of Man,\n\nThe slow spacious thoughts of the changing generations\u2014\n\nThrough the night rising I hear.\n\nThe thoughts of them who gather the generations into the great fold;\n\nThrough whose hearts the trampling millions pass\u2014as surely indeed as\nthrough city streets;\n\nThe thoughts of them through whose hearts the weary exiles, the\nprisoners of time, pass, liberating their souls in prayer till the air\nis charged with lightning\u2014\n\nThrough the night rising I hear.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThese are they who dream the impossible dream\u2014and it comes true;\n\nWho hear the silent prayers, who accept the trampling millions, as the\nearth dreaming accepts the interminable feet of her children;\n\nWho dream the dream which all men always declare futile;\n\nWho dream the hour which is not yet on earth\u2014\n\nAnd lo! it strikes.\n\n\n                                   3\n\nHigh in my chamber I hear the deep Bell chime.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nSoftly softly up through the universe,\n\nVibrant in every leaf soft-answering, scarce audible ascending,\n\nThe great undertone\u2014the deep rich musical solvent, swelling over the\nworld, saturated with love, soft like the winds of spring (O who will\ngive it utterance?)\u2014\n\nThrough the night rising I hear.\n\n\n                            DEEP BELOW DEEP\n\nDeep below deep,\n\nTearless, impenetrably frozen in misery\u2014\n\nIs it a child or an old man?\n\n[His face is the color of ashes: it is like a vacant spot without\nlight.]\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nA child surely, by his top-heavy knock-kneed gait and perching\nsemi-perceptive ways;\n\nAn old man, by the two deep horizontal furrows in his brow.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nCome in my child out of the bitter wind, and sit awhile by my fire, and\neat.\n\nYou need not speak or explain yourself: just sit down, and when you have\neaten draw your chair close and get warm.\n\n[Perhaps he will thaw, I think, and tell me the story of his life.]\n\nBut he sits silent\u2014his hand in mine\u2014with his head deep on his breast;\nand hardly moves\u2014except once or twice to pick a bit of rag off the end\nof his trousers and throw it into the fire.\n\nNow his cap is off I see it is a fine head\u2014a well-formed head and brow\nwith short light curling hair;\n\nBut when he lifts it his eyes are bleared and slow, with heavy lids, and\nthey refuse to meet mine.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe sit awhile silent; then with slow fitful answers, only now and then\nvolunteering a word:\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt was my own fault:\n\nI went into t\u2019 pit when they did not want me to;\n\nThey gave me a good education\u2014I can read and write well enew\u2014but I would\ngo into t\u2019 pit.\n\nThe very first day I was crushed by a wagon and was laid up a\ntwelve-month: It was my legs that was crushed\u2014but I got over it.\n\nThen my father died. My mother behaved very bad to me: I don\u2019t live with\nthem now. When I am in work I lodge down by the Brewery, but now I sleep\nwhere I can.\n\nI have had twelve year at it. I am now twenty-three.\n\nIt was all right at first, but times have been very bad lately. When you\nwork half time you can\u2019t save nothing.\n\nI have been out of work three months. They shortened hands, and I was\nthrown out. They don\u2019t care: when times is bad they throw you out to\nmake it worse.\n\nThere\u2019s hundreds clemming one place or another, and they don\u2019t care.\n\nIt\u2019s all the same to them that\u2019s well off themselves, and they have done\nit to spite us.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nSilence.\n\nAgain the sunken head, again the impenetrable weary crushed frozen look\u2014\n\nThere was no thaw or change whatever.\n\nI knew him for many months, but there was no thaw or change to speak of.\n\n\n                    EXCEPT THE LORD BUILD THE HOUSE\n\nShe lies, whom Money has killed, and the greed of Money,\n\nThe thrice-driven slave, whom a man has calmly tortured,\n\nAnd cast away in the dust\u2014and calls it not murder,\n\nBecause he only looked on; while his trusted lieutenants\n\nSupply and Demand pinned the victim down\u2014and her own mother Nature slew\nher!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe old story of the sewing machine\u2014the treadle machine;\n\nTen hours a day and five shillings a week, a penny an hour or so\u2014if the\nnumbers were of importance.\n\nOf course she fell ill. Indeed she had long been ailing, and the effort\nand the torture were slowly disorganising her frame; and already the\ngrim question had been asked: \u201cMight she have rest?\u201d (\u2014the doctor said\n_must_\u2014and for many a month, too.)\n\nAnd the answer came promptly as usual. \u201cHave rest? \u2014as much as she\nwanted! It was a pity, but of course if she could not work she could go.\nThey would make no difficulty, as Supply would fill up her place as soon\nas vacant.\u201d\n\nOne more struggle then. And now she _must_ go, for work is impossible,\nand Supply _has_ filled her place, and there is no difficulty\u2014or\ndifference\u2014except to her.\n\nFor her only the hospital pallet, and the low moaning of the distant\nworld;\n\nFor her only the fever and the wasting pain and the nightmare of the\nloud unceasing treadles;\n\nAnd the strange contrast in quiet moments of the still chamber and the\none kindly face of the house-surgeon, stethoscope in hand, at her\nbedside;\n\nFor her only, hour after hour, the dull throbbing recollection of the\ninjustice of the world,\n\nThe bleak unlovely light of averted eyes thrown backwards and forwards\nover her whole life,\n\nAnd the unstaunched wound of the soul which is their bitter denial.\n\nAnd at last the lessening of the pain, and a sense of quietude and\nspace, and through the murky tormented air of the great city a light, a\nray of still hope on her eyes peacefully falling;\n\nAnd then in a moment the passing of the light, and a silence in the long\nhigh-windowed ward;\n\nAnd one with an aster or two and a few chrysanthemums and one with a\nblown white rain-bewept rose half-timidly coming,\n\nTo lay on her couch, with tears.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd so a grave.\n\nIn the dank smoke-blackened cemetery, in the dismal rain of the\nhalf-awakened winter day,\n\nA grave, for her and her only.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd yet not for her only, but for thousands\u2014\n\nFor hundreds of thousands\u2014to lie undone, forsaken,\n\nTossed impatiently back from the whirling iron\u2014\n\nThe broken wheels, or may be merely defective\u2014\n\nWho cares?\u2014\n\nThat as they spin roll off and are lost in the darkness,\n\nRun swiftly away (as if they were alive!) into the darkness, and are\nhidden;\n\nWho cares? who cares?\n\nSince for each one that is gone Supply will provide a thousand.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWho cares? who cares?\n\nO tear-laden heart!\n\nO blown white rose heavy with rain!\n\nO sacred heart of the people!\n\nRose, of innumerable petals, through the long night ever blossoming!\n\nSurely by thy fragrance wafted through the still night-air,\n\nSurely by thy spirit exhaled over the sleeping world, I know,\n\nOut of the bruised heart of thee exhaled, I know\u2014\n\nAnd the vision lifts itself before my eyes:\u2014\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n_Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain who build it._\n\nIn vain millions of yards of calico and miles of lace-work turned out\nper annum;\n\nIn vain a people well clad in machine-made cloth and hosiery;\n\nIn vain a flourishing foreign trade and loose cash enough for a small\nwar;\n\nIn vain universal congratulations and lectures on Political Economy;\n\nIn vain the steady whirr of wheels all over the land, and men and women\nserving stunted and pale before them, as natural as possible;\n\n_Except Love build the house, they labor in vain who build it._\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nO rich and powerful of the earth!\n\nBehold, your riches are all in vain\u2014you are poorer than the poorest of\nthese children!\n\nAgainst one such whom you have wronged your armies your police and all\nthe laws that you can frame shall not prevail.\n\nYour palaces of splendor are reared from the beginning upon a foundation\nof lies, and the graves that you have dug for others shall be for your\nown burial.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe word is gone forth!\n\nThe wealth the power that you have coveted crumble from your grasp as in\na dream.\n\nYou have thought to drive armies of starving slaves to win idleness and\nluxury for you;\n\nBut it shall be as a dream: they shall surely elude you.\n\nBehold, your armies shall vanish away\u2014even while the word is on your\nlips, while your hand of command is lifted,\n\nYour armies shall vanish away like smoke, they shall surely surely elude\nyou.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn Death shall they vanish away,\n\n(O fragrance wafted through the still night-air!)\n\nIn Death shall they breathe through your bonds and become as the\nimpalpable winds.\n\nLike deserters at night stealing away in thousands out of a camp,\n\nThey shall pass a ghostly army to the other side:\n\nBroken and worn and sick\u2014a ghostly army shall they pass and vanish;\n\nAnd ye shall dream that they are gone.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut they are not gone.\n\nFor with the morning, out of the ground,\n\nOut of their mother Earth\u2014star-thick, and ye cannot bind them more than\nye can bind the stars\u2014\n\nOut of the heart of their mother, and out of the hearts of the asters\nand star-shaped chrysanthemums,\n\nArising\u2014\n\nThrough the hollow air and down the rustling flowing rivers,\n\nOver the meadows with the feet of the wind whitening the grass,\n\nFrom the mystic chambers of their innumerable homes\u2014out of the mystic\ndoors\u2014\n\nOut of the doors of Death and Birth, in thousands, out of the doors of\npreparation,\n\nFull-equipped hastening, from all sides swiftly gathering,\n\nA radiant army into your great towns pouring,\n\nDown your long streets striding, they shall return.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nSpirits of awful knowledge,\n\n(Clad anew with fleshly hands and feet, through sunlit eyes still\nglancing,)\n\nAnd of deep-gathered silent age-long experience;\n\nSpirits of the suffering brotherhood, spirits of awful authority\u2014\n\nBefore whom materials shrivel and the accumulations of Custom are blown\non the wind like chaff\u2014\n\nA self-appointed army they shall return:\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nOut of whom the word of transformation\u2014\n\nWhispered on many a half-awakened winter day to the silent earth alone\u2014\n\nShall be spoken aloud as with a trumpet over the world\u2014and the world\nshall be changed.\n\n\n                     I COME FORTH FROM THE DARKNESS\n\n           I come forth from the darkness to smite Thee.\u2014\n           Who art thou, insolent of all the earth,\n           With thy faint sneer for him who wins thee bread,\n           And him who clothes thee, and for him who toils\n           Daylong and nightlong dark in the earth for thee?\n           Coward, without a name!\n           Ignorant curse!\u2014and yet with names as many\n           Alas! almost as Wealth has. Unclean life\n           That makest a blight wherever thou alightest!\n           I smite thee back.\n           Darest thou yet be seen? (How long, how long,\n           O patient suffering men will ye endure?)\n           Darest thou yet be seen?\n           I smite thee back. Go, return whence thou camest.\n           The gardens and the beautiful terraces,\n           The palaces and theatres and halls\n           Of our fair cities shall not see thee more.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nFrom this day the word is gone forth which waited long to be spoken.\n\nWho walks the streets shall see the lightning which is not in the clouds\nbut in the eyes of men,\n\nPoising itself to strike.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nO shallow-pate, walking for ever in indifferent ignorance!\n\nThou with the languid averted eyes and impossible patronising airs,\n\nThou forged bank-note which the great winds will blow crackling into the\ncoping of heaven,\n\nHast thou yet never opened wide thine eyes?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThou at thy club or country seat or in thy study, or sitting in the\nfront pew at church\u2014so luxurious, refined, learned,\n\nSo pious\u2014yet all out of other men\u2019s labor;\n\nThou eager after elegant recognitions through the street hastening\u2014\n\nVulgar and infidel\u2014from her path the poor woman with her bundle\nimpatiently pushing;\n\nThou in the household, in the shop, on the railway, with nameless airs\nthe shameful difference marking;\n\nThou oily in the pulpit ever preaching: Peace, peace\u2014where there is no\npeace;\n\nHast thou yet never opened wide thine eyes\u2014\n\nTo see and still to see\u2014to stare with astonishment\n\nOver this wide and troubled Ocean, washing so near-importunate upon\nthee?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThis strange thing that it throws up in thy path!\n\nWith wild eyes, bloodshot, haggard!\n\nHast thou observed it?\u2014hast thou well regarded?\n\nIn thy smooth progress, say, hast well regarded?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhat? and thou seest nothing?\u2014O look look!\n\nThe grey old Ocean shivers in his sleep:\n\nDreamwalker by the perilous brink, O look!\n\nThe grey old Ocean shivers, turns his lids\n\nWhose lashes are the lightning, and arises\n\nStaggering from his hollows (Hear, O hear\n\nThe hoarse wolf-howling in the pitchy night).\n\nThe thunder of his footsteps shakes the interminable shore:\n\nDream-walker, look!\n\nThis white thing in thy path!\n\nArt mad? O look!\u2014the wild eyes seest thou not?\n\nThe warning arm?\u2014no flimsy phantom this,\n\nNo pale stray figment of thy brain: but He.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThus by the shore continually,\n\nPale spectral close-lipped haggard full in thy path warning He stands,\n\nAnd thou complacent languid with averted eyes passest by him and onward,\ncontinually, to thy doom.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThou shalt never open thine eyes: (deep flashes to deep:)\n\nBut the lightning which thou seest not shall wither thee up,\n\nAnd suddenly, in a moment, the flood uprising shall erase thee.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nO Deep flashing upward continually,\n\nWild beautiful Ocean of faces!\n\nOcean of glittering salt spray of tears!\n\nOf proud perpetual faith glooming through the long night!\n\nOcean of day and night!\n\nWith white waves riding up continually,\n\nWhite faces nearing through the gloom\u2014eager in endless beauty!\n\nNot lightnings only:\n\nTenderest phosphorescence over the wide-heaving surface gleaming,\n\nThis also is thine.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nO pity! pity!\n\nAnd it might draw the heart of a man in pity from him!\n\nIf he had eyes\u2014to see, and still to see\u2014\n\nTo and fro through the streets wandering starless,\n\nFaces _not_ charged with lightning, but with sorrow, voiceless unsmiting\ndistant-luminous,\n\n(Auroral surely towards some greater day,)\n\nEyes wistful-ignorant\u2014the bloom of youth so fast going never to return\u2014\n\nFrom dirt-bespattered countenances pathetically looking,\n\nTrustful reliant eyes\u2014and whom to rely on?\n\n(Whom, these dumb thousands of years?)\n\nParted lips yearning,\n\nPale woman lips mute-appealing,\n\nThrough the gay street unnoticed passing,\n\nFrom the haunts of fashion flying, from the blank stare of the houses of\nwealth and refinement,\n\nTo hide their sorrow where none shall understand,\n\nJoyless, unaccusing.\n\n(O lips, your accusation is it not heard in the topmost heaven?)\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nFaces of the world\u2019s deliberate refusal;\n\nDead-pale faces, shrunken, as of leaves that the frost kills,\n\nGoing about to hide themselves from the sun, to lie rotting and rotting\nin the dark, like the leaves\u2014\n\nIn the dark soil which their generations enrich.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nFace of the stedfast eyes, growing ever paler\u2014of the weary human\nshuttle,\n\nSwift between factory and slum to the terrible engine-pulse of necessity\nalternating.\n\nSacred pathetic face of the aged slave, out of the world descending,\n\nOf the old woman, mender of carpets\u2014giver of much and receiver of little\nin this life;\n\nFace of unquestioning submission, kindly consecrating face, out of the\nworld at length with farewell benedictions descending,\n\nSublimely ignorant of all offence.\n\nWeak face of the drunkard\u2014soon to be labeled suicide;\n\nPale covert-eyed face of the thief;\n\nFaces ever, faces riding up continually, eager in endless beauty,\n\nO it might draw the heart of a man from him with pity to behold you.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut the world which has deliberately refused you, how shall it dare to\npity you?\n\n[O vulgar and infidel and shallow and insolent of all the earth, and ye\nwho have taught yourselves so that ye _can_ give no help,\n\nCome ye not here. Is it not sacred ground?\n\nCome ye not here. Defile not with your pity.\n\nNay, for ye are smitten back and gone whence ye shall never return\u2014\n\nYou and your pity\u2014abolished into the void.]\n\nDumb awful prisoners! who except Death shall dare to pity you?\n\nTo kiss you with the close kiss of deliverance?\n\nTo take you up unto the mountain tops and show you the country you have\nconquered for men?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe word which waited so long to be spoken, behold it is gone forth.\n\nLo! shooting of swift auroral gleams,\n\nThoughts hither and thither spreading, coherent,\n\nWords, hark! babbling multitudinous,\n\nWaves to and fro in the sunlight flowing, lisping\u2014\n\nLouder and louder lisping\u2014into one consent waking!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nO hearts, not in vain!\n\nJoy, joy\u2014so long a stranger upon earth\u2014\n\nJoy is come up! see the great laughing Ocean!\n\nThe deep floor paved with flowers!\n\nJoy is come up. Its waves flow over the world!\n\nTo and fro, to and fro, tossing, tumultuously dancing,\n\nThe sunlight-smitten waves flow over the world!\n\nHow is the great deep changed! Joy is come up.\n\nWealth the great gloom, the last worst tyranny,\n\nSinks\u2014is gone down for ever. Arise! arise!\n\nThe gardens and the beautiful terraces,\n\nThe palaces and theatres and halls\n\nOf our fair cities await your smiles, O Man:\n\nYour solemn love which is their dignity,\n\nYour earnest solemn love, their sacrament,\n\nWith outstretched arms they wait.\n\nArise, O Man!\n\nThe long inheritance of the ages waits:\n\nLo! the fair earth is thine\u2014at length is thine.\n\nJoy! Joy!\n\nThe light air and the nimble winds, the blue\n\nCloud-islanded seas of heaven, the great glad fields\n\nWaving with golden grain, green orchards dusk\n\nWith pensive shadows\u2014all the round earth is thine.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nChild that shalt bless thy mother,\n\nJoy, joy! The earth is thine.\n\n\n                SUNDAY MORNING NEAR A MANUFACTURING TOWN\n\nSunday, a still autumn morning, and all the roads on the outskirts are\nthrong with people.\n\nWhere the streets begin to run wild towards the country, with patch-work\nof garden-allotments, and occasional hedgerows and overhanging trees,\nthey go\u2014\n\nPale-faced men and girls hardly escaped for an hour or two from\nbreathing the eternal smoke.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe sun shines softly\u2014it is very pleasant.\n\nHere comes a whole family: the mother holds a baby to her breast, the\nfather carries the little boy on his arm\u2014two other children play around\nthem;\n\nThere go two factory girls, with faded shawls thrown over their\nheads\u2014their arms round each other\u2019s necks; both have clear soft eyes,\nand both have fawn-colored opaque skins, marked with the small-pox;\n\nHere shambling along in the opposite direction a group of ill-made boys,\ncarrying dinner-kerchiefs crammed and purple-stained with blackberries.\nThey have been out early and are returning.\n\nMost of the men stand about in knots on the road or in their gardens,\nsome smoking\u2014some with fox-terriers and coursing-dogs.\n\nHandsomely stand the yellow and the lilac dahlias on their tall stalks;\nand the marigolds and other flowers look well amid the green. The air is\nfull of the scent of celery.\n\nSome are banking up their celery-beds, some are getting potatos, others\nlie on their backs enjoying the lazy air, others are gathering flowers.\n\nHere comes one with a nosegay of all sorts, here another with a great\narmful of dahlias nodding amid their leaves as he walks, here another\nwith quantities of brown and yellow calceolaria\u2014almost every one has a\nflower of some sort.\n\nThere is plenty of chaff as the groups of young mechanics pass the\ngroups of chatting laughing girls\u2014some go apart arm in arm together.\n\nWithal the wan look of many faces there is I know not what sense of\nnaturalness and wholesome feeling abroad to-day (the stuffy people are\nsafe out of the way in church)\u2014\n\nThe air is full of voices and laughter; from some of the neighboring\ncottages come sounds of music.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is well. I welcome you, O crisp uprising life!\n\nI welcome you, O crisp green shoot which the still bright morning has\ncalled forth!\n\nIt does not need much to see how deep your roots are fed in the strong\nsoil of necessity;\n\nNot much to see how native and fresh a life you indicate,\n\nAnd that the limp decaying leaves and dead things of the earth will not\noverlie you much longer.\n\n\n                          IN THE DRAWING ROOMS\n\nIn the drawing-rooms I saw scarce one that seemed at ease;\n\nThey were half-averted sad anxious faces, impossible pompous faces,\ndrawling miowling faces, peaked faces well provided with blinkers,\n\nAnd their owners kept standing first on one leg and then on the other.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI felt very depressed.\n\nWherever I went it was the same\u2014it was like a nightmare\u2014I could not\nescape from it.\n\nEver the same miowls and drawls, the same half-averted sad uneasy looks,\nthe same immensely busy people doing really nothing, the same one-legged\nweary idling, mutual boredom, and vampire business.\n\nIn the street I could not escape it\u2014at the soir\u00e9e, the lecture room, the\nconcert; I felt stifled; the sky above me was like lead, and the earth\u2014I\ncould have lain on it and cried as a child,\n\nFor I felt like one deprived of his natural food, exhausted, and faint\nwith starvation.\n\n[For indeed it is so, that man can not live by bread alone. This is the\nsilent decree of immortality whereby into his body are wrought for its\nnourishment unseen intangible essences\u2014of the faces of his fellows and\nof the touch of their bodies and the breath of their lives about him.\nWhich avenues if they be shut\u2014if the faces be like closed doors, and the\nhands be withdrawn, and the breath of society about him be corrupt\u2014a man\nshall shrivel and die, as surely as an infant from its mother\u2019s breasts\nforbidden.]\n\nAnd at the railway station, and in the train flying over field and river\nthrough the dark, I could not escape that vampire horror.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWas this then the sum of life?\n\nA grinning gibbering organisation of negations\u2014a polite trap, and circle\nof endlessly complaisant faces bowing you back from all reality!\n\nWas it that men should give all their precious time and energy to the\nplaiting of silken thongs and fetters innumerable\u2014\n\nTo bind themselves prisoners\u2014to condemn themselves to pick oakum of the\nstrands of real life for ever?\n\nWas it mere delusion and bottomless nightmare? really at last the much\ntalked-of and speculated-about existence in two dimensions only?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd as I thought of the fields and rivers below me in the dark,\nreturning life thrilled in a faint wave of laughter through me from the\nbeautiful bounding earth;\n\nAnd as a woman for the touch of a man,\n\nSo I cried in my soul even for the violence and outrage of Nature to\ndeliver me from this barrenness.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWell, as it happened just then\u2014and as we stopped at a small\nway-station\u2014my eyes from their swoon-sleep opening encountered the grimy\nand oil-besmeared figure of a stoker.\n\nClose at my elbow on the foot-plate of his engine he was standing,\ndevouring bread and cheese,\n\nAnd the firelight fell on him brightly as for a moment his eyes rested\non mine.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThat was all. But it was enough.\n\nThe youthful face, yet so experienced and calm, was enough;\n\nThe quiet look, the straight untroubled unseeking eyes, resting upon\nme\u2014giving me without any ado the thing I needed.\n\n[Indeed because they sought nothing and made no claim for themselves,\ntherefore it was that they gave me all.]\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nFor in a moment I felt the sting and torrent of Reality.\n\nThe swift nights out in the rain I felt, and the great black sky\noverhead, and the flashing of red and green lights in the forward\ndistance,\n\nThe anxious straining for a glimpse sideways into the darkness\u2014cap tied\ntightly on\u2014the dash of cold and wet above, the heat below:\n\nAll this I felt, as it had been myself.\n\nThe weird look of hedgerows and trees in the wild glare as we pass, the\nstraining and leaping of the engine, and the precious human freight\nmadly borne behind,\n\nThe great world reeling by, the rails and the ballast ribbon-like\nunreeling\u2014out of darkness arriving\u2014phantasmal inexorable flawless!\n\n[Stand firm, bridge of many arches while we pass swiftly over the tops\nof the trees!\n\nHold, ties and struts and well-braced girders, hold while our iron feet\nring resounding over the river!\n\nHold firm, phantasmal world, even as thou dost\u2014inexorably firm\u2014whether\nfor good or evil, hold!]\n\nO the mad play!\n\nAnd the dumb sense of tension when wife or sister or friend is one of\nthe precious freight;\n\nAnd the long hours of unremitted watchfulness, and the faithful\nunremitting service of the machinery;\n\nAnd the faithful responsive wheeling of the stars, fulfilling the hours,\n\nThe slow lifting of the Moon through the clouds, the changes of light,\nwest and east,\n\nAnd the breaking of the morning.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll these in his eyes who stood there, lusty with well-knit loins,\ndevouring bread and cheese\u2014all these and something more:\n\nNature standing supreme and immensely indifferent in that man, yet\ncondensed and prompt for decisive action:\n\nTrue eyes, true interpreters, striking as a man wielding a sledge\nstrikes, in whom long practice has ensured the absolute consent of all\nhis muscles!\n\nTrue eyes, true interpreters\u2014of abounding gifts free givers\u2014\n\nWithout wrigglings and contortions, without egotistic embarrassments,\ngrimaces, innuendos,\n\nWithout constraint and without stint, free!\n\nO eyes, O face, how in that moment without any ado you gave me all!\n\nHow in a moment the whole vampire brood of flat paralytic faces fled\naway, and you gave me back the great breasts of Nature, when I was\nrejected of others and like to die of starvation.\n\nI do not forget.\n\nIt is not a little thing\u2014though you passed away so quickly and were\nwholly unconscious of it.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is not a little thing, you\u2014wherever you are\u2014following the plough, or\nclinging with your feet to the wet rigging, or nursing your babe through\nthe long day when your husband is absent, or preparing supper for his\nreturn, or you on the foot-plate of your engine\u2014\n\nWho stand mediating there against Necessity, wringing favors and a\nlittle respite for your fellows, translating the laws for them, making a\nchannel for the forces;\n\nIn whom through faithful use, through long patient and loyal exercise\nthe channels have become clean\u2014\n\n[Clean and free the channels of your soul, though your body be smirched\nand oily\u2014]\n\nIt is not a little thing that by such a life your face should become as\na lantern of strength to men;\n\nThat wherever you go they should rise up stronger to the battle, and go\nforth with good courage.\n\nNay, it is very great.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI do not forget.\n\nIndeed I worship none more than I worship you and such as you,\n\nWho are no god sitting upon a jasper throne,\n\nBut the same toiling in disguise among the children of men and giving\nyour own life for them.\n\n\n                        IN A MANUFACTURING TOWN\n\nAs I walked restless and despondent through the gloomy city,\n\nAnd saw the eager unresting to and fro\u2014as of ghosts in some sulphurous\nHades;\n\nAnd saw the crowds of tall chimneys going up, and the pall of smoke\ncovering the sun, covering the earth, lying heavy against the very\nground;\n\nAnd saw the huge refuse-heaps writhing with children picking them over,\n\nAnd the ghastly half-roofless smoke-blackened houses, and the black\nriver flowing below;\n\nAs I saw these, and as I saw again far away the Capitalist quarter,\n\nWith its villa residences and its high-walled gardens and its\nwell-appointed carriages, and its face turned away from the wriggling\npoverty which made it rich;\n\nAs I saw and remembered its drawing-room airs and affectations, and its\nwheezy pursy Church-going and its gas-reeking heavy-furnished rooms and\nits scent-bottles and its other abominations\u2014\n\nI shuddered:\n\nFor I felt stifled, like one who lies half-conscious\u2014knowing not clearly\nthe shape of the evil\u2014in the grasp of some heavy nightmare.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThen out of the crowd descending towards me came a little ragged boy:\n\nCame\u2014from the background of dirt disengaging itself\u2014an innocent wistful\nchild-face, begrimed like the rest but strangely pale, and pensive\nbefore its time.\n\nAnd in an instant (it was as if a trumpet had been blown in that place)\nI saw it all clearly, the lie I saw and the truth, the false dream and\nthe awakening.\n\nFor the smoke-blackened walls and the tall chimneys, and the dreary\nhabitations of the poor, and the drearier habitations of the rich,\ncrumbled and conveyed themselves away as if by magic;\n\nAnd instead, in the backward vista of that face, I saw the joy of free\nopen life under the sun:\n\nThe green sun-delighting earth and rolling sea I saw,\n\nThe free sufficing life\u2014sweet comradeship, few needs and common\npleasures\u2014the needless endless burdens all cast aside,\n\nNot as a sentimental vision, but as a fact and a necessity existing, I\nsaw\n\nIn the backward vista of that face.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nStronger than all combinations of Capital, wiser than all the Committees\nrepresentative of Labor, the simple need and hunger of the human heart.\n\nNothing more is needed.\n\nAll the books of political economy ever written, all the proved\nimpossibilities, are of no account.\n\nThe smoke-blackened walls and tall chimneys duly crumble and convey\nthemselves away;\n\nThe falsehood of a gorged and satiated society curls and shrivels\ntogether like a withered leaf,\n\nBefore the forces which lie dormant in the pale and wistful face of a\nlittle child.\n\n\n                      WHAT HAVE I TO DO WITH THEE\n\nWeary with the restless burden of this world last night I fell\n\nDreaming on my couch, in Nature\u2019s bosom, and the dream was well;\n\nFor with morning I awoke triumphant like a child in glee,\n\nSinging: World, I prithee tell me, What have I to do with thee?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI who am a child, content if but with wonder and with love,\n\nWith the quiet Earth beneath me and the splendid Sun above,\n\nTo whom laughter comes unbidden in the watches of the night,\n\nWhom a daisy in the meadow fills with ever new delight\u2014\n\nWorld, unquiet world I dwell in, with thy wearisome grimaces,\n\n(Like an old and odious lover, who importunately paces\n\nEver up and down before one,) world of fashion, world of cant,\n\nWorld of philanthropic schemes, committee-meetings, crazes, rant,\n\nWorld of void affected duties, world quite dumb of love\u2019s decree,\n\nO thou solemn prig, pray tell me, What have I to do with thee?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI whom nature made rejoicing in my meed of strength and skill,\n\nProud with those I love to labor, lingering in the sweet air, till\n\nTwilight brings the firelit home and faces, whom she counted free\n\nTo all her stores, nor stayed to reckon, whom she taught the mystery\n\nOf the whole Earth inly heaving with desire hid at the core,\n\nWhom she filled with tender grieving, whom she smote with passion sore\u2014\n\nWorld of brick walls in perspective, world of avenues of dirt,\n\nWorld of hideous iron railings, stucco and the window-squirt,\n\nWorld of pigmy men and women, dressed like monkeys, that go by,\n\nWorld of squalid wealth, of grinning galvanised society,\n\nWorld of dismal dinner-parties, footmen, intellectual talk,\n\nHeavy-furnished rooms, gas, sofas, armchairs, girls that cannot walk,\n\nBooks that are not read, food music novels papers flung aside,\n\nWorld of everything and nothing\u2014nothing that will fill the void;\n\nWorld that starts from manual labor, as from that which worse than\ndamns,\n\nKeeps reality at arm\u2019s length, and is dying choked with shams,\n\nWorld, in Art and Church and Science, sick with infidelity,\n\nO thou dull old bore, I prithee, What have I to do with thee?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWho is master? Tell me that. Didst thou make me? or thinkest thou\n\nBy the bold array thou donnest, by thy frowns and puckered brow,\n\nTo impose that flam upon me? Nay! for far too clearly through\n\nThy false life and fancy make-up, through the artificial hue\n\nHealth paints not upon thy cheek, thy glassy eyes with sunken rims\n\nStaring, and the meaningless spasmodic corpse-dance of thy limbs\u2014\n\nRight through thy whole being looking into what once was thy heart\n\nI behold how hollow lifeless and corrupt a thing thou art.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nStrange!\u2014yet so it is\u2014that stronger than a world on granite piled,\n\nMore than all Wealth and Tradition is the weak sigh of a child.\n\nWe\u2014the future\u2019s dreamers\u2014come, and coming look thee in the face:\n\n\u201cWorld, to _Right-about_\u201d we bid thee; \u201c_March_\u2014and quickly\u2014into space!\u201d\n\n\n                            AS TO YOU O MOON\n\nAs to you O Moon\u2014\n\nI know very well that when the astronomers look at you through their\ntelescopes they see only an aged and wrinkled body;\n\nBut though they measure your wrinkles never so carefully they do not see\nyou personal and close\u2014\n\nAs you disclosed yourself among the chimney-tops last night to the eyes\nof a child,\n\nWhen you thought no one else was looking.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nGustily ran the wind down the bare comfortless street, the clouds flew\nin long wild streamers across your face, the few still on foot were\nhurrying homewards\u2014\n\nWhen, as between the wisps of rain O moon you shone out wonderfully bare\nand bright,\n\nLo! far down in the face of a boy I saw you.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nDashed with rain, wet with tears,\n\nStopping suddenly to lean his head against a wall, caught by your look\u2014\n\nThe pale smudged face, the tense glittering eyes, never swerving a\nmoment,\n\nThe curls fringing his dirty cap, the rare pale light of wonder and of\nsuffering:\n\nYes, far down, as in a liquid pool in the woods, centuries down under\nthe surface, as I passed I distinctly saw you.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI should like to know what you were doing there,\n\nYou old moon, with your magic down in that boy\u2019s soul so powerfully\nworking,\n\nWhile all the time the appearance of you was journeying up above in the\nsky!\n\nI should like to know how many thousands and thousands you have looked\nat like that, so quietly and calm-deceptively:\n\nWhy, the reflected light is in their eyes yet\u2014pale sleepless maidens\nlooking out from ivied casements, choral processions winding upwards at\ndusk to the groves of Ashtoreth, cave-dwellers ages ago sitting at the\nmouths of their caves\u2014I see the glitter of sparkles as from an immense\nocean.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nYou are an artful old (heavenly) body!\n\nOne might almost think that there really was nothing behind those\nwrinkles,\n\nAnd that the effluences of gravitation and magnetism which the\nastronomers think so much of were really the last word to be said about\nyou\u2014as a child might know an elderly dame by the camphor bag which she\ncarried in her pocket, and nothing more.\n\nYet I fancy that as you jog along round the earth you take very good\nnote in your quiet way of the limpid faces looking up at you, peering\ndeep\u2014centuries down\u2014into each;\n\nI fancy that you are not ill-pleased to pass as you do for a harmless\nold lady\u2014plucking thus with the less hindrance the flowers that you\nlove;\n\nI fancy that somewhere among the niches and chasms of those rugged\ncraters you surely treasure them up, sacred and faithful, against a day\nthat we little dream of;\n\nAnyhow I see plainly that like all created things you do not yield\nyourself up as to what you are at the first or the thousandth onset,\n\nAnd that the scientific people for all their telescopes know as little\nabout you as any one\u2014\n\nPerhaps less than most.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHow curious the mystery of creation, the juggle of the open daylight!\nand all things sworn conspirators to that end!\n\nLo! the quiet moon in the sky\u2014yet to a child it has told its secret.\n\n\n                             SQUINANCY-WORT\n\n   What have I done?\u2014\n   I am a little flower,\n   Out of many a one\n   That twinkles forth after each passing shower.\n   White, with a blushful glow,\n   In the sweet meadows I grow,\n   Or innocent over the hill tops sport and run.\u2014\n   What have I done?\n\n   Many an age agone,\n   Before man walked on earth,\n   I was. In the sun I shone;\n   I shook in the wind with mirth;\n   And danced on the high tops looking out seaward\u2014where I had birth\n   Web-footed monsters came\n   And into the darkness went\n   In ponderous tournament,\n   Many an age agone.\n   But on the high tops I dwelt ever the same,\n   With sisters many a one,\n   Guiltless of sin and shame!\u2014\n   What have I done?\n\n   What have I done?\u2014_Man_ came,\n   Evolutional upstart one!\n   With the gift of giving a name\n   To everything under the sun.\n   What have I done?\u2014Man came\n   (They say nothing sticks like dirt),\n   Looked at me with eyes of blame,\n   And called me \u201cSquinancy-wort.\u201d\n\n   What have I done? I linger\n   (I cannot say that I live)\n   In the happy lands of my birth;\n   Passers-by point with the finger;\n   For me the light of the sun\n   Is darkened. Oh, what would I give\n   To creep away and hide my shame in the earth!\u2014\n   What have I done?\n\n   Yet there is hope. I have seen\n   Many changes since I began.\n   The web-footed beasts have been\n   (Dear beasts!)\u2014and gone, being part of some wider plan.\n   Perhaps in his infinite mercy God will remove this Man!\n\n\n               _Not of myself\u2014I have no power of myself_\u2014\n\n_But out of you who read do I write these words_;\n\n_And whether you understand them or not is nothing to me: I sort rather\nwith those who do not read them._\n\n\n                           LO! I OPEN A DOOR\n\nLo! I open a door.\n\nThrough all suffering, through being an outcast myself, in prison and\ncondemned,\n\nLying on the floor of existence as one accursed and outlawed\u2014\n\nWho shall not pass by me into joy eternal?\n\n\n                             BY THIS HEART\n\nBy this heart sacred for you O children\u2014for you a few years beating;\n\nBy the deep yearnings of it, flowing, following you\u2014and the world made\nholy wherever you have trod;\n\nBy the firm pulse of it, and by its silent-dropping dark tears;\n\nBy its weakness and by its immortal strength;\n\nBy the love with which it encloses, in which it continually laves you;\n\nBy you greater yourselves; and by the love which I see flowing surely\nfrom you to me;\n\nBy these I put all evil aside\n\nAnd I approach you, nearer, nearer\u2014even so nearer than all thought\u2014\n\nAnd remain with you, doubting fearing nothing.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nFor fear I put away from you, and the wretched unrest of the world;\n\nAnd from the Maya of appearances I deliver you: believe me here is\ndeliverance;\n\n[And not here only, in this inch of space and time, but wherever....]\u2014\n\nAnd I show you the inheritance of the riches of all time.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nYet sorrow, the gift of gifts, revealer of eternal joy, I give you not;\n\nBut One shall come in the night-time, bringing it, to transmute the\nworld for you,\n\nTaking you by the hand, even while you live, through the great gate of\nDeath into Elysian fields.\n\nThere as the nightingale through the night beside his mate sings,\n\nIn the soft dark\u2014filled with the spirit of the stars and of the flowing\nriver and the wafted fragrance of the fields: the sunlit memories of the\nday about him, and above him his own voice in the clear height poised\nunfaltering\u2014\n\nSo in perfect contentment thro\u2019 all your mortal work\n\nShall your spirit sublimely sing.\n\n\n                      AS ONE WHO FROM A HIGH CLIFF\n\n            I look upon my life as from afar:\n            I hear its murmur, mark its changeful sheen,\n            (As one who from a high cliff marks the waves\n            He just now rode on,)\n            Beautiful, gleaming, shot with hues from heaven,\n            With strange pale lustre\u2014beautiful indeed,\n            O God, from this great eminence of Death.\n\n\n                           TO ONE IN TROUBLE\n\nThe Lord of heaven and earth, out of darkness, out of silence, by ways\nthat thou understandest not, shall redeem thy soul.\n\n\n                    THESE WAVES OR YOUR GREAT HEART\n\nYou battling with your own heart, speaking the words of peace in vain,\u2014\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe convulsive waves heave and break, do they not?\n\nThey go moaning down the dark shore, bitterly, unabating,\n\nHeavily with weary thud falling falling\u2014into the darkness falling.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nO heart!\n\nThis is the ocean that is broken (on its surface) with measureless\nnever-ending unrest.\n\nO heart!\n\nThis is the wide and immense ocean: over which who shall sail?\n\nO child!\n\nYou that shiver there in the night-wind by the dread white-lipped shore!\n\nDo you guess how wide this Ocean is?\n\nDo you know how it rolls its waters away beyond the farthest horizon\nthat you have imagined?\n\nAfar, afar\u2014spreading blue beneath the sun by coasts of calm and tropic\nbeauty, by coasts of tumbling laughing beauty, by bays and bars and\nriver-narrow straits?\u2014\n\nThis ocean of the heart?\u2014\n\nAfar, afar\u2014or bearing on its breast the great white-sailed ships of the\nearth, or the broad disc of the moon, or the images of men\u2019s homes in\nunimagined lands?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThought you, frail phantom roaming by the shore,\n\nGazing wide into the night\u2014a stranger where you had fancied yourself\nmost at home\u2014\n\nThought you that this great Ocean was to be like an ornamental water in\nyour garden?\n\nThought you that you knew whence these convulsive waves?\u2014the winds that\nstirred them, the deeps where they were born?\n\nThink you they weep your sorrows alone, or shake the ground only under\nyour feet?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nNot so! not so!\n\nBut ever flowing from afar,\n\nFrom the immeasurable past, from the illimitable shores of human life\nfor ever flowing\u2014on its margin passionately breaking,\n\nWith strange uncipherable meanings, whose words are the myriad years,\n\nWith speechless terror and amazement to the children beside it,\n\nWith amazement of expanded identity, and the inflow of immortal\nswift-riding purposes, incontrollable, leading straight to death,\n\nIn living procession out of the deep\u2014O child! to you they come,\n\nThese waves of your great heart, rolling flowing without end:\n\nThrough long long ages, under storm and sunshine, by day and night, in\nindomitable splendor rolling,\n\nAt your feet now mournfully breaking.\n\n\n                       THUS AS I YEARNED FOR LOVE\n\nThus as I yearned for love,\n\nAt length the clouds parted,\n\nAnd I knew the old old vision:\n\nHim with the sorrowful eyes (pain, unrelenting pain),\n\nWith the distant piercing unapproachable eyes, I knew,\u2014\n\nThe face from the murky clouds disclosed, and withdrawn again.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nO night, fold upon fold, impenetrable, with silent tears in the darkness\nfalling\u2014mute night, remover of all evidence!\n\nO dawn, with early rising almost before it is light, and preparations\nfor a long journey!\n\nO day, with children playing by the roadside, and greetings exchanged,\nand cheery demeanor!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd somewhere, unseen, over all, the same unapproachable eyes looking as\never down.\n\n\n                             ETERNAL HUNGER\n\n       Eternal Hunger! O through the black night\n       Rave, Winds. The forest fanes\n       Tremble, rock, crash, and ring incessantly\n       The cry of homeless spirits. Roar\n       Ye torrents from the mountains. Roar O Sea,\n       Rave under the pale stars. O gulf of Death\n       Yawn blackening beneath.\n       But O great Heart,\n       O Love greater than all,\n       Over the mountains the forests and the seas,\n       O\u2019er the black chasm of death, in spectral haste\n       Thou ridest, and the hungry winds and waves\n       Are but Thy hounds: Thou the eternal huntsman!\n\n       Great heart and lonely, indomitable in pride\n       As the pale Titan! a storm-battling eagle\n       Art thou above the promontory of the world;\n       A\u00fd, and ah me!\n       A tender little bird\n       Wind-blown and baffled from its nest for ever.\n\n       Pain, ah! eternal pain.\n       I hear Aeolian harpings wail and die\n       Down forest glades, and through the hearts of men,\n       Pain, pain, eternal pain!\n       High round the cloud-girt pinnacle of gaunt snow\n       I hear the wind moan Pain, eternal pain.\n\n       O man, O child of Man!\n       Thou frail and baffled bird, thou weary thing,\n       Thou strong to suffer, of satanic pride,\n       I take thee up into this height of pain,\n       And shew thee all the kingdoms of the earth,\n       Yea, all the kingdoms of the hearts of men\u2014\n       The pure and light-strewn kingdoms of strong love:\n\n       Gaze long in silence, friend; gaze long for all are thine.\n\n\n                       CHILD OF THE LONELY HEART\n\n Child of the lonely heart,\n O clinging supplicating soul,\n Through thy chamber, thy prison, thy palace, the body, solitary roaming,\n The great world through the windows sadly, questioningly exploring.\u2014\n\n\n _O love, love, love,\n At thy feet,\n By thy side,\n My hand if only resting in thine:\n See, I am so little, I ask so little\u2014\n If thou wilt take this little overflowing cup\n Into thy great ocean._\n\n _O love, love, love,\n Thee alone.\n Always only thee: I find nothing beautiful but thee.\n Lo! when I look forth, what is it all?\n These lines of houses,\n This sad interminable sky,\n This gay life\u2014which is my pretext\u2014but underneath I am sick sick at heart\n For one touch of true love._\n\n _O love, love, love,\n Since I was a little child, and till I die, the same.\n Nothing I reserve\u2014\n I am so little and I ask so little:\n If thou wilt take this little overflowing cup\n Into thy great ocean._\n\n Child of the lonely heart,\n O clinging supplicating soul,\n Through thy chamber, thy prison, thy palace\u2014\n Ah! children, through the world, through the ages, by thousands and\n    thousands, by millions and millions,\n\n Unaware, unwhispered\u2014in your own great fellowship uninitiate\u2014\n Blindly yearning, tentatively questioningly darkly exploring,\n Through the great Mother-heart eternally ascending!\n\n\n                  TO ONE WHO IS WHERE THE ETERNAL ARE\n\n          Pass friend pass:\n          Lest body and soul with desire I be consumed,\n          Pass, pass from me.\n          Your eyes burn in upon me. Out of the night,\n          Out of the darks of time, flashing, out of the still\n          Still height I cannot attain to, solemnly\n          Stedfastly gazing\u2014\n          Their light pierces my brain.\n\n          O this is cruel!\n          Knowing that I cannot attain,\n          Why do you mock me?\u2014passing me like a shadow,\n          Passing, passing, and again returning;\n          In the night within me like a great star shining,\n\n          In the world without passing me like a shadow.\n          If I were the yellow sands your feet once trod,\n          By the deep blue where they were still delaying;\n          Were I the sea that clipped your body round,\n          The shores, the ships,\u2014\n          Ah me!\u2014\n          Were I the thing your hand most idly touched,\n          The light that fell upon your Southern home,\n          The murmur of the forest in your ears,\n          Where you, friend, once walked, dreaming!\n\n          Time answers like the closing of a door,\n          I am an exile. The swift years have set\n          Their gulf between us\u2014you are safe from me;\n          Torment me then no longer: pass O pass,\n          Kiss me with shadowy lips, and pass from me.\n\n          I see the deep gulf roll below me now\u2014\n          The leaden-colored flood, the scum, the swirl,\n          The shadow-peopled banks.\n          I feel the cold dank wind: Death blows upon it.\n          I reel upon the edge\u2014\n          Sickness comes o\u2019er me, clammy faintness, death.\n\n\n                                   2\n\n           Now am I near to Death.\n           The world for me is changed. The noiseless wing\n           Sways over all. The mountains are unreal,\n           The stones I walk on are not stones, the air\n           Breathes from another world, the voices call,\n           The hands I grasp remind me. All is still,\n           Still as deep night within. Without, the world\n           Hangs beautiful and distant like a vision.\n\n           Hush! all is silent.\u2014\n           Now it is very near.\n           Noiselessly through the darkness, noiselessly\n           Gliding\u2014ah! nearer nearer!\n           Softly out of the night, with soft step stealing\n           Nearer, ah, nearer!\n           With faint breath over Ocean, fresh and cool,\n           Death! death! O friend,\n           O far-infolder, speak! Is it Thou indeed\n           Pouring faint fragrance, drowning drowning me\n           Out of the world at length?\u2014at length O friend,\n           O hesitating long!\n\n           Ah! let me die!\n           Snatch me thou Wonderful,\n           Thou with Almighty arms, enfold me, crush me\n           Close through all creature-pain at length to Thee.\n\n\n                                   3\n\n The passion is gone past.\n Now know I that death has been near me all my life\u2014that it is a part of\n    my life.\n [O beautiful Ocean! O dim fluid plains and aerial distances!\n O headland where I stand for ever gazing!]\n\n The passion is gone past.\n O friend, pale friend, stay with me now I pray.\n Your eyes no more\n Out of the dark consume me\u2014fitfully flashing\n Where the great waves break, weary without end.\n\n Swaying swaying, softly eternally swaying,\n The flood lies calm now. Stay with me then I pray.\n Dwell with me through the day;\n And through the night, and where it is neither night nor day,\n Dwell quietly. Pass pass not any more.\n\n Thou canst not pass.\n I too am where thou art: through all this life\n I walk the quiet kingdoms of the dead\n Fast hand in hand with thee.\n Press now the sweet life of thy lips on mine;\n I hold thee fast:\n Not by the yellow sands nor the blue deep,\n But in my heart thy heart of hearts\u2014\n A great star, growing, shining.\n\n\n                         THROUGH THE LONG NIGHT\n\nYou, proud curve-lipped youth, with brown sensitive face,\n\nWhy, suddenly, as you sat there on the grass, did you turn full upon me\nthose twin black eyes of yours,\n\nWith gaze so absorbing so intense, I a strong man trembled and was\nfaint?\n\nWhy in a moment between me and you in the full summer afternoon did Love\nsweep\u2014leading after it in procession across the lawn and the flowers and\nunder the waving trees huge dusky shadows of Death and the other world?\n\nI know not.\n\nSolemn and dewy-passionate, yet burning clear and stedfast at the last,\n\nThrough the long night those eyes of yours, dear, remain to me\u2014\n\nAnd I remain gazing into them.\n\n\n                             TO A STRANGER\n\nO faithful eyes, day after day as I see and know you\u2014unswerving faithful\nand beautiful\u2014going about your ordinary work unnoticed,\n\nI have noticed\u2014I do not forget you.\n\nI know the truth the tenderness the courage, I know the longings hidden\nquiet there.\n\nGo right on. Have good faith yet\u2014keep that your unseen treasure\nuntainted.\n\nMany shall bless you. To many yet, though no word be spoken, your face\nshall shine as a lamp.\n\nIt shall be remembered, and that which you have desired\u2014in silence\u2014shall\ncome abundantly to you.\n\n\n                              TO A FRIEND\n\nFaithful eyes, fail not.\n\nThough sorrows come upon you, though temptations try, though age and\ngrief assault you\u2014fail not, fail not.\n\nHow many hang upon you for your light,\n\nShining in darkness\u2014as the stars that shine\n\nUpon the mighty deep for mariners!\n\nO eyes, be true, give all away for that\u2014\n\nGive all your days and all good name and honor,\n\nIf need should be, for that. That we may steer\n\nThrough the dark night by you.\n\n\n                   OF THE LOVE THAT YOU POURED FORTH\n\nOf the love that you poured forth, dear friend, in vain\u2014like a cup of\nwater in the wide and thirsty desert\u2014but it was all your life to you,\n\nDo you dream that it is lost?\n\nPerhaps it is\u2014it may well seem so just now to you\u2014yet indeed I do not\nthink so.\n\n\n                          AS A WOMAN OF A MAN\n\nDemocracy!\n\nO sombre swart face, now thou art very beautiful to me!\n\nO haughty brow, with glittering withdrawn eyes, not a little\ncontemptuous,\n\nThou art very beautiful to me!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI am as a child before thee;\n\nAll that I have learned, all my fancical knowledge,\n\nMy familiarity with times and distances,\n\nAll my refinement is nothing\u2014my delicate hands, manners,\n\nMy glibness is nothing;\n\nI crave the touch of thy soul, thou strong one,\n\nI crave thy love.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nCome! who art no longer a name:\n\nGigantic Thou, with head aureoled by the sun\u2014wild among the mountains\u2014\n\nThy huge limbs naked and stalwart erected member,\n\nThy lawless gait and rank untameable laughter,\n\nThy heaven-licking wildfire thoughts and passions\u2014\n\nI desire.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll conventions, luxuries, all refinements of civilization, and\ntyrannous wants,\n\nAcquisitions, formulated rules, rights, prescriptions, and whatever\nconstitutes a barrier\u2014\n\nI discard.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll the cobwebs of science, and precedents and conclusions of authority,\n\nAll possessions, and impedimenta of property, all rights of bundles and\nbaggage\u2014\n\nI disown.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI stand prepared for toil, for hardship\u2014this instant if need be to start\non an unforeseen and distant journey\u2014\n\nI am wholly without reserve:\n\nAs a woman of a man so I will learn of thee,\n\nI will draw thee closer and closer,\n\nI will drain thy lips and the secret things of thy body,\n\nI will conceive by thee, Democracy.\n\n\n                        O LOVE\u2014TO WHOM THE POETS\n\nO love\u2014to whom the poets have made verses\u2014\n\nWhom the shepherds on the hills have piped to, and maidens sighed within\ntheir lonely bowers,\n\nWhom the minstrels have sung, handing down their songs from one\ngeneration to another\u2014\n\nTo thy praise over the world resounding\n\nI add my strain.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nNot because thou art fair;\n\nNot because thine eyes glance winningly, nor because of the sly arch of\nthine eyebrows;\n\nNot because thy voice is like music played in the open air,\n\nAnd thy coming like the dawn on the far-off mountains;\n\nNot because thou comest with the dance and the song, and because the\nflashing of thy feet is like the winds of Spring;\n\nNor because thou art sweetly perfumed,\n\nDo I praise thee.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nNot because thy dwelling is among knights and ladies\u2014afar from all that\nis common or gross;\n\nNot because thou delayest to the sound of playing fountains on marble\nterraces,\n\nAnd white hands caress thee and clip thy wing-feathers,\n\nAnd meek thoughts and blameless conversation attend thee;\n\nNot because thy place is among the flowers and the wine-cups in spacious\nhalls,\n\nAnd because the sight of Death appals thee;\n\nNor because, love, thou art a child:\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut because as on me now, full-grown giantesque out of the ground out of\nthe common earth arising,\n\nVery awful and terrible in heaven thou appearest;\n\nBecause as thou comest to me in thy majesty sweeping over the world with\nlightnings and black darkness,\n\n[And the old order shrivels and disappears from thy face,]\n\nI am as a leaf borne, as a fragrance exhaled before thee\u2014\n\nAs a bird crying singed by the prairie-fire;\n\nBecause Thou rulest O glorious, and before thee all else fails,\n\nAnd at thy dread new command\u2014at thy new word Democracy\u2014the children of\nthe earth and the sea and the sky find their voices, and the despised\nthings come forth and rejoice;\n\nBecause in thy arms O strong one I laugh Death to scorn\u2014nay I go forth\nto meet him with gladness;\n\nAy, because thou takest away from me all strength but thine own,\n\nBecause thou takest all doubt and power of resistance,\n\nBecause out of disallowed and unaccepted things\u2014and always out of\nthese\u2014full-armed and terrific,\n\nLike a smiting and consuming flame, O Love, O Democracy,\n\nEven out of the faces and bodies of the huge and tameless multitudes of\nthe Earth,\n\nA great ocean of fire with myriad tongues licking the vault of heaven,\n\nThou arisest\u2014\n\nTherefore O love O flame wherein I burning die and am consumed, carried\naloft to the stars a disembodied voice\u2014\n\nO dread Creator and Destroyer,\n\nDo I praise Thee.\n\n\n                         WHO YOU ARE I KNOW NOT\n\nWho you are I know not, but I have it before me that you shall know.\n\nFor a certainty you are not greater or less than me: I neither look upon\nyou with envy nor with pity, with deference nor with contempt.\n\nEndowments and dignities and accomplishments are of no account whatever;\nbut honesty, and to stand in time under the great law of Equality\u2014after\nwhich you will be satisfied, and joy will take possession of you.\n\nTill then, farewell. Do not follow me, but go your own way voyaging\u2014and\nthen haply some time we shall meet.\n\n\n                               HAVE FAITH\n\nDo not hurry: have faith.\n\nRemember that if you become famous you can never share the lot of those\nwho pass by unnoticed from the cradle to the grave, nor take part in the\nlast heroism of their daily life;\n\nIf you seek and encompass wealth and ease the divine outlook of poverty\ncannot be yours\u2014nor shall you feel all your days the loving and\nconstraining touch of Nature and Necessity;\n\nIf you are successful in all you do, you cannot also battle\nmagnificently against odds;\n\nIf you have fortune and good health and a loving wife and children, you\ncannot also be of those who are happy without these things.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nCovet not overmuch. Let the strong desires come and go; refuse them not,\ndisown them not; but think not that in them lurks finally the thing you\nwant.\n\nPresently they will fade away and into the intolerable light will\ndissolve like gossamers before the sun.\n\n\n                                   2\n\nDo not hurry: have faith.\n\nThe sportsman does not say, I will start a hare at the corner of this\nfield, or I will shoot a turkey-buzzard at the foot of that tree;\n\nBut he stands indifferent and waits on emergency, and so makes himself\nmaster of it.\n\nSo do you stand indifferent, and by faith make yourself master of your\nlife.\n\nFor all things are possible, yet at any one time and place only one\nthing is possible;\n\nAnd all things are good, yet at any one time and place can you extract\nthe good only from that which is before you.\n\nHave faith. If that which rules the universe were alien to your soul,\nthen nothing could mend your state\u2014there were nothing left but to fold\nyour hands and be damned everlastingly.\n\nBut since it is not so\u2014why what can you wish for more?\u2014all things are\ngiven into your hands.\n\nDo you pity a man who having a silver mine on his estate loses a\nshilling in a crack in his house-floor?\n\nAnd why should another pity you?\n\n\n                                   3\n\nDo not hurry.\n\nAs at the first day the clouds suffused with light creep over the edges\nof the hills, the young poplar poises itself like an arrow planted in\nthe ground, the birds warble with upturned bills to the sun;\n\nThe sun rises on hundreds of millions of human beings; the hemisphere of\nlight follows the hemisphere of darkness, and a great wave of life\nrushes round the globe;\n\nThe little pigmies stand on end (like iron filings under a magnet) and\nthen they fall prone again. And this has gone on for millions of years\nand will go on for millions more.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAbsolve yourself to-day from the bonds of action.\n\n[Wait, wait ever for the coming of the Lord. See that you are ready for\nhis arrival.]\n\nBegin to-day to understand that which you will not understand when you\nread these words for the first time, nor perhaps when you have read them\nfor the hundredth time.\n\nBegin to-day to understand why the animals are not hurried, and do not\nconcern themselves about affairs, nor the clouds nor the trees nor the\nstars\u2014but only man\u2014and he but for a few thousand years in history.\n\n[For it is one thing to do things, but another to be concerned about the\ndoing of them.]\n\nBehold the animals. There is not one but the human soul lurks within it,\nfulfilling its destiny as surely as within you.\n\nThe elephant, the gnat floating warily towards its victim, the horse\nsleeping by stolen snatches in the hot field at the plough, or coming\nout of the stable of its own accord at the sound of the alarm bell and\nplacing itself in the shafts of the fire-engine\u2014sharing the excitement\nof the men; the cats playing together on the barn floor, thinking no\nsociety equal to theirs, the ant bearing its burden through the grass\u2014\n\nDo you think that these are nothing more than what you see? Do you not\nknow that your mother and your sister and your brother are among them?\n\n\n                                   4\n\nI saw deep in the eyes of the animals the human soul look out upon me.\n\nI saw where it was born deep down under feathers and fur, or condemned\nfor awhile to roam fourfooted among the brambles. I caught the clinging\nmute glance of the prisoner, and swore that I would be faithful.\n\nThee my brother and sister I see and mistake not. Do not be afraid.\nDwelling thus and thus for a while, fulfilling thy appointed time\u2014thou\ntoo shalt come to thyself at last.\n\nThy half-warm horns and long tongue lapping round my wrist do not\nconceal thy humanity any more than the learned talk of the pedant\nconceals his\u2014for all thou art dumb we have words and plenty between us.\n\nCome nigh little bird with your half-stretched quivering wings\u2014within\nyou I behold choirs of angels, and the Lord himself in vista.\n\nCrooning and content the old hen sits\u2014her thirteen chicks cheep cheerily\nround her, or nestle peeping out like little buds from under her wings;\n\nKeen and motherly is her eye, placid and joyful her heart, as the sun\nshines warm upon them.\n\n\n                                   5\n\nDo not hurry: have faith.\n\n[Whither indeed should we hurry? is it not well here?\n\nA little shelter from the storm, a stack of fuel for winter use, a few\nhandfuls of grain and fruit\u2014\n\nAnd lo! the glory of all the earth is ours.]\n\nThe main thing is that the messenger is perhaps even now at your\ndoor\u2014and to see that you are ready for his arrival:\n\nA little child, a breath of air, an old man hobbling on crutches, a bee\nlighting on the page of your book\u2014who knows whom He may send?\n\nSome one diseased or dying, some friendless, outcast, criminal\u2014\n\nOne whom it shall ruin your reputation to be seen with\u2014yet see that you\nare ready for his arrival.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nLikely whoever it is his coming will upset all your carefully laid\nplans;\n\nYour most benevolent designs will likely have to be laid aside, and he\nwill set you to some quite commonplace business, or perhaps of dubious\ncharacter\u2014\n\nOr send you a long and solitary journey; perhaps he will bring you\nletters of trust to deliver\u2014perhaps the prince himself will appear\u2014\n\nYet see that you are ready for his arrival.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nIs your present experience hard to bear?\n\nYet remember that never again perhaps in all your days will you have\nanother chance of the same.\n\nDo not fly the lesson, but have a care that you master it while you have\nthe opportunity.\n\n\n                                   6\n\nThese things I say not in order to excite thought in you\u2014rather to\ndestroy it\u2014\n\nOr if to excite thought, then to excite that which destroys itself;\n\nFor what I say is not born of thought and does not demand thought either\nfor comprehension or proof;\n\nAnd whoever dwells among thoughts dwells in the region of delusion and\ndisease\u2014and though he may appear wise and learned yet his wisdom and\nlearning are as hollow as a piece of timber eaten out by white ants.\n\nTherefore though thought should gird you about, remember and forget not\nto disendue it, as a man takes off his coat when hot; and as a skilful\nworkman lays down his tool when done with, so shall you use thought and\nlay it quietly aside again when it has served your purpose.\n\n\n                                   7\n\nA veil of illusion hangs following the lines of all things,\n\nOver the trees and running waters, and up the sides of the mountains and\nover the sea and the cities, and circling the birds in the air as they\nfly\u2014\n\nSo that these themselves you see not, only the indications of them, and\nyourself you see not, only the indication.\n\nAs long as through the eyes of desire, and of this and that, you\nlook\u2014and of vanity; as long as you hurry after results and are\noverwhelmed with the importance of anything you can do or leave\nundone\u2014so long will the veil lie close, do not be deceived.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nOn all sides God surrounds you, staring out upon you from the mountains\nand from the face of the rocks, and of men, and of animals.\n\nWill you rush past for ever insensate and blindfold\u2014hurrying breathless\nfrom one unfinished task to another, and to catch your ever-departing\ntrains\u2014as if you were a very Cain flying from his face?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nResume the ancient dignity of your race, lost, almost forgotten as it\nis.\n\nWhat is it surely that you are fretting about? Is it the fashions, or\nwhat men say about you, or the means of livelihood, or is it the sense\nof duty this way and that, or trivial desires, that will not let you\nrest?\n\nAre you so light, like a leaf, that such things as these will move\nyou\u2014are you so weak that one such slender chain will deprive you of\ninestimable Freedom?\n\nAnd yet the lilies of the field and the beasts that have no banks of\ndeposit or securities are not anxious: they have more dignity than you.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAs long as you harbor motives so long are you giving hostages to the\nenemy; while you are a slave (to this and that) you can only obey. It is\nnot You who are acting at all.\n\nBrush it all aside.\n\nPass disembodied out of yourself. Leave the husk, leave the long long\nprepared and perfected envelope.\n\nEnter into the life which is eternal, pass through the gate of\nindifference into the palace of mastery, through the door of love out\ninto the great open of deliverance;\n\nGive away all that you have, become poor and without possessions\u2014and\nbehold! you shall be lord and sovereign of all things.\n\n\n                            I HEARD A VOICE\n\nI heard a voice say unto me:\u2014\n\nNow since thou art neither beautiful nor witty, it is in vain that thou\nhangest about the doors of the admired palaces;\n\nFor thou wilt not gain admission\u2014thou!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut here outside is a plot of waste ground where canst build thee a\nlittle cabin\u2014all thine own;\n\nAnd since it is close by the common road and there is no fence about it,\n\nMany a weary traveler parched with the heat of the day shall turn in\nunto thee for a cup of cold water.\n\nAnd that shall suffice for Thy life.\n\n\n                   I KNOW THAT YOU ARE SELF-CONSCIOUS\n\nI know that you are self-conscious,\n\nThat you are troubled\u2014haunted\u2014tormented. It is not pleasant!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut how wonderful is the mere sense of space in the world\u2014after the\nsick-chamber and days of illness!\n\nAnd how wonderful is the sense of measureless space in the soul, and of\nfreedom, thenceforth inalienable!\n\nLook then in the glass once more, and satisfy yourself thoroughly about\nit:\n\nDo you not see, this time, that there is some one else looking in it\nalso,\n\nBeside you, over your shoulder?\n\n\n                              WHO ARE YOU\n\nWho are you who go about to save them that are lost?\n\nAre you saved yourself?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nDo you not know that who would save his own life must lose it?\n\nAre you then one of the \u2018lost\u2019?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nBe sure, very sure, that each one of these can teach you as much as,\nprobably more than, you can teach them.\n\nHave you then sat humbly at their feet, and waited on their lips that\nthey should be the first to speak\u2014and been reverent before these\nchildren\u2014whom you so little understand?\n\nHave you dropped into the bottomless pit from between yourself and them\nall hallucination of superiority, all flatulence of knowledge, every\nshred of abhorrence and loathing?\n\nIs it equal, is it free as the wind between you?\n\nCould you be happy receiving favors from one of the most despised of\nthese?\n\nCould you be yourself one of the lost?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nArise, then, and become a savior.\n\n\n                            AMONG THE FERNS\n\nI lay among the ferns,\n\nWhere they lifted their fronds, innumerable, in the greenwood\nwilderness, like wings winnowing the air;\n\nAnd their voices went past me continually.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd I listened, and lo! softly inaudibly raining I heard not the voices\nof the ferns only, but of all living creatures:\n\nVoices of mountain and star,\n\nOf cloud and forest and ocean,\n\nAnd of the little rills tumbling amid the rocks,\n\nAnd of the high tops where the moss-beds are and the springs arise.\n\nAs the wind at mid-day rains whitening over the grass,\n\nAs the night-bird glimmers a moment, fleeting between the lonely watcher\nand the moon,\n\nSo softly inaudibly they rained,\n\nWhere I sat silent.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd in the silence of the greenwood I knew the secret of the growth of\nthe ferns;\n\nI saw their delicate leaflets tremble breathing an undescribed and\nunuttered life;\n\nAnd, below, the ocean lay sleeping;\n\nAnd round them the mountains and the stars dawned in glad companionship\nfor ever.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd a voice came to me, saying:\n\nIn every creature, in forest and ocean, in leaf and tree and bird and\nbeast and man, there moves a spirit other than its mortal own,\n\nPure, fluid, as air\u2014intense as fire,\n\nWhich looks abroad and passes along the spirits of all other creatures,\ndrawing them close to itself,\n\nNor dreams of other law than that of perfect equality;\n\nAnd this is the spirit of immortality and peace.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd whatsoever creature hath this spirit, to it no harm may befall:\n\nNo harm can befall, for wherever it goes it has its nested home, and to\nit every loss comes charged with an equal gain;\n\nIt gives\u2014but to receive a thousand-fold;\n\nIt yields its life\u2014but at the hands of love;\n\nAnd death is the law of its eternal growth.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd I saw that was the law of every creature\u2014that this spirit should\nenter in and take possession of it,\n\nThat it might have no more fear or doubt or be at war within itself any\nlonger.\n\nAnd lo! in the greenwood all around me it moved,\n\nWhere the sunlight floated fragrant under the boughs, and the\nfern-fronds winnowed the air;\n\nIn the oak-leaves dead of last year, and in the small shy things that\nrustled among them;\n\nIn the songs of the birds, and the broad shadowing leaves overhead;\n\nIn the fields sleeping below, and in the river and the high dreaming\nair;\n\nGleaming ecstatic it moved\u2014with joy incarnate.\n\nAnd it seemed to me, as I looked, that it penetrated all these things,\nsuffusing them;\n\nAnd wherever it penetrated, behold! there was nothing left down to the\nsmallest atom which was not a winged spirit instinct with life.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWho shall understand the words of the ferns lifting their fronds\ninnumerable?\n\nWhat man shall go forth into the world, holding his life in his open\npalm\u2014\n\nWith high adventurous joy from sunrise to sunset\u2014\n\nFearless, in his sleeve laughing, having outflanked his enemies?\n\nHis heart like Nature\u2019s garden\u2014that all men abide in\u2014\n\nFree, where the great winds blow, rains fall, and the sun shines,\n\nAnd manifold growths come forth and scatter their fragrance?\n\nWho shall be like a grave, where men may bury\n\nSin and sorrow and shame, to rise in the new day\n\nGlorious out of their grave? who, deeply listening,\n\nShall hear through his soul the voices of all creation,\n\nVoices of mountain and star, voices of all men,\n\nSoftly audibly raining?\u2014shall seize and fix them,\n\nRivet them fast with love, no more to lose them?\n\nWho shall _be_ that spirit of deep fulfilment,\n\nHimself, self-centred? yet evermore from that centre\n\nOver the world expanding, along all creatures\n\nLoyally passing\u2014with love, in perfect equality?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHim immortality crowns. In him all sorrow\n\nAnd mortal passion of death shall pass from creation.\n\nThey who sit by the road and are weary shall rise up\n\nAs he passes. They who despair shall arise.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWho shall understand the words of the ferns winnowing the air?\n\n_Death shall change as the light in the morning changes;_\n\n_Death shall change as the light \u2019twixt moonset and dawn._\n\n\n                     I HEARD THE VOICE OF THE WOODS\n\nI heard the voice of the woods and of the grass growing silently and of\nthe delicate bending ferns,\n\nAnd it said:\n\nFor the dumb and for the generations of them that have no voice my\nspeech is\u2014\n\nFor them too help comes.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI am the spirit of the Earth.\n\nRound me the woods and mountains roll, rising and falling to the far\nsea;\n\nIn the hollow below me roars the great river to its doom;\n\nThe clouds draw onward; and the voices of the generations of men are\nwoven like thin gossamer through the air about me.\n\nYet here where I am there is peace\u2014such as mortal yet on earth hath\nhardly known,\n\nBut which shall be known, and even now is known.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhere the stems stand dividing the winnowed sunlight,\n\nWhere the green floor is dappled with soft warm moss, and the swift hum\nof the bee is heard,\n\nAnd the air glides through like a gracious spirit inbreathing beauty,\n\nI walk\u2014meditating the voiceless children, drawing them to myself with\ndeep unearthly love.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nCome unto me, O yearning and inarticulate (for whom so many ages I have\nwaited),\n\nBreathing your lives out like a long unuttered prayer,\n\nCome unto me: and I will give you rest.\n\nFor I am not the woods nor the grass nor the bending ferns;\n\nNor any pale moonlight spirit of these;\n\nAnd I am not the air;\n\nNor the light multitudinous life therein;\n\nNor the sun and its radiant warmth;\n\nBut I am one who include\u2014and am greater\u2014\n\nOne (out of thousands) who hold all these, embosomed,\n\nSafe in my heart: fear not.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn your eyes deep-looking I will touch you so as to be free from all\npain;\n\nWhere the last interpretations are, in the uttermost recesses, I will\nreach you;\n\nUtterance at length shall your pent-up spirit have,\n\nTo pour out all that is in you\u2014to speak and be not afraid.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nDear brother, listen!\n\nI am no shadow, no fickle versemaker\u2019s fiction,\n\nMany are the words which are not spoken, but here there is speech;\n\nMany are the words which are not spoken, but in due time all shall be\nspoken:\n\nThere is neither haste nor delay, but all shall be spoken.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nCome up into the fragrant woods and walk with me.\n\nThe voices of the trees and the silent-growing grass and waving ferns\nascend;\n\nBeyond the birth-and-death veil of the seasons they ascend and are born\nagain;\n\nThe voices of human joy and misery, the hidden cry of the heart\u2014they too\nascend into new perpetual birth.\n\nAll is interpreted anew:\n\nIn man the cataracts descend, and the winds blow, and autumn reddens and\nripens;\n\nAnd in the woods a spirit walks which is not wholly of the woods,\n\nBut which looks out over the wide Earth and draws to itself all men with\ndeep unearthly love.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nCome, walk with me:\n\nOn the soft moss\u2014though you guess not my arm is about you\u2014\n\nBy the white stems, where the gracious air is breathing,\n\nOn the green floor, through the pale green winnowed sunlight,\n\nWalk: and leave all to me.\n\n\n                      THE WIND CHANTS WELL TO-DAY\n\nThe wind chants well over the world to-day;\n\nIt runs in waves up the slopes of the corn-fields, and sounds deep and\ndistant, like the sea, among the firs;\n\nThe tall grasses in sheltered spots quiver on their wiry stems\u2014for it is\nflowering time\u2014\n\nAnd shake faint clouds of pollen upon the air.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nStrange purposes inhabit the woodland hollows and the high air to-day;\n\nThe long-legged spider threading the blades of grass, touching trying\nretreating, encloses strange purposes, the wind encloses strange\npurposes.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut I know you well O wind\u2014you cannot escape me.\n\nYou are very subtle, you have innumerable disguises:\n\nYou are one thing to the grass with its beautiful hanging anthers and\nbranched stigma,\n\nAnd another thing to the birds, and another to the solemn swaying\nfir-trees.\n\nYou conceal yourself well, O wind, but I am level with you to-day\u2014you\ncannot hide yourself from me.\n\nI go arm in arm, I ride over the world with you. I visit a thousand\nspots and leave my messages\u2014\n\nAnd am as invisible as you.\n\n\n                              I AM A VOICE\n\nI am a voice singing the song of deliverance\u2014\n\nCenturies long, centuries long, floating aloft in ecstasy.\n\nSurprised at myself\u2014to find myself looking out on this landscape here\u2014to\nbe engaged on these occupations and plans which people call mine, but\nwhich are not mine at all\u2014to be living in this house which it is nothing\nto me whether I live in it or not\u2014to be fretting myself with these and\nthese anxieties and cares\u2014to be this limited and foolish mortal that I\nam;\n\nYet again at intervals soaring aloft, going back again to my home in the\nsky,\n\nTo sing for all time\n\nThe song of joy\u2014of deliverance.\n\n\n                    O SEA, WITH WHITE LINES OF FOAM\n\nO sea, with white lines of foam caught by the winter sun,\n\nO pale blue transparent sky with wind, long stretches of coast\nfaint-outlined, and waving grasses!\n\nHow often to seek you, out of the pent life of custom and brick\nperspective, a boy I came,\n\nFilled with vague desires, hardly knowing what or wherefore\u2014like thine,\nO restless sea and ceaseless blowing wind\u2014\n\nCame to pour forth my soul to yours, ye beautiful creatures\u2014sad, sad,\nlonging yearning without end!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nSay, great sea\u2014whose music continues to-day the same as then; O\nwonderful illimitable sky, the same; O grasses shivering just for all\nthe world as now\u2014\n\nSay, have you not given me, by strange ways, the thing that I sought?\n\nFor now returning,\n\nSatisfied, filled to the full of all desires, grateful as a lake\nsparkling in the sunshine,\n\nFilled to the full, desiring yearning no more\u2014faint only with joy and\nthe fragrance of the love which distils from you\u2014\n\nUpon you I look once more.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nChanged are your words; changed are your words O grasses and pale blue\nflowing winds, and yours ye streets and faces that pass along them!\n\nChanged are your words to me.\n\nI heard you\u2014but it was as one that hears an unknown tongue; I thought I\nsaw you, but I see that you deceived me.\n\nAnd now I do not know why I should ever make another move\u2014what you say\nhas entirely checkmated me.\n\nBut to those that go forward, go ye ever forward before them; and to\nthem that listen let your strange vocabulary continue.\n\n\n                                  HOME\n\nAmong all men my home is: I have seen them and there is no people, unto\nthe ends of the earth, with whom I will not dwell.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI give my body to the sea and to the dust\u2014to be dashed on the rocks, or\nto break in green spray in springtime over the fields and hedge-rows\u2014or\nto lie rotting in the desert for the sustenance of flies;\n\nMy soul, if it be so, to peregrinate all creature-kingdoms and every\ncondition of man\u2014with equal joy the lowest;\n\nBut I to return, to remain, to turn again to my old home, to dwell\u2014as\never\u2014where the prince of love once led me,\n\nWhen he touched the walls of my hut with his finger from within, and\npassing through like a fire delivered me with great unspeakable\ndeliverance from all evil.\n\n\n                               OFF GASP\u00c9\n\nA few small huts, a narrow strip of cultivated land; Behind, the\nfrowning mountains of Gasp\u00e9, forest-clad; in front, the wide sea-mouth\nof the St. Lawrence.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHow lost and ignorant! says one passing by on board ship\u2014wondering that\nlife can be supported in such a place,\n\nSo rude and so remote\u2014no arts, no papers, telegrams\u2014scarcely the\nordinary commodities!\n\nThe monotonous sea, the brief summer, the sullen forests, the scanty\nproducts of land and water, the occasional visits of the priest from\nover the mountains!\n\nA living death\u2014he says.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nYet here too\u2014and in winter snow and ice\u2014here too the human heart, not\ndead at all, just the same as in the midst of great cities, lives and\nblooms;\n\nHere lies close to the sky and the rocks and the sea, and is at home\u2014as\nthe star is at home in the sky, and the daisy in the grass;\n\nWithout communication with New York or London, and yet in the centre of\nthe world as much as either, and with news and telegrams coming from a\nlong way farther.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nO human heart!\n\nNeither lost nor ignorant\u2014living at first hand from thy source,\n\nI perceive that thy home and mine are the same\u2014one house though the\ndoors be different.\n\nNot here or there; not here, O friend, in the centre of the world and\nthere outcast and forlorn [rather outcast and forlorn and lost and\nignorant he who thinks thus]\u2014\n\nBut ever at home\u2014to thee greetings and congratulations and love wafted\nover the water,\n\nI send.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nA thousand gulls and guillemots on the calm sea-bosom in the flooding\nsun-warmth basking!\n\nThis ship sailing for thee, like a sign through a gleam of summer\u2014thou\ndwelling between the steep forests and the shore with joy in thy heart\nas I have!\n\n\n                              BY THE SHORE\n\nAll night by the shore.\n\nThe obscure water, the long white lines of advancing foam, the rustle\nand thud, the panting sea-breaths, the pungent sea-smell,\n\nThe great slow air moving from the distant horizon, the immense mystery\nof space, and the soft canopy of the clouds!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe swooning thuds go on\u2014the drowse of ocean goes on:\n\nThe long inbreaths\u2014the short sharp outbreaths\u2014the silence between.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI am a bit of the shore: the waves feed upon me, they come pasturing\nover me;\n\nI am glad, O waves, that you come pasturing over me.\n\nI am a little arm of the sea: the same tumbling swooning dream goes on\u2014I\nfeel the waves all around me, I spread myself through them.\n\nHow delicious! I spread and spread. The waves tumble through and over\nme\u2014they dash through my face and hair.\n\nThe night is dark overhead: I do not see them, but I touch them and hear\ntheir gurgling laughter.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe play goes on!\n\nThe strange expanding indraughts go on!\n\nSuddenly I am the Ocean itself: the great soft wind creeps over my face.\n\nI am in love with the wind\u2014I reach my lips to its kisses.\n\nHow delicious! all night and ages and ages long to spread myself to the\ngliding wind!\n\nBut now (and ever) it maddens me with its touch: I arise and whirl in my\nbed, and sweep my arms madly along the shores.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI am not sure any more which my own particular bit of shore is;\n\nAll the bays and inlets know me: I glide along in and out under the sun\nby the beautiful coast-line;\n\nMy hair floats leagues behind me; millions together my children dash\nagainst my face;\n\nI hear what they say and am marvelously content.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll night by the shore;\n\nAnd the sea is a sea of faces.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe long white lines come up\u2014face after face comes and falls past me\u2014\n\nThud after thud. Is it pain or joy?\n\nFace after face\u2014endless!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI do not know; my sense numbs; a trance is on me\u2014I am becoming detached!\n\nI am a bit of the shore:\n\nThe waves feed upon me, they pasture all over me, my feeling is\nstrangely concentrated at every point where they touch me;\n\nI am glad O waves that you come pasturing over me.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI am detached, I disentangle myself from the shore; I have become free\u2014I\nfloat out and mingle with the rest.\n\nThe pain, the acute clinging desire, is over\u2014I feel beings like myself\nall around me, I spread myself through and through them, I am merged in\na sea of contact.\n\nFreedom and equality are a fact. Life and joy seem to have begun for me.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe play goes on!\n\nSuddenly I am the great living Ocean itself\u2014the awful Spirit of\nImmensity creeps over my face.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI am in love with it. All night and ages and ages long and for ever I\npour my soul out to it in love.\n\nI spread myself out broader and broader for ever, that I may touch it\nand be with it everywhere.\n\nThere is no end. But ever and anon it maddens me with its touch, I arise\nand sweep away my bounds.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI know but I do not care any longer which my own particular body is\u2014all\nconditions and fortunes are mine.\n\nBy the ever-beautiful coast-line of human life, by all shores, in all\nclimates and countries, by every secluded nook and inlet,\n\nUnder the eye of my beloved Spirit I glide:\n\nO joy! for ever, ever, joy!\n\nI am not hurried\u2014the whole of eternity is mine;\n\nWith each one I delay, with each one I dwell\u2014with you I dwell.\n\nThe warm breath of each life ascends past me;\n\nI take the thread from the fingers that are weary, and go on with the\nwork;\n\nThe secretest thoughts of all are mine, and mine are the secretest\nthoughts of all.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll night by the shore;\n\nAnd the fresh air comes blowing with the dawn.\n\nThe mystic night fades\u2014but my joy fades not.\n\nI arise and cast a stone into the water (O sea of faces I cast this poem\namong you)\u2014and turn landward over the rustling beach.\n\n\n                            A MILITARY BAND\n\nWith open mouths and eyes intent they press around the stand,\n\nA thousand listeners, in the flare of gas beneath the trees,\n\nYoung men and boys mostly, yet some older, and a few girls and women.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe red-coats sit in circle round their leader\u2014solid and robust\u2014their\nlips retracted, taking short quick breaths, their throats full-veined\nand swollen;\n\nThe first cornets ring out wild and clear, backed by the ripienos, the\ntenors and the trombones;\n\nThe euphonium takes its strong and leading part, the cry of the hautboy\nis heard\u2014apart\u2014like the cry of a wounded animal, the flutes and\nflageolets pipe merrily, and the drums resound.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut the circle of faces\u2014pale in the flickering gas\u2014scarcely moves.\n\nLook! how intent they are, face after face, with eyes fixed, strained,\nas though they would pierce through brass and scarlet!\n\nWhat is it you fix so intently, O faces, have you never seen a red-coat\nbefore?\n\nBut no, they hardly see the red-coats: though all eyes centre there they\nhardly see what is before them.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nLo! a great curtain hanging from the topmost sky right down to the\nbottom of creation\u2014\n\nFlat, enormous, without rent, covering the whole world (yet hardly\nhalf-an-inch in diameter)\u2014\n\nBefore each listener it hangs, and on it all things are painted.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWonderful, figured all over from top to bottom, from side to side,\nwonderful wonderful\u2014and for each one different:\n\nOn it\u2014for some\u2014forms of lust displayed, the glory of limbs\nflame-girdled, floating from side to side, with fierce clutches of\nbeauty\u2014(O eyes no wonder you are intent!)\n\nOn it\u2014for some\u2014the battle-field mounting in smoke, the flag, the roar,\nthe appalling roar of faced cannon, the certain death: the heroic the\ndecisive the furious and disdainful act, the deathless figure of\nbravery\u2014(O eyes no wonder you are intent!)\n\nOn it\u2014see here!\u2014a maiden at her window, peeping over her flowers: the\npure, the sweet, the stainless starlike face, for the vow of true\nknighthood only\u2014(O eyes no wonder you are intent!)\n\nLo there! even more beautiful, the face of year and year-long wife-hood:\nthe friend, the trusted one without whom life cannot be imagined\u2014dual\nlove dividing and filling the universe\u2014(O glistening eyes no wonder you\nare intent!)\n\nOn it\u2014Ah! these are the eyes of the lost one, the departed mother: the\ntender watchful beseeching eyes, the sacred light\u2014not God himself more\nsacred;\n\nThis is the glorious brow of comradeship, faithful unalterable, to\nheroic deeds arousing;\n\nOn it\u2014here for this boy\u2014scenes of the wild ocean and adventure, the ship\nin a storm, the raft, the lightning, and the rescue;\n\nFor another, ambition, the political arena, the debate, the crowded\ngalleries, the centering of eyes;\n\nThe footlights of the stage, the murmured delight of the audience, the\nenthusiastic encore;\n\nScenes of travel, the lands of day-dreams and longing, the Andes, the\nPacific, the Polar aurora and the ice, the trackless forests of Central\nAmerica and Siberia and Western Australia, and of the Amazon; the wild\nanimals of Central Africa;\n\nThe ancient cities, the historical world-old sites, the birth-places of\ngods, the thrones of kings, the centres of civilisation, the churches,\nceremonials, processions, pilgrimages, the markets, railroads, great\nfeats of engineering;\n\nFaces, costumes, forms, objects innumerable\u2014all these figured,\narabesqued,\n\nRunning in free lines over the curtain which hangs from the zenith to\nthe nadir;\n\nAnd on it besides with the rest arabesqued and running,\n\nThe band-stand with the scarlet and the brass, and the conductor\nenergetic with his baton in the midst, and the swollen veins and lithe\nlips of the first cornet player;\n\nAnd on it running waved and dazzling the lines of gas against dark\nshade-masses of foliage\u2014shot through with the electric scream of the\nflageolets and underborne with the deep thunder of drums;\n\nAnd on it the faint blue evening sky and the faint faint stars behind\nit.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWonderful, wonderful!\n\nI too look upon the curtain: I see the figures, the symbols, the shining\nhieroglyphs written with free hand across it\u2014I see the sun and moon;\n\nI see the great dark background on which they are written\u2014flat,\nenormous\u2014falling from the zenith to the nadir.\n\nSee! how it flaps and sways in the cool night-air, as if it were about\nto give way\u2014surely there is something behind it!\u2014yet no rent.\n\nHolding yet well together, holding your secret faithfully,\n\nCurtain of each soul, curtain of creation, tiny curtain, vast enveloping\nall the universe,\n\nVeil of the imperfect creature, under which the wings form\u2014growing\nthinner momently and more transparent\u2014\n\nAmnion-veil of the vast universe\u2014growing thinner\u2014\n\nO shot through with the scream of flageolets and underborne with the\ndeep thunder of drums! almost pierced with the fixed gaze and strain of\ninnumerable eyes!\n\nAh, wonderful wonderful!\n\nGazed upon thousands of years, nearer nearer, fascinating, drawing ever\ndrawing multitudes towards it;\n\nChildren sitting at a theatre thinking the drop-scene the real play\nitself\u2014others older guessing somewhat how the matter stands\u2014lights dimly\nseen moving behind, corners lifted or swaying;\n\nThe Andes and Pacific dividing down their middle line, the vast forests\ndisclosing in their depths, ancient cities blossoming like huge flowers\nand fading away in fragrance; the faint-blue star-spangled sky of\nevening rolling swiftly and noiselessly together, the round earth\nfloating for a moment in the sunlight\u2014and then gone, like the last\npatches of gold and blue on a soap-bubble; faces of brothers and\nsisters, faces of the speechless animals, opening back, myriads myriads\nof years back in perspective to him who sits upon the throne\u2014\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAh, wonderful wonderful!\n\nIn the great dark of the night swaying floating like a flag which a\ngentle wind dwells among the folds of\u2014\n\nGreat mother Thou that foldest all creatures in thy folds\u2014\n\nWhom to explore, the children traveling from ages and ages back, by long\npilgrimages and routes labyrinthine ever pressing on, to decipher, to\nunravel, to read the words that are written:\n\nOnce more and the stars shall fall showering from thee\u2014the shining\nhieroglyphs shall fade; black for a moment thou shalt hang\u2014then rolling\nswiftly together\u2014\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nLo! what mortal eye hath not seen nor ear heard\u2014\n\nAll sorrow finished\u2014the deep deep ocean of joy opening within\u2014the\nsurface sparkling\u2014\n\nThe myriad-formed disclosed, each one and all, all things that are,\ntransfigured\u2014\n\nBeing filled with joy, hardly touching the ground, reaching cross-shaped\nwith out-stretched arms to the stars, along of the mountains and the\nforests, habitation of innumerable creatures, singing joy unending\u2014\n\nAs the sun on a dull morning breaking through the clouds, so from behind\nthe sun another sun, from within the body another body\u2014these shattered\nfalling\u2014\n\nLo! now at last or yet awhile in due time to behold that which ye have\nso long sought\u2014\n\nO eyes no wonder you are intent.\n\n\n                                 WINGS\n\nWings, wings!\n\nI beheld the young leaves breaking from the buds and poised on the tips\nof the branches;\n\nI saw a squadron of anemones in the meadows all waving in the wind as\nimpatient to take flight together;\n\nI looked at the acorn buried in the earth, and lo! it divided and put\nforth two seed-wings; and the embryo plant resembled the penis and dual\ntesticles of man and the animals;\n\nAnd the starling like-shaped flew overhead through the trees, and the\nlark hung, a cross, in heaven;\n\nAnd the butterfly flew by\u2014emblem of the soul\u2014and the bee hung downwards\nin the wind-flower cup;\n\nAnd I stood by the hive in the garden and marked how from its lips the\nbees shot like arrows into the wide valley below;\n\nAnd I stood in the great assembly and marked how from the decisive lips\nof the orator the winged words darted and transfixed the audience;\n\nAnd I saw on the Central American savannahs the half-wild horses racing\nand bounding together down to the rivers or resting in the shade of the\ntrees;\n\nThe light-footed tireless wolf I saw, and the eagle soaring over the\nmountains; and I watched the moth glide from the entrails of the\ncaterpillar, and the gnat all perfect and stainless from its watery\ncase;\n\nAnd within myself and under the skin\u2014deep down\u2014I felt the wings of Man\ndistinctly unfolding.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd as I lay on the great hill-side the kisses of the sun alighted on me\nafter their long flight, and rested; and the birds warbled through the\nmidday; and the flowers and the earth itself and the great tree-boles\nsent forth their incense-swarms of atoms;\n\nAnd behold! beyond the mountains and the great clouds floating by I\nbeheld dim vast and aerial the figure as of a man with arms outstretched\nover the universe;\n\nAnd as I gazed\u2014lo! slowly all these other things swam with me and became\nincorporate with that figure, and the clouds floated and the streams ran\ndown from ledge to ledge within it;\n\nAnd the trees with their square arms took on a new signification, and\nthe little seeds with their twin cotyledons were for an emblem, and I\nsaw whither the birds were hastening, and the direction of the index of\nall generation;\n\nAnd the starlings flew through the spaces of its thoughts, and the\nanemone squadrons trembled along its flanks;\n\nAnd the horses galloping over the plains could not escape the plains\nthey galloped over, nor the light-footed wolf its quest;\n\nAnd the eagle could not deny its own form as it soared over the\nmountains\u2014nor I the knowledge of that which was unfolding within me:\n\nAnd I understood the meaning of the wings.\n\n\n                        ON AN ATLANTIC STEAMSHIP\n\nMid-ocean, night\u2014\n\nThe spars loom square and black against the sky, and the mast-head light\nsways slowly.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI hear as in a dream the never-ending lullaby, the continued surge of\nwater off the bows, the vibration and smothered pulse of the engines.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nDeep in the bowels of the great ship, half-naked huge-limbed grimy-eyed\nsweating, the firemen tend their thirty-six fires.\n\nFrom time to time one slips on deck to enjoy the cool;\n\nHe lights his pipe. The moon along the high ridge of a pitch-black mass\nof cloud steals, peering over fitfully on the silent gulfs.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe ship glides on and on. Oily-surfaced heaves and sways the deep as\nfar as eye can see.\n\nEight bells strike. The watch changes.\n\nOne bell\u2014two bells. The deck is almost deserted. And still the ship\nglides on and on\u2014the deep sways slightly rustling;\n\nThe look-out man in the bows cries \u2018All is well\u2019\u2014and the lamps are\nbrightly burning.\n\n\n                                   2\n\nIn the morning as usual the deck is alive with passengers\n\n[The great ocean-plains swelling sparkling for hundreds, thousands, of\nmiles round us, the visible circle unbroken by island or any object]\u2014\n\nOf all nations languages degrees, of various habits trades traditions,\n\nStrangers to each other and to the water\u2014they look with curious eyes\nupon the novel scene.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAn elderly Indian civilian, saloon-passenger, in grey check morning suit\nand tennis shoes, blameless and wealthy, looks down with curious eyes\nfrom the rail of the upper deck upon the crowded emigrant groups;\n\nHe turns to draw the attention of the young lady standing beside him.\n\nIt is a strange and varied scene\u2014the sparkling waters, the rigging and\ncordage, the children in red hoods playing on the sunny deck, the\nbasking groups, some playing cards, some smoking, chatting\u2014the silent\ncompanionless ones, pensive far-away-looking over the waves;\n\nThe Irish, mostly sitting or reclining in knots, young and old, men and\nwomen, in gay colors, resting their heads on each other or wrapped in\npairs under one shawl\u2014joking laughing kissing screaming slapping;\n\nGermans, Hungarians, Poles, Norwegians, Laplanders, Swedes\u2014some with red\nshirts and jack-boots, boys with concertinas and pipes, rosy Dutch\ngirls, and mothers with tribes of children.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHere walking up and down with their brother three English girls, fresh\nand bright as daisies\u2014on their way to join their parents in the West;\n\nHere a little lady from Dublin with clear low voice singing to a circle\nof companions;\n\nThere in a corner by himself unnoticed among the rest, in low musical\nchant by the hour reciting praying, sits an old Russian Jew.\n\nGreybeard, with veined forehead, a tailor by trade\u2014his son-in-law has\nsent for him to Texas;\n\nThrough Hamburg and Hull and Liverpool he has traveled, eating no\nGentile food but dry bread.\n\nThe Hebrew text lies before him\u2014but he knows it by memory mostly;\n\nPrayers for the day he recites [\u201cAbraham taught the morning prayer and\nIsaac the afternoon and Jacob the evening prayer\u201d]\u2014\n\nPrayers for the captain and for the crew and the passengers and for all\nsea-travelers [\u201cprayers for self alone God will not hear\u201d]\u2014\n\nPrayers against storm, shipwreck, disease and famine, and all dangers of\nthe deep\u2014not forgetting the warning of Jonah; and for each man\u2019s ruach\nagainst the ruach of the ocean; and against the changes of clime and\ntime\u2014\n\nAll these he recites, sitting alone with his thoughts amid strangers.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is a strange and varied scene.\n\nThe dark passion-eyed little Irish devil of a New York saloon-keeper\nwith his blasphemous stories and unscrupulous confessions\u2014takes it in\nfrom his point of view;\n\nThe long-headed long-twinkling-eyed elderly woman in her print hood,\nhelpful and receptive, with broad mouth\u2014enjoyer of jokes, not easily\nshocked\u2014takes it in also from hers;\n\nThe gold-miner with slouch hat and easy dress leans with his back\nagainst the bulwarks\u2014he has seen it all twice before;\n\nHe has been home just now to Cornwall to visit his wife and children,\nand is off again to the mountains of Idaho. By his side stands his\nseventeen-year-old son, silent, clear-eyed, loving well his father.\n\nThe cheerful elderly spinster brings her camp-stool on deck and chats to\na companion\u2014laughing hysterically over her own fears, and how she pushed\nagainst the side of her berth in the night when it was rough, to steady\nthe rolling ship!\n\nThe American horse-dealer (he is bringing over some cart-horses from\nEngland) walks up and down\u2014grey-eyed, with decisive chin and lips, easy\ncareless sociable and \u2019cute.\n\nUnder the awning aft by the saloon gangway an elderly and well-to-do\nmatron and her two daughters recline in easy chairs; the lean\ngrey-haired ship\u2019s purser, proud of his gentlemanly manners, stops as he\npasses to say a few words to them;\n\nAnd the ship glides on and on\u2014the water breaks from the bows,\n\nThe spars stand square and black against the sky, and the masts sway to\nand fro slowly.\n\n\n                                   3\n\nWhat a scene!\n\nHere in this hollow cup a thousand souls floating on the unmeasured\ndeep\u2014\n\nA little dust of humanity gathered at random on the shores of one\ncontinent, to be tossed at random to the winds of another.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe young clerk with wife and babe, from London, going out to try his\nfortune at farming in Manitoba:\n\nThe great big-boned steerage steward, so kindly to the children and\nsensible\u2014native of Rome, proud of his Latin origin, member of the\nCarbonari and imprisoned by Austrians in his time\u2014now serving out\ntreacle and bread and butter to emigrants;\n\nThe spruce first-cabin waiters and brawny slipshod humored crew,\n\nThe cooks, officers, the clean red-whiskered little captain on the\nbridge, the smug decent doctor, the oily-jacketed look-out behind his\nscreen in the bows;\n\nThe taking of observations at breakfast time and again at noon, the\nsun\u2019s limbs brought down to the horizon\u2014the logarithms and tables, the\ncharts and the log;\n\nThe long heave and gasp of the engines, the gulls slow floating behind\nor darting after waste slops;\n\nThe huge side of the ship, an iron wall 170 yards long to the waves, the\nflowers mirrors gilt and velvet of the saloon, the piano, the gossip,\nthe elegant dinner, the mutual advances and recognitions, the parson who\nconsents to read service on Sunday, the philanthropist interested in\ngutter children, the two self-possessed American girls, the young\nEnglishmen doing the great tour;\n\nThe bare sanded boards of the steerage cabins, the crowded emigrant\nmeals, the swinging watercan and electric lamp, the stretched arms with\nmugs and plates;\n\nThe berths with hundreds of sleepers at night, the family groups during\nthe day;\n\nThe father, awkward and ox-like, with nine motherless children, caring\nfor their little wants\u2014the women pityingly helping him;\n\nThe narrow-eyed pale young basket-maker reading his Bible in his berth\nall day; the Lancashire laddie and his pals singing salvation-comics at\nmeal-times;\n\nThe military-got-up old fellow (years and years ago he was in the\nregulars) so clean and spruce\u2014brushing his boots carefully every\nmorning; the little boy of twelve traveling all by himself, petted by\nthe cook and peeling potatos for bits of dainties;\n\nThe love-making, bible-reading, card-playing, singing\u2014the women sewing\nor washing baby-linen;\n\nThe captain\u2019s cabin, with charts and glasses, the crew\u2019s quarters in the\nforecastle\u2014men smoking in their bunks\u2014the stoke-hole, the bar, the\nengine-room;\n\nThe warm evenings with renewals of animation\u2014\n\nJingles of music in the cabins, hymns and comic songs and dances on deck\nto the accordion;\n\nThe inquisitive-eyed priest, the same that read the service, looking out\nfrom the saloon door\u2014peering fleshly at the better-looking boys and\ngirls;\n\nAt dusk the crew running among the women-passengers \u2014firemen, cabin and\ndeck-hands\u2014fingering and fooling; the women enjoying;\n\nThe incorrigible nigger cook\u2019s boy, with muscular developed frame,\nprotruding his great lips at the girls and then drawing them back with a\ngrin showing huge rows of white teeth;\n\nThe mean pudding-faced Swedish lad and Irish woman spitting at each\nother\u2014with no other language in common;\n\nThe sickness, the smells, the refuse meat swept from floors and tables\nand thrown in bucketfuls overboard;\n\nThe coarse half-smothered lust, the gluttony and waste of food;\n\nAnd the great ship gliding on and on\u2014in her course pointed by the\nearth-pole and the stars and the sun\u2014\n\nThe spars standing square and black against the sky, and the mast-head\nlight swaying slowly.\n\n\n                                   4\n\nThe evening before last the water was oily-calm, floating blue flecked\nwith yellow up to the western horizon.\n\nBehind, the track of the great ship lay like white lace, with ridgy\nwaves thrown off and rustling as they receded on each side; in the\ndistance brooding the dappled clouds hovered \u2019twixt sky and\nsea\u2014dove-color and grey and heavy with unformed rain.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAfter sunset there was preaching and singing forward on deck.\n\nOne or two ladies from the saloon distributed tracts, some from the\nsteerage joined in praying, and called upon the Lord for safety during\nthe voyage.\n\nQuite a little crowd got round, some earnest, some jeering, some quiet\nspectators\u2014(the cabin-boys mostly dancing in pairs round the corner in\ntime to the hymns).\n\nAll the while the great masts kept swaying slowly to and fro in the\nsky\u2014as though never moving forward from their place\u2014the huge vault\nrising enormous with dappled moonlit clouds in the east;\n\nWhile from the west the faint daylight still shone upon the worshipers,\nand the sound of their music melted and died on the vast sea-bosom.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nLater on, when the deck was almost deserted\u2014All faintest dove-grey and\nsilver, the gleaming water passing up without distinction into the\ngleaming sky, with moon behind the clouds\u2014\n\nAll one hue, in faintest silent perpetual movement, like no earthly\nscene,\n\nImmaterial, transfigured, the huge wash of ocean two miles deep lying so\ncalm below\u2014\n\nThe moonlit ocean of air unsuspected above the clouds\u2014suspended between\u2014\n\nGliding on and on, as in a mirror or a dream....\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll so calm, large, undisturbed, vast in extent and power: the sea\nstretching out to the touch of the air\u2014miles, hundreds, thousands of\nmiles\u2014\n\nThe sympathetic answer of the floating cloud-layer to the floating\nheaving water-layer below....\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI saw a vision of my own intimate passing out over the waters, and\nbetween them and the clouds\u2014the vessel going on and leaving us\u2014\n\nLiberated, identified, all pain stript off and left with the husk\nbehind\u2014senses of enjoyment strangely widened, lifted\u2014\n\nMoving on at will, passing along the waters, the slow air\u2014catching the\nfaint scent, the whispers, the coherent incoherent words,\n\nThe marvelous calm, peace, grandeur, vastness, the incommunicable joy\u2014\n\nEntering into it, and being at rest.\n\n\n                                   5\n\nIn the morning all was changed again.\n\nDrizzly and grizzly chopped the grey water with leaden clouds and rain;\nthe horizon was a circle of mist;\n\nColdly and flabbily the passengers looked out upon the world.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nSullen like a marble cliff just tinged with blue, a huge slab a quarter\nmile long and eighty feet rising over the water,\n\nScored, festooned, beetling, with cavernous hollows washed by the sea,\n\nWith mist trailing to leeward of it, and thin mist passing over its\nwhite flat top, with white fragments dotting the sea around it\u2014\n\nSullen silent and lonely a great iceberg floated by.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nFor a few minutes the passengers were roused, and crowded the side of\nthe vessel\u2014some of the firemen running up from the stoke-hole to have a\nlook.\n\nBut presently like bees stupefied with cold they dispersed to their\ncabins and to sleep, and the deck was clear again.\n\n\n                                   6\n\nTo-day, bright and fresh, with new warmth, as it were wafted from the\napproaching land\u2014all is gay and cheerful.\n\nThe deep inky-blue of mid-ocean yields to a lighter tint, and the waves\nbreak merrily into flashes of turquoise light crowned with foam.\n\nSix narrow-winged gulls pass by\u2014flying low, serpentine\u2014hunting across\nthe water;\n\nEvery now and then shoals of porpoises appear\u2014hundreds at a time\u2014playing\nsplashing swimming alongside, towards the wind, leaping half-a-dozen\ntogether out of the water\u2014\n\n[Bounding three or four yards, with evident enjoyment and commotion at\nthe sight of the ship\u2014their sharp backfins and divided horizontal tails\nplainly visible;]\n\nThen a whale is seen spouting, or a fleet of Portuguese men of war\ndrifts by, rose-color and blue\u2014or a real ship is sighted and spoken\nwith.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nSo the day speeds on; and pleasant is basking on the sunny deck, and\npleasant the new companionships and the confidences; and the food tastes\nsweet, and the air has a breath of land in it, as of most distant\nhayfields; and hope and expectation range high;\n\nAnd the evening falls, and late on into the warm night the clustered\nwanderers on the fore-deck sing the songs of the old country,\n\nWhile the spars loom square and black against the stars, and the\nmast-head light sways slowly.\n\n\n                           BY LAKE WACHUSETT\n\nThe night-breeze murmurs odorous through the wild chestnuts where Lake\nWachusett lies embowered in trees;\n\nThe moon shines over the mountains not other than when the wild man\nwalked them;\n\nThe crickets and frogs cry shrill, the bull-frog twangs his bass, and\nthe firefly shines fitful among the bushes;\n\nWhile solitary in his boat the fisher is known by his lamp gleaming over\nthe water.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nMurmured as in a dream I catch the import of creation.\n\nLike a far-off sound which the attentive listener mistakes not:\n\nThrough the chirruping of the crickets and high fluting of the frogs,\nthrough the lull of the breeze and the voice of the fisherman singing\nacross the lake\u2014through the calls of the Indians faintly lingering still\namong the laurel and pine tangles\u2014\n\nThrough the face of the moon leaning down from the sky, and the fitful\nbird-eluding flash of the firefly\u2014\n\nNay, through the remembered faces and calls of the city, and all sights\nand sounds\u2014\n\nStill I catch the old old theme, the theme of birth and deliverance.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nTremble on O breeze overhead, tremble O prince of love, with thy wings\nthe whole universe overshadowing,\n\nCalling Thou from their hidden dwelling-places the souls of men to their\ndeliverance:\n\nWhere they lie hidden in the waters calling, or fitful in the air\nflashing\u2014or in all strange elusive forms hiding vainly their\nbirth-marks, yet by Thy voice discovered;\n\nWhere by the solitary lamp upon the lake, after trout and pickerel, or\nupon the pavements of cities, or with the moon through the mild night,\nor on the gleaming water-surfaces with cool gurgling throats\u2014\n\nEluding, grotesque\u2014still to thy voice they answer unwitting.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nTremble on O breeze glittering dissolving all things transparent\u2014tremble\nO prince of love with thy wings all things overshadowing:\n\nCalling invoking out of chaos, out of the mad jumble and whirligig of\nthe world, through all destinies and forms and long agelong\npreparations\u2014\n\nSouls winged and equipped for freedom.\n\n\n                            O MIGHTY MOTHER\n\nO mighty Mother\u2014in silence receive thy child.\n\nWeary, fainting, having traveled far and forsaken thee, having\nundertaken burdens too great to be borne\u2014\n\nAtlas of griefs and sorrows, well nigh borne down beneath the load\u2014\n\nThy foolish child, wandering afar from thee, yet led by what divine\nmadness?\u2014\n\nO mighty Mother receive.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nNever again to stray.\n\nHaving circled the globe, having completed the many-thousand-year-long\nround which thou secretly appointedst for me\u2014\n\nThrough what mystifications troubles delays, what returning on old\ntracks, what torments and inward suffering (thou knowest best)\u2014\n\nWhat entanglements and illusions\u2014\n\nO mighty Mother receive!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nOutcast and friendless (for that was my necessary doom) and homeless on\nthe verge of creation I first knew myself\u2014sorrow was the wall which\ndivided me from thee.\n\nI beheld thee afar and knew thee not; I was a prisoner and guessed not\nthat I was in prison.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut now at thy feet\u2014thanks, thanks!\n\nPouring out my soul in gratitude to thee\u2014thy child so foolish, to Thee,\ndear mother:\n\nWhilst thou one by one disentanglest the loaded heavy chains which I\nhave dragged so far\u2014\n\n(One by one, for not all at once will they come off, and fast and eating\ninto my flesh are they riveted)\u2014\n\nAt thy feet I sit and sing, knowing thou hast sworn to give me Freedom.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAges shall my song last, for not all at once can I disburden myself;\n\nAges will I sing for joy\u2014warbling in thy presence\u2014as the birds to the\nrisen sun;\n\nThen at last arising Thou mother shalt take me by the hand: we will\nleave the earth, and thou shalt learn me to fly through heaven.\n\n\n                            AFTER LONG AGES\n\n_Tired child, on thy way to Paradise:_\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n_Does the path seem long? Rest here and let us beguile a few moments._\n\n_Rest here, in mortal form Thou that I see advancing\u2014Child of sin and\nsorrow and suffering rest close here._\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n_Hast thou heard faintly between the clouds in the ever-lasting blue the\nmusic of voices and of wings? Hast thou gazed deep into the eyes of the\nanimals?_\n\n_Hast thou silent in the great secret caverns of thy own heart heard the\nawful footsteps of thy Lover advancing?_\n\n_Be at peace. Fear not. Behold, thou shalt conquer all evil._\n\n_Clouds of gloom shall wrap thy soul; the long days without grace shall\nweary thee; the voice of whom thou lovest shall speak to thee as of old\nno more._\n\n_Be at peace. Fear not. Behold, thou shalt conquer all evil._\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n_Turn, lift up thine eyelids, to me, beautiful one; clear away the\nshadows of the lashes from those liquid deeps;_\n\n_Turn full-orbed thy gaze against mine. Fear not. Serene, serene as\nheaven is all that is between us._\n\n_Who is it that I see sitting at her lattice window\u2014far down those\nliquid deeps?_\n\n_Who is it the voice of whose singing comes borne to me like the sound\nof a voice across the far sea?_\n\n_What is this figure, dear child, that I see moving so mysteriously in\nthose depths\u2014_\n\n_Vague-outlined, hinted, as of one moving behind a curtain?_\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n_Lo! the caged one, the solitary prisoner feeling around the walls of\nher prison!_\n\n_Lo, the baffled beaten and weary soul! lo, the crowned and immortal\ngod!_\n\n\n                                   I\n\nAfter long ages resuming the broken thread\u2014coming back after a long but\nnecessary parenthesis,\n\nTo the call of the early thrush in the woods, and of the primrose on the\nold tree-root by the waterside\u2014\n\nUp with the bracken uncurling from the midst of dead fronds of past\nselves:\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAs of morning, and to start again after long strange slumber and dreams,\n\nBeholding the beautiful light, breathing the dainty sweet air, the\noutbreath of innumerable creatures,\n\nSeeing the sun rise new upon the world as lovers see it after their\nfirst night,\n\nAll changed and glorified, the least thing trembling with beauty\u2014all all\nold sights become new, with new meanings\u2014\n\nLo! we too go forth.\n\nThe great rondure of the earth invites us, the ocean-pools are laid out\nin the sunlight for our feet.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nFor now, having learned the lesson which it was necessary to learn, of\nthe intellect and of civilisation\u2014\n\nHaving duly taken in and assimilated, and again duly excreted its\nresults\u2014\n\nOnce more to the great road with the animals and the trees and the stars\ntraveling to return\u2014\n\nTo other nights and days undreamt of in the vocabularies of all\ndictionaries\u2014\n\nI inevitably call you.\n\n\n                                   II\n\nCalm and vast stretches the sea as at the first day, in sheets of blue\nand white; a light ground-swell sends the transparent wash over a bank\nof shingle, where it lies in pools along the water\u2019s edge.\n\nA lug-sailed fishing boat drifts lazily with the tide, and then comes to\nanchor in the glaze; three or four porpoises show their backfins,\noscillating as they pass;\n\nWhile to the westward, far in the haze, phantom-like and large with the\nearly sun on their sails, two square-rigged brigs glide on.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe chrysanthemums stand crowded in the cottage garden\u2014and the ships\nglide on and on in the offing;\n\nThe low sun sends his light streaming over the world, and glows amid the\nmyriad salmon-pink petals tipped with yellow.\n\nHo! the sweet autumnal air! the cool green leaves thick-waving!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nO earth, naked in love, bulging sunwards, with rosy fingers clasped\nabout your head, and feet at the opposite pole,\n\nSmiling and proud and with raised head I see you glance at your own\nbeautiful body\u2014at the sea, at the ships, at the star-shaped flowers of\nautumn;\n\nSmile for smile unashamed you return to greet the glances of your lord.\n\nBut when night comes and the stars appear,\n\nPensive, unobserved, up on one arm raising yourself, lo! now I see you\ngaze abroad in solemn wonder;\n\nFor a new life moves within you\u2014yet what to be you divulge not.\n\n\n                                  III\n\nWell-folded for man waits the word for which so many ages he waits; not\none moment before its due time is it spoken.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe runnels of water tinkle downwards towards the sea;\n\nCalling to their cattle over the hills the voices of the herdsmen sound\nvery musically through the still air; from afar and down the galleries\nof Time come the sounds of all mortal occupations;\n\nThe axe rings hollow among the woods; high in great quarries facing the\nsun is heard the click of chisels and the helter-skelter of falling\nstone; the hammers of the riveters echo along the shipyards of\nnumberless shores;\n\nThe great promontories stand out mute over the sea; not one moment\nbefore their due time do they speak;\n\nAnd the ships glide past them to the coasts of all lands, the winged\nthoughts of the voyagers circle the globe.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWell-folded and concealed the purpose of the earth waits: innumerable\nare the arguments of the little creatures that run about on it;\nwonderful their designs, exemplary their tenacity; but this purpose puts\nall the arguments and designs aside in time\u2014it overpowers and convinces\nthe most tenacious.\n\n[For all creatures that are on the earth have different designs, and\ntheir arguments and actions war against and destroy each other;\n\nBut if thou canst in thyself open the door to that purpose which all\nfulfil alike, then shalt thou be free from the bonds of action and of\nargument, and shalt be absolved from that time forward.]\n\n\n                                   IV\n\nSweet are the uses of Life.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe house is wreathed with holly boughs at Christmas; the shining\nholly\u2014the smooth-leaved\u2014out of the woods nods to the sparkling eyes of\nthe children as they dance;\n\nThe candles are darkened, and they stand round the dragon-fire in the\nbowl, hushed, large-eyed, in the livid and flickering light.\n\nThe sun rises magnificent in winter upon the vast concave of air\u2014level\nbars of mist lie in the hollows; firs and evergreens adorn the bare and\nsilent woodlands.\n\nThe horse in the stable purrs at the sound of the tread of his master,\nand turns his beautiful head, as much as to say, Why are you so late\nwith my breakfast? He paws impatiently while his feed is being prepared.\n\nTowards the city along all the roads in the early light the workers\nconverge. They take wafts of the fresh morning with them to their work.\nSorrow and joy accompany them and share their meals in the everyday old\nhaunts.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn the house a Stranger waits for the children; he stands by in the dark\nand leans over them and watches their faces, as they watch the dancing\nblue flame;\n\nHe moves along the roads unseen, and waits in the great city, and in the\nwoods at early dawn he waits. None but the woodman and He see the thin\nwaned moon arising with stars in pale and silent beauty before the sun.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nSweet are the uses of Life.\n\nThe Stranger glides to and fro; hours and centuries and thousand-year\nstretches he waits.\n\nAmong the children of mankind he waits. He too takes his place with the\nrest; he is a king, a poet, a soldier, a priest, a herdsman, a\nfig-pricker, a pariah.\n\nIt is indifferent: he sees all and passes with all\u2014joy surrounds him\nwherever he is.\n\nHe sees the down-trodden and outcast; he sees the selfish and\ntyrannical\u2014he looks them right in the face but they do not see him;\n\nHe sees the patient and heroic; but he utters no word either of praise\nor blame.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe tall ash-shoots aspire in the hedge-rows; the trees lift innumerable\nfingers towards the sky, the brooks run downward unceasingly, atoms that\nhave remained for thousands of years sealed in the rocks arise and pass\nbeyond the boundaries of the earth and go voyaging through space;\n\nAll else hastens onward towards some unknown accomplishment\u2014unerring;\n\nHe waits secure, and sings the songs of praise.\n\nThe morning and the evening are his song, and the land and the sea are\nthe words of it, and the voices of all creation heard in silence are the\nperpetual offering of it.\n\nHe needs not to arise, nor to go hither and thither\u2014all is finished and\nperfect.\n\nWhat he desires, what he alone dreams of, that all mortal things through\nall time and space never-ceasingly occupy themselves to perform.\n\nHis fingers, as he sits at ease among the other children, are the myriad\nsunbeams and the thick-sown stars and the innumerable blades of grass;\n\nThe winds are his messengers over all the world, and flames of fire his\nservants; the icebergs break from their northern shores, the southern\nlands clothe themselves with green and yellowing crops, and the clouds\nfloat over the half-concealed dappled and shaded Earth\u2014to fulfil his\nwill, to fulfil his eternal joy.\n\n\n                                   V\n\nSweet are the uses of Life.\n\nThe morning breaks again over the world as a thousand and a million\ntimes before;\n\nThe light flows rippling in, and up to the window-pane, and passes\nthrough and touches the eyelids of the sleeper.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt says: \u201cCome forth, I have something to show you.\u201d\n\nAnd the sleeper arises and goes forth\u2014and everything is the same as\nyesterday.\n\nThen he says to the light, \u201cYou have deceived me, there is nothing new\nhere\u201d\u2014so he goes back sullenly to his chamber.\n\nBut the light is not huffed, but comes again next morning (thinks\nnothing of the long journey across) and slips through the window-pane\nand touches the sleeper\u2019s eyelids as before, \u201cCome forth, I have\nsomething to show you;\u201d\n\nAnd again the next morning, and the next, and the next.\n\nAnd the sleeper wonders whatever the light would be at, but the latter\nsays nothing\u2014only fails not to keep his self-made appointment.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThen after many years, after many thousands of years\u2014\n\nAfter many times lying down to sleep and rising again, after many times\nentering again into the mother\u2019s womb, after often passing through the\ngates of birth and death\u2014the sleeper says to him that awakes him:\n\n\u201cAh! beautiful one, ah! prince of love, so many times with thy fingers\nin vain touching my closed lids!\n\nNow at last thy love pouring in upon me has found an entrance, and\nfilling my body breaks the bounds of it, and bursts forth back again\ninto the regions whence thou comest.\n\nAh! prince of love, lord of heaven, most beautiful one, of thee I am\nenamored and overcome with love;\n\nBeholding thy beauty, hearing the words that thou sayest to me, being\ntouched with the nearness of thy breath and the divine odor which\nexhales from thee\u2014being sick, constrained with love, rending the chains\nwhich detain me\u2014\n\nHenceforth the long chain of births and deaths I abandon, I arise and go\nforth with thee\u2014to begin my real life.\u201d\n\n\n                                   VI\n\nSweet are the uses of Life.\n\nThe woodstacks stand in the woods, and the ground is strewn with chips\namid the fluttering anemones; the woodman downs his felling axe and\nlifts the beer-can to his lips;\n\nThe sweat streams in his face and beard, the sun-warm odor of the pines\nis wafted, and the bee booms through the clearing.\n\nAt night, ready for the alarm bell of fire, round their table in the\nengine-room smoking and playing cards the firemen sit; preparing for\nsleep the innocent girl rose-bud pats and smoothes her hair admiringly\nin the glass.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nSweet are the uses, sweet the calls;\n\nOut of the glass which is ever opposite peers a face which is not to be\ndenied;\n\nThe flame leaps up behind the city roofs, the beer in the can stretches\nout like a lake among the trees before the thirsty drinker, the table is\nspread for the hungry with delicious viands;\n\nThe tongue presses gently the palate, the freshly running blood leaps\nand pulses like a brook through the arteries, the swarming millions in\nit dance past the Stranger who sits upon the banks;\n\nFresh comes the call each morning; (who knows whether now or when he\nwill arise?)\n\nThe deed of daring calls, ambition calls, revenge and hatred call; the\nsun calls peeping over the mountains in the morning, the stars call\nglancing in at the windows at night, the myriad dancing sights and\nsounds call, weaving their magic circle as of old;\n\nHardly can he resist the fetch; he is drawn forth whether he will or no;\n\nThe primrose on the tree-root calls, love calls glancing from eyes of\ndepth unfathomed;\n\nSexual lusts and cravings call\u2014sweet fever for other flesh which nought\nelse will satisfy,\n\nBruised bitter-sweet passion, determined and desperate, falling swooned\nand breathless on beloved lips and limbs.\n\n\n                                  VII\n\nCenturies long in her antechambers tarrying,\n\nLost in strange mazes, wandering, dissatisfied\u2014in sin and sorrow, lonely\ndespised and fallen\u2014\n\nAt length the soul returns to Paradise.\n\n(O joy! the old burden, passing words!)\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe humble-bee among the currant blooms hangs centuries long suspended;\nthe lark still carols a mere speck in the sky.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nCenturies long in her antechambers tarrying,\n\nLost in strange mazes, wandering dissatisfied,\n\nOut of the windows peering wondering longing,\n\nFollowing the shadowy angel\u2014by others unseen\u2014that comes and beckons,\n\nLeaving all, leaving house and home, leaving year-long plans and\npurposes, ease and comfort,\n\nLeaving good name and reputation and the sound of familiar voices,\nuntwining loved arms from about her neck, yet twining them closer than\never\u2014\n\nThrough the great gates, redeemed, liberated, suddenly in joy over the\nwhole universe expanding\u2014after her many thousand year long exile,\n\nAt length the soul returns to Paradise.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nCinderella the cinder-maiden sits unbeknown in her earthly hutch;\n\nGibed and jeered at she bewails her lonely fate;\n\nNevertheless youngest-born she surpasses her sisters and endues a\ngarment of the sun and stars,\n\nFrom a tiny spark she ascends and irradiates the universe, and is wedded\nto the prince of heaven.\n\n\n                                  VIII\n\nO let not the flame die out!\n\nHitherto with wayward feet, in ignorance as a child, with sweet\nillusions and shows like dancing fireflies, and hopes and\ndisappointments, have you been led on;\n\nHenceforth putting these aside, as coming of age and to your\ninheritance, deliberately looking before and after you shall measure\nyour undertaking and your powers.\n\nFor as a traveler beholds a snow mountain on the distant verge,\nbeautiful, with inexpressible longings through the hot summer air\u2014so as\nbelonging to another world shall you behold from afar the signal of the\ngoal of your wanderings;\n\nRising, falling, lost in thickets wildernesses deserts, the untrodden\nsummit shall yet gleam on you\u2014its beauty shall never be forsaken of your\nlove.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nO let not the flame die out!\n\nCherished age after age in its dark caverns, in its holy temples\ncherished,\n\nFed by pure ministers of love,\n\nLet not the flame die out!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWithin thy body I behold it flicker,\n\nThrough the slight husk I feel the quick fire leaping\u2014\n\nLet not the flame die out!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nSend forth thy ministers for fuel.\n\nSend forth the sight of thine eyes and the reaching of thy hands and the\nwayward stepping of thy feet,\n\nTeach thy ears to bring thee and thy tongue to speak\u2014labor, and spend\nall that thou hast for love; faint not: be faithful.\n\nCast at last thy body, thy mortal self, upon it, and let it be consumed;\n\nAnd behold! presently the little spark shall become a hearth-fire of\ncreation, and thou shalt endue another garment\u2014woven of the sun and\nstars.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nCinderella the cinder-maiden sits unbeknown in her earthly hutch:\n\nLove sees her once and rests no more till he has rescued and redeemed\nher.\n\n\n                                   IX\n\nO laughter, laughter!\n\nShake out O clouds and winds your hidden words over the earth\u2014and you ye\nmeadows rejoice with innumerable daisies!\n\nAll the songs and hymns of creation from the first day, all the carols\nof the birds and choiring of the sun and stars in the limpid and\nboundless \u00e6ther!\n\nWhat sang and fluttered in the leaves, and was heard between the clouds\nin the blue;\n\nWhat poured itself out in sorrow and was exhaled in death, stumbling on\nin the dark over stocks and stones\u2014\n\nWeary and bruised yet faithful, determined and undaunted,\n\nTo become as that which is ever the same as itself, entering into the\ninheritance of beauty, the great veil lifted\u2014\n\nBeholding the original of all the things which move outside, the company\nof the immortal hosts, the rose of glory, radiant behind all mortal\nthings\u2014\n\nOvercome, blinded with splendor, falling trembling on the threshold\u2014\n\nThe long long journey is accomplished!\n\n\n                                   X\n\nThat day\u2014the day of deliverance\u2014shall come to you in what place you know\nnot; it shall come but you know not the time.\n\nIn the pulpit while you are preaching the sermon, behold! suddenly the\nties and the bands\u2014in the cradle and the coffin, the cerements and\nswathing-clothes\u2014shall drop off.\n\nIn the prison One shall come; and the chains which are stronger than\niron, the fetters harder than steel, shall dissolve\u2014you shall go free\nfor ever.\n\nIn the sick-room, amid life-long suffering and tears and weariness,\nthere shall be a sound of wings\u2014and you shall know that the end is near\u2014\n\n[O loved one arise! come gently with me; be not too eager\u2014lest joy\nitself should undo you.]\n\nIn the field with the plough and chain-harrow; by the side of your horse\nin the stall;\n\nIn the brothel amid indecency and idleness and repairing your own and\nyour companions\u2019 dresses;\n\nIn the midst of fashionable life, in making and receiving morning calls,\nin idlesse, and arranging knicknacks in your drawing room\u2014even there,\nwho knows?\u2014\n\nIt shall duly, at the appointed hour, come.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAsk no questions: all that you have for love\u2019s sake spend;\n\nFor as the lightning flashes from the East to the West, so shall the\ncoming of that day be.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll tools shall serve\u2014all trades, professions, ranks, and occupations.\n\nThe spade shall serve. It shall unearth a treasure beyond price.\n\nThe stone-hammer and the shovel, the maul-stick and palette, the high\nstool and the desk, the elsin and the clamms and the taching ends, the\nwhipping-lines and swingle-tree, will do;\n\nTo make a living by translating men\u2019s worn-out coats into boys\u2019\njackets\u2014that also will do.\n\nThe coronet shall not be a hindrance to its wearer; the robes of office\nshall not detain the statesman; lands, estates, possessions, shall part\naside for him who knows how to use them; he shall emerge from the midst\nof them, free.\n\nThe writer shall write, the compositor shall set up, the student by his\nmidnight lamp shall read, a word never seen before.\n\nThe railway porter shall open the carriage door and the long expected\nfriend shall descend to meet him.\n\nThe engine-driver shall drive in faith through the night. With one hand\non the regulator he shall lean sideways and peer into the darkness\u2014and\nlo! a new signal not given in the printed instructions shall duly in\ncourse appear.\n\nThe government official shall sit in his pigeon-holed den, the publican\nshall recline on his couch in the back-parlor, the burglar shall plan\nhis midnight raid, the grocer\u2019s boy shall take the weekly orders in the\nkitchen, the nail-maker shall put his rod back in the fire and take a\nheated one out in its place;\n\nThe delicate-bred girl shall walk the correct thing in her salmon-pink\nsilk slashed with blue; the sempstress shall sit in her bare attic\nstraining the last hour of daylight\u2014and by every stitch done in loyalty\nof heart shall she sew for herself a shining garment of deliverance.\n\nThe mother shall wear herself out with domestic duties and attending to\nher children; she shall have no time to herself, yet before she dies her\nface shall shine like heaven.\n\nThe Magdalen shall run down to answer the knock at the door, and Jesus\nher lover himself shall enter in.\n\n\n                                   XI\n\nWhere the Master is there is paradise.\n\nI know that nothing else shall satisfy you\u2014nothing else has any real\nsense at all.\n\nIn the antechamber of the body it is vain to tarry; among the forms that\nbelong to it and are painted upon its walls\u2014beautiful as they all\nwithout one exception are\u2014you shall look in vain for the master.\n\nIn the antechamber of the intellect (important as it is) it is vain to\ntarry; systems and philosophies, plans and purposes, proofs and\narguments, shall please you for a time; but in the end they shall only\ncontradict and destroy each other.\n\nIn the antechamber of art and morality (important as they are) you shall\nnot tarry overlong. Here also as in the other chambers though you see\nthe footsteps of the Master you shall not behold him face to face.\n\nThe trees grow in the Garden, but they are not the same as the lord of\nthe Garden: out of them by themselves come only confusion and conflict\nand tangling of roots and branches.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThis is the order of Man and all History.\n\nDescending he runs to and fro over the world, and dwells (for a time)\namong things that have no sense;\n\nForgetful of his true self he becomes a self-seeker among shadows.\n\nBut out of these spring only war and conflict and tangling of roots and\nbranches;\n\nAnd things which have no sense succeed things which have no sense\u2014for\nnothing can have any sense but by reason of that of which it is the\nshadow; and one phantasmal order follows another, and one pleasure or\nindulgence another, and one duty or denial another\u2014\n\nTill, bewildered and disgusted, finding no rest, no peace, but\neverywhere only disappointment,\n\nHe returns (and History returns) seeking for that which is.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nToilsome and long is the journey; shell after shell, envelope after\nenvelope, he discards.\n\nOver the mountains, over the frowning barriers, undaunted, unwrapping\nall that detains him,\n\nEnduring poverty, brother of the outcast and of animals, enduring\nridicule and scorn,\n\nThrough vast morasses, by starlight and dawn, through dangers and labors\nand nakedness, through chastity and giving away all that he has, through\nlong night-watches on the mountains and washings in the sunlit streams\nand sweet food untainted by blood, through praises and thanks and joy\nascending before him\u2014\n\nAll all conventions left aside, all limitations passed, all shackles\ndropped\u2014the husks and sheaths of ages falling off\u2014\n\nAt length the Wanderer returns to heaven.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThen all those things which have vainly tried to detain him\u2014\n\nWhen He comes who looks neither to the right nor the left for any of\nthem,\n\nNot being deluded by them but rather threatening to pass by and leave\nthem all in their places just as they are\u2014\n\nThen they rise up and follow him.\n\nThough thorns and briars before, in his path they now become pleasant\nfruits and flowers,\n\n[Not till he has put them from him does he learn the love that is in\nthem;]\n\nFaithful for evermore are they his servants\u2014and faithful is he to them\u2014\n\nAnd this world is paradise.\n\n\n                                  XII\n\nTherefore I say unto you: Faint not;\n\nRest here awhile and forgive my foolish prating;\n\nTurn from these words and look again at the world around you, the work\nyou have to do.\n\nNot for one year or two;\n\nNot for a whim or a passing passion, or for after jealousies and\nrecriminations, but for something more\u2014\n\nSomething to grow in other spheres and to be more precious than the\ncasket which contains it\u2014\n\nFor sovereignty and freedom and the life which is not seen, do we\nexchange the ancient language of creation.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd I conjure you, if you would understand me, to crush and destroy\nthese thoughts of mine which I have written in this book or anywhere;\n\nAnd my body (if it should be our destiny to meet in battle) I conjure\nyou faithfully to destroy\u2014nor be afraid\u2014as I will endeavor to destroy\nyours: so shall you liberate me to dwell with you.\n\nSpare not, respect not, believe not anything that I have written. Rest\nnot till you have ground it to smallest meal between your teeth.\n\nAnd, looking me in the face, accept not anything that I do or say\u2014for it\ndoes not call for acceptation.\n\nMe alone, when you have separated and rejected all these, shall you see\nand not reject.\n\n\n                                  XIII\n\nWhat else (than this) are the dreams of all people and of eras and ages\nupon the earth?\n\nWhat else are the glowing dreams of boyhood, and the toys of age, and\nthe promises floating ever on before\u2014dim mirages to wayworn travelers?\n(faint not, O faint not!)\n\nWhat else the sound of Christmas hymns across the snow\u2014the tender and\nplaintive songs of centuries, dreams of the Better Land\u2014coming down from\nbefore all history?\n\nWhat the obstinate traditions of races and explorations by sea and land;\nthe instinct of the chase; searches for the Earthly paradise, Utopias of\nsocial reformers, Eldorados and fabled Islands, stirrings of adventure\nand conquest; pilgrimages, myths, and the tireless quest of the\nSangreal?\n\nThe unquenchable belief in the elixir of life and the philosopher\u2019s\nstone; the feverish ardor of modern science, like a dog with its nose on\nthe trail?\n\nWhat else the marvelous dreams of the little creatures walking the\nearth\u2014the dreams of religion\u2014the skies peopled, and the vast cosmogonies\nof the gods, the huge and impending Otherworld, the mystic scroll of the\nZodiac?\n\nThe dim-lit chambers of rock-temples and pyramids and cathedrals\u2014the\nark, the host, and the holy of holies?\n\nThe proclamations and gospels of all lands, the giving of fire from the\nmosque at Jerusalem, the lighting of innumerable candles; the far-away\nsongs of the priests by the Nile-strand, standing by the empty\nsarcophagus with the words, \u201cOsiris is risen\u201d; the midnight naked dances\nof the Therapeut\u00e6 upon the sands, the processions of salvation armies\nand revivalists?\n\nThe daily life of each man and woman, the ever expected Morrow, the\nendless self-seeking, the illusive quests (faint not, O faint not!), the\nbog-floundering after fatuous wisps, the tears disappointments and\nobstinate renewals of hope\u2014\n\nAll routes and roads and the myriad moving of feet to and fro over the\nearth\u2014\n\nWhat are they but Transparencies of one great fact\u2014symbols of the\ninnumerable paths.\n\nBy which the soul returns to paradise?\n\n\n                                  XIV\n\nI beheld a vision of Earth with innumerable paths; I saw the faces that\ngo up and down\u2014the world that each carries within.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI heard the long roar and surge of History, wave after wave\u2014as of the\nnever-ending surf along the immense coast-line of West Africa.\n\nI heard the world-old cry of the down-trodden and outcast: I saw them\nadvancing always to victory.\n\nI saw the red light from the guns of established order and precedent\u2014the\nlines of defence and the bodies of the besiegers rolling in dust and\nblood\u2014yet more and ever more behind!\n\nAnd high over the inmost citadel I saw magnificent, and beckoning ever\nto the besiegers, and the defenders ever inspiring, the cause of all\nthat never-ending war\u2014\n\nThe form of Freedom stand.\n\n\n                                   XV\n\nI beheld a vision of Earth with innumerable paths;\n\nAnd I saw, going up and down, the world-old faces of humanity\u2014whom\nneither race nor clime nor time greatly alter;\n\nThrough barbarisms and civilisations, through agricultural and nomad and\nsea-faring, and dwelling in caves and dwelling in palaces, through all\nmanner of crafts and cunning knowledge and out again, I saw the same old\nfaces go.\n\nThe kingly face of duty loyal to the death, looking out upon the world\nbefore ever articulate words were uttered by tongue of man; the face of\nreason calm to deal with life;\n\nFaces of tenderness and love, the quivering lips, the mother\u2019s breast\namong the animals;\n\nThe sturdy resolute face I saw, and the transparent eyes of candor like\na stainless lake\u2014when there was no other mirror to look in;\n\nThe dear homely ungainly face (before ever there was a tent door to sit\nby), the incisive and penetrating face, the laughing erring loving\nsatyr-face of the child of nature among the woods; and open and unfenced\nas Nature herself the face of divine equality;\n\nThese I saw going up and down the paths which lead hither and thither\nfrom darkness to darkness:\n\nI saw them in the street to-day, and when I looked beyond the farthest\nglimmer of history I saw the same.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd I saw, too, the menacing evil faces, creeping insincere worm-faces,\nfaces with noses ever on the trail, hunting blankly and always for gain;\n\nFaces of stolid conceit, of puckered propriety, of slobbering vanity, of\ndamned assurance;\n\nThe swift sweep of self-satisfaction beneath the eyelids, set lips of\nobstinacy, wrinkled mouth of suspicion, swollen temples of anger\u2014and the\nshamed shovel-face of self-indulgence;\n\nThese too I saw going up and down the paths which lead hither and\nthither from darkness to darkness:\n\nI saw them in the street to-day, and when I looked beyond the farthest\nglimmer of history I saw the same.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nO faces, whither whither are you going?\n\nWhat are these paths innumerable leading from darkness to darkness?\n\nWhy under so many flags of disguise, under turban and fez and pigtail\nand sombrero, plaits of cow-dung and tufts of feathers, Greek arrow and\nPersian tiara, and cocked and chimney-pot hat, and head-dresses of gold\npieces and straw and grass, do you (still the same) pass into light and\nout again\u2014like ships across the pathway of the moon?\n\n\n                                  XVI\n\nThrough the narrow gas-lighted lanes of Florence the faces pass, and out\nof sight again.\n\nThe old Campanile towers overhead into the yet lingering after-glow of\nsunset, the stars twinkle faintly already round its head\u2014the memory of\n500 years of Florentine life encircles it.\n\nThe tower of Galileo stands away off on the hills; but he from it\nwatches the stars no more\u2014his restless brain grinds no more at the\nproblems of rest and motion;\n\nThe pilgrims of the Haj land in thousands at Jeddah, the route to Mecca\nis thronged with comers from all parts of the old world;\n\nThe children of the Roman Carnival pelt each other with confetti; the\nstream of worshipers into St. Peter\u2019s wait each in turn to kiss the toe\nof the statue which fell down from heaven; the sacred and bejeweled\nbambino is taken out of its altar-cradle and carried in procession\nthrough the streets;\n\nBy the mouth of the Kolima in the long arctic night while the moon\ncircles round the sky the Russian exile stands and hungers without hope\nfor the dear faces of wife and children; the features of the wild\nSiberyaks are hateful to his sight;\n\nThe Chinese woman\u2014her baby slung on her back\u2014rows and rows the ferry\nboat across the river: it is her home and she leaves it neither night\nnor day;\n\nThe furtive little Londoner with the bottle in her pocket slips back\nhome from the public house\u2014to drink while her husband is working; the\ncarefully brushed and buttoned young man walks down Piccadilly;\n\nThe bulky red bus-driver shouts cheerily to his mates as they pass; he\ncries \u201cCuckoo\u201d in the warm April morning and looks innocently up into\nthe empty sky;\n\nCarriages with high-stepping horses crowd Regent Street; the policeman\nstops them and pilots\u2014carries almost\u2014a poor old woman across, very\nfragile, light as a little child;\n\nThe lame pinched old finder with grizzled hair and prowling eyes wanders\nthe pavements all day, picking up oddments; he sees neither the houses\nnor the sky, neither men nor women; his eyes roll from side to side like\none reading a book;\n\nThe lone mother sits in her dreary little shop, eyeing between the\nprints in the window the stupid gaping faces of the passers-by as they\npause; in the chamber upstairs her boy lies ill; at long intervals a\ncustomer comes in and throws down a penny\u2014which she puts duly in a\nteacup;\n\nThe country road-mender surveys his length of road with practised eye;\nhe places marks on gate-posts and trees at intervals to indicate where\nthe road-metal is to be shot;\n\nThe slip-shod old blacksmith prattles away as he rakes the cokes over\nhis work and blows the bellows with his left hand; every now and then he\nstops to light his pipe with a few hot ashes;\n\nOn the hearth-side in the fitful glare sits the good-natured great\nfarm-lad by the hour, enjoying his talk, obscene or otherwise.\n\n\n                                  XVII\n\nAt dusk the lamps are lighted in the great cathedral church\u2014lines of gas\nfringe within the huge dusky dome mixing with the fading daylight. The\nhour of service approaches, the sound of footsteps becomes more\nfrequent; around, the roar of the great city fades.\n\nThe commercial traveler comes in with his parcel and strap, deposits it\non a chair and seats himself beside it; the city man comes with his bag;\nthe country visitor gazes curiously aloft and around; the tired old\npiffler and newsroom loiterer slips in for half-an-hour\u2019s sleep; the\nyoung English girl, graceful as a kitten, and her brother sit reverently\ndown; the prostitute also arrives and chooses her place with discretion.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe shaven-faced verger lights the candles of the great lectern, and the\norgan booms slowly forth its first notes\u2014trembling through the spaces of\nroof and dome.\n\nThe music-teacher leaves her roll of music on the chair, and kneels\ndownright upon a mat; and the lady with her little boy join in the\nservice;\n\nThe ragged wandering-minded old man shuffles in and sits down, muttering\nto himself; the young man from the waterworks talks in a low voice to\nthe girl with whom he is keeping company;\n\nThe middle-aged man sleeps, with his little girl huddled wide-eyed\nagainst his side; the young mason with clear eyes and stubbly unshaven\nchin looks round at the vast columns and carven capitals;\n\nAnd the sleepy old canon stumbles on through the service, while the\nchoir-boys wink at the tenors and basses.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn the morning, in the thick January morning, rows of dirty tawny brick\nhouses stretch all around through the fogs of London\u2014here and there a\nlight yet lingers in a window.\n\nOn the pavements are hurrying mortals with tall hats, bags,\novercoats\u2014depressed;\n\nWhite-faced girls going to work, city men anxiously glancing at the\npapers as they go;\n\nThe postman with bag over his shoulders and bunch of letters in his\nhand, untidy servants sweeping the doorsteps, the butcher\u2019s boy in his\ncart, the governess going to her lessons;\n\nThe milk-carts, brewers\u2019 drays, hansom-cabs, the hurried self-absorbed\ncrowd at the underground station, the skim downstairs, dash for the\ncarriage doors, and train disappearing forthwith into the tunnel.\n\n\n                                 XVIII\n\nO great city of millions scrambling backwards and forwards!\u2014O toiling\ncareworn millions of the earth!\n\nPursuing ever shadows shadows, laboring for that which seems to give so\nlittle return:\n\nWith tears tears, and short-lived laughter, and the black toad sitting\never in the heart.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nO wanderers returning ever on your tracks\u2014innumerable paths from\ndarkness to darkness! O specks across the pathway of the moon!\n\nYou by the mouth of the Kolima regarding with pale face the great\nstar-spangled sky\u2014the glory all crossed and blotched with pain;\n\nYou hurrying on in the foggy yellow dawn to the dressmaker\u2019s gas-reeking\nden\u2014or in the filthy back slum dreaming of your childhood and the banks\nof primroses;\n\nYou lying anxious at night, weary and broken with business cares ever\nclosing upon you\u2014you prowling by day the crowded footways:\n\nCome, sit down now at your ease and forget all. Sleep, weary children,\nand dream of peace and quiet.\n\nFar have you yet to go, but there is no need to hurry;\n\nWhat seems the end of your journey now, may-be it is only the beginning;\nwhat terrifies you so in prospect perhaps after all you will pass and\nhardly be aware.\n\nYou with black bag hastening to catch the train, hasten no more: the\ndeed which you want\u2014which shall declare you free\u2014you will find not at\nyour office;\n\nTrain disappearing into the tunnel, delude the passengers no more with\nthe promise of reaching their destinations;\n\nCease prowling the streets, old man! I have seen what you are searching\nfor: it is safe, and the reward is great\u2014but now rest for a moment.\n\nAnd you, tight-gloved and booted and with penciled eyes, be not so\nchoice about your gloves and boots and where you will be seated\u2014for\nwhile you are busy with all these things your lover waits solitary for\nyou.\n\nLone mother in the dreary little shop, tired child on the way to\nparadise\u2014now to thy boy lying dead upstairs.\n\nDoes the path seem long?\u2014rest here and let us beguile a few moments:\n\nRest here in mortal form thou that I see enveloped:\n\nChild of sin and sorrow and suffering rest close here.\n\n\n                                  XIX\n\nThe hills stand out in line against the yellow sunset, with snow in the\nhollows of their sides: in front stretch green undulating meadows, with\ntrees and the sound of water, and smoke from cottage chimneys.\n\nO cry aloud over the earth for the children of men, of immortal\ndestinies!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe young farmer in gaiters and thick boots walks miles over the hills\nto see his sister at the lunatic asylum. In the visitor\u2019s room calm in\nneat attire she meets him; they are near the same age. Thankful, with\ntears, suffused, reading each other\u2019s eyes they sit together hand in\nhand.\n\nStrange cobwebs cross and cross and cloud her face and mind, yet within\nher star-like burns her changeless love for him.\n\nPraying, talking continually of the visions before them, pacing silent\nand mechanical up and down the ward, with disheveled hair, with narrow\noblique eyes of suspicion, with animal postures and cries and\nchatterings and heavy stunned looks, the poor broken images and wasters\nof Humanity wait their time.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nNow at evening from the meadows and the cottages and the familiar\nwater-sides exhale tender regrets and memories\u2014compunctions of partings\nlong past, and faces seen and voices heard no more.\n\nWith the odors of evening they arise\u2014from the breast of mortal men and\nwomen exhaled.\n\nBy the door thou standest wondering tenderly of him or her who is gone;\npresently the doorway shall be empty of thy form, and another shall\nstand there wondering of thee.\n\nAs thou after thy mother, so she wondered to know of hers, and her\nmother again of her who gave her birth;\n\nBy chains of tender memory and love encircling the earth are the\nchildren bound to each other\u2014there is not one that escapes.\n\nWhither is the resort of them that pass, and where do the uncounted\ngenerations abide?\n\nIn what hollow do they dwell and what valley do they inhabit?\u2014where do\nthey sleep their invisible sleep, and does the light of the sun awaken\nthem?\n\nOf what they meditated on earth do they dream, and on us do they look\nwith eyes innumerable as the stars?\n\n\n                                   XX\n\nO cry aloud over the Earth!\n\nGreat ragged clouds wild over the sky careering, pass changing shifting\nthrough my poems!\n\nBlow O breezes, mingle O winds with these words\u2014whose purpose is the\nsame as yours!\n\nYe dark ploughed fields and grassy hills, and gorses where the yoldring\nwarbles\u2014write ye your myriad parallel gossamers among my lines!\n\nLie out O leaves to the sun and moon, to bleach in their quiet\ngaze\u2014whirl them O winds\u2014float them away O sea, to drift in bays with the\nsea-smell and with odors of tar among the nets of fishermen!\n\nOpen O pages in all lands! Let them be free to all to pass in and out,\nlet them lie like the streets of a great city!\n\nLet them listen and say what the feet of the passengers say, and what\nthe soughings of the fir trees say. Let them be equal\u2014no more, no\nless\u2014writing the words which are written as long as the universe\nendures.\n\n\n                                  XXI\n\nO cry aloud over the Earth for the children of men, of immortal\ndestinies!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe great orator stands upon the platform,\n\nCareless of approval and careless of opposition he speaks from himself\nalone.\n\nHe is determined and will not abate one tittle of his determination.\n\nThe arguments, the pros and cons, he treats lightly\u2014after a time he\ndismisses them;\n\nTraditions of science and literature he discusses for a while, and\nthen\u2014somehow\u2014quietly puts them aside;\n\nFlowers and figures of rhetoric he uses, but presently they fail and\nfall away.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nFrom the great rock-bases of his own humanity, of his own imperious\ninstinct and determination, he appeals with uplifted arm to God and\neternal Justice\u2014\n\nAnd from a thousand eyes flash the lightnings of tears and joy, from\nthat vast sea of faces breaks a roar of terrible and deep-throated\naccord.\n\nThe arguments, the pros and cons, fly high in the air like leaves in a\ngale;\n\nThe tradition of centuries loses its form and outline\u2014like melting ice\nin water.\n\nFrom her deep-implanted seat in the human breast, from behind all\nreasoning and science and arguments,\n\nHumanity speaks her Will, and writes a page of History.\n\n\n                                  XXII\n\nAs a meteor glides silent for a moment among the fixed stars and is\ngone\u2014so among the words of this book glides eluding that other Word\nwhich reveals their significance;\n\nWonderful, eternal\u2014when these words perish and fall apart from each\nother that word shall not perish but return thither whence it sprang.\n\nTo see the old sight\u2014and to dream the old dream\u2014the theatre is crowded.\n\nThe stout matron comes from behind the bar, the clerk slips down from\nhis half-furnished fireless garret, the lady and gentleman lounge in\nfrom their five-course dinner:\n\nThe joiner\u2019s apprentice slips off his apron and hurries over his tea and\nbread and butter; the dressmaker\u2019s girl and the private soldier and the\nblas\u00e9 from the club are all there\u2014\n\nAmid the blaze of light and color, between the music and the jokes, the\nstrange haunting clinging dream is there.\n\nThe young buck with coat-sleeves turned up with fur cannot but wait for\nit outside the stage door;\n\nThe improver goes back next morning to her work, but she cannot rightly\nsee the box-plaits (as she runs them previous to putting them in the\nmachine); when she hurries home through the streets at evening she keeps\nlooking to see if what she caught sight of is there.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nOn the pavement in the flare of gas the motley crowd goes by; the\npoliceman stands backed against the gin-shop at the corner, marshaling\nthe buses or quietly gossiping with cronies.\n\nOff the curb, by her tray of cork and felt socks, weary-eyed, wrapping\nher thin shawl close, the elderly woman stands, or tramps to and fro to\nkeep her feet warm.\n\nUnder the great roof in the dockyard slip, amid incessant din, deep in\nthe bowels of the iron ship, the riveters hammer day by day their\nred-hot iron rivets.\n\nBrown-backed partridges fly across the ploughed land; far above them\nmotionless the quick-eyed hawk discerns their moving shadows.\n\nWhite-tunicked Albanian soldiers march across the hills above the\nbeautiful city and lake of Janina.\n\nDown beside a rippling stream over-shadowed by trees, at midnight the\nrapt watcher stands motionless. The stars in slow procession glide\nwestward. They pass behind the dark tree-boles and emerge again; but he\nmoves not\u2014his thoughts move not.\n\nAbsorbed, the world circles round him, the shackles of existence fall\noff, he passes into supreme joy and mastery.\n\nLo! the rippling stream and the stars and the naked tree-branches\ndeliver themselves up to him. They come close; they are his body, and\nhis spirit is rapt among them: without thought he hears what they and\nall things would say.\n\n\n                                 XXIII\n\nAh! the good news so long sought\u2014the ancient indestructible Gospel!\n\nThe little boat sways on the great calm deep, the clouds hang in haze on\nthe edges\u2014faint and far is the land.\n\nFaint and far are the mountains, and the forests where the sun sleeps at\nmidnoon.\n\nAh! the good news desired of men\u2014the dreams of so many ages!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWho has seen that land? who has floated on that ocean?\n\nFor the earth is round and many ships sail its seas and innumerable feet\ntraverse its lands, and great are its thunderclouds piled in the air:\n\nBut who yet has truly walked its lands and who has floated on its seas\nand who has been the worthy companion of those its clouds piled so\nmagnificent in the air?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe ships lie in the harbor, behind them stretches the far sea-horizon\nand the round ocean curving into other latitudes;\n\nThe breeze floats gently off shore bearing the clouds on its bosom, and\nfeeling among the folds of the flags;\n\nThe chrysanthemums stand crowded in the cottage garden, and the\npromontories rear their heads mute over the sea\u2014not one moment before\ntheir due time do they speak.\n\nBeing transformed, being transformed into Thy likeness\u2014passing the\nboundaries;\n\nPassing the boundaries of evil, being delivered, being filled with joy;\n\nDrinking out of the great lake that can never be emptied\u2014having come to\nits shores\u2014of the great inland ocean of joy that laves all mortal\nthings;\n\nSitting down there under the trees, watching the birds that fly a little\nway out over it, watching the wild creatures that come down to drink\nalso of it;\n\nSitting on the quay among the bales and spars, and taking stock of the\nships that are waiting to sail, and the travelers that leave and arrive,\nseeing the breeze also floating gently the folds of the flags;\n\nContent, overjoyed, knowing that I have yet far to go; but that all is\nopen and free, and that Thou wilt provide\u2014\n\nGladly O gladly I surrender myself to Thee.\n\n\n                                  XXIV\n\nLo! the stress, the immortal passion, the dashing against the barriers\nof self, the ever-widening of the bounds;\n\nThe endless contest, the melancholy haughty Titanic and lonely struggle\nof the soul;\n\nThe ecstatic deliverance, the bursting of the sac, the outrush and\ninnumerable progeny!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nLo! the healing power descending from within, calming the confused mind,\nspreading peace among the quivering nerves;\n\nLo! the eternal Savior, the sought after of all the world, dwelling\nhidden (yet to be disclosed) within each;\n\nThe haunting clinging dream, the theme and long refrain of ages, O joy\ninsuperable!\n\nCasting out types through all creation, tentative, loose notes and\nmotifs,\n\nSleeping in the bosom of the hills before ever the naked foot of man\ntrod among them,\n\nDwelling in mighty fir and oak, giants of the forest, and in the tiny\nlife which springs about their roots,\n\nTime out of mind immeasurable, standing behind the night and\nstars\u2014inhabiting the wheeling earth\u2014\n\nLo, all as at random, thrown forth!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n[The old Red Indian walks the silent-wooded wildernesses\u2014hundreds and\nscores of hundreds of miles are familiar to him;\n\nLike an ancient rock full of lines, weatherworn impassive is his\nface\u2014the stars are his well-known friends.\n\nThe young Zulu with feathers on his head and wildcat tails around his\nloins, and carriage erect and proud as an emu, joins the gathering of\nwarriors\u2014he seems to push the earth from beneath him as he walks.]\n\n\n                                  XXV\n\nI behold the broad expanse of life over the earth\u2014\n\nI see the stalwart aborigines straying naked through the primal woods,\nlight-footed amid the grass; I hear their powerful cries and calls to\neach other, resounding from cliffs and gullies;\n\nI see the civilised man in his study among his books, or driving with\nhis lady along the boulevards; I see the well-dressed crowds of Paris\nand New York; I see the famished and raging mobs of incendiaries;\n\nThe long vain fight of man against Nature I see, not traveling hand in\nhand with but setting himself in opposition to her: the necessary\nprologue and apprenticeship\u2014as of a wayward boy against his mother\u2014yet\nvanquished, finally and surely vanquished;\n\nAll well; and I see there is no need to hurry.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI behold well-pleased the broad expanse of life over the earth; I see\nthe great factories, with smoke in the early morning\u2014the hands coming in\nto work; the lines of shops along the principal streets of cities\u2014the\npiers and wharves with those who toil on them;\n\nI see the great broad pleasure of life among the millions, the energy,\nthe scheming, planning, and the solid execution of plans;\n\nThe ties of marriage, friendship, heroic actions, dreams, adventures;\n\nI see also the sufferings, the hardships, the hatred, the sin and\nmisery, the clenched teeth, the evil of everything that is established\nand exists, and the need that it should be overthrown;\n\nI take part in these too\u2014they are well. I see the incessant change in\nsociety, the gaunt desperate problems which attend it in every stage,\n\nAnd the great problem which for each man stands behind these\nproblems\u2014the open secret which unlooses them, dissolves them at a touch,\nas a drop of water dissolves a flake of snow.\n\n\n                                  XXVI\n\nI behold well-pleased the broad expanse of life over the earth\u2014nor is\nthere anything in it which is not good.\n\nAll results in the great constitution of things are provided for, nor is\nit possible in all the fantastic freaks of Nature and of Man for\nanything to surpass its proper boundary or to fail of its due fruition.\n\nWater does not lie level by a more inevitable law; into this great ocean\n(of the soul) all things at length return.\n\nFree, free is the going and coming of so many feet; the kid-gloved\nfur-mantled lady sitting bible in hand among the poor is free to come\nand go;\n\nSo is the young thief\u2014with his heavy burden of concealment, his weary\neluding eyes yet not eluding, his face unlighted with laughter\u2014free to\ncome and go; (I do not scorn, I do not blame you\u2014you are the same to me\nas the others are, and what you can take of me that you are free to;)\n\nThe selfish, the brave, the vain, the foolish, may come and go, but\nwhether they come or whether they go the results are secured to them of\nall they do.\n\nFor a long time walking the earth, threading an immense and seemingly\nendless labyrinth, returning on our own tracks as in dreams and\nsleep-walking, with eyes open but seeing not, following some mirage,\nsomething ever receding and eluding\u2014always about to clutch it;\n\nOccupied in business, with affairs\u2014thinking this important and that\nimportant, vexed to compass this or that end\u2014caught by the leg in the\ntrap which we ourselves have laid;\n\nCaught by ambition, envy, greed; owners of wealth and lying awake at\nnight with anxiety over it, driving herds of cattle and swallowing the\ndust thereof, planning houses and building us our own prisons\u2014\n\nWe go.\n\nThere is no bar. The paths are all open, the sign-posts few\u2014each must\nfind the clue for himself, the exit from the labyrinth.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nFor a long time walking the earth as in a dream there is no clue, only\nbewilderment,\n\nThen presently also as in a dream it all clears up; the insoluble and\nvaried problems which constitute ordinary life disappear entirely\nleaving no traces\u2014and Life in every direction is navigable as space to\nthe rays of the sun.\n\n\n                                 XXVII\n\nO come with me, my soul\u2014follow the inevitable call, follow the call of\nthe great sky overarching you.\n\nDisentangling the cobwebs of all custom and supposed necessity\u2014the\nancient cocoon in which humanity has lain so long concealed\u2014\n\nPass forth, Thou, into the serene light: along the hills, by the clumps\nof overhanging trees, through the doorways of all mortal life, pass thou\nredeemed, enfranchised.\n\n\n                                 XXVIII\n\nSo after many wanderings, after long ages resuming the broken thread,\n\nAfter wandering over the earth for many years\u2014with the Red Indian from\nmountain to mountain, from river to river;\n\nWith the Tartar and Malaysian, the Teuton and the Celt; with the\nemigrant and the exile and the settler wandering; with the Norsemen in\ntheir ships to the shores of Iceland and America;\n\nEmbracing new climates, customs, times\u2014being constrained by none,\nhindered by none;\n\nAfter many times lying down to sleep and rising again\u2014after many times\nentering into the mother\u2019s womb;\n\nThe Sleeper says to him that awakens him:\u2014\n\n\u201cAh! beautiful one\u2014ah! prince of love, so many times with thy fingers\ntouching in vain my closed lids!\n\nNow at last thy love pouring in upon me has found an entrance, and\nfilling my body breaks the bounds of it and bursts forth back again into\nthe regions whence thou comest.\n\nAh! prince of love, lord of heaven, most beautiful one, of thee I am\nenamored and overcome with love;\n\nHere amid the grass once more a child sitting\u2014watching the trembling\nstamens sway against the distant landscape;\n\nBeholding all life and finding it good\u2014being satisfied;\n\nPouring out the wine of my life to Thee\u2014being transformed into thy\nlikeness;\n\nI depart\u2014never again thus and thus to return.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHenceforth when summer burns on the high ground where the breezes\nplay\u2014where Thou passest as a flame, transforming the trees yet not\nconsuming them, I will follow thee.\n\nWhen night hangs crowded with stars I will ascend with Thee the unknown\ngulfs and abysses.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nSpread, O earth, with blue lines of distant hills\u2014stretch for the feet\nof men and all creatures!\n\nSing, chant your hymns, O trees and winds and grass and immeasurable\nblue!\n\nBeing transformed being transformed into Thy likeness\u2014lord of heaven and\nearth!\n\nBeing filled with love, having completed our pilgrimage,\n\nWe also pass into peace and joy eternal.\u201d\n\n[Illustration: _E. C., age 43, from a photograph taken in 1887._]\n\n\n\n\n                                PART III\n                           AFTER CIVILISATION\n\n\n_We are a menace to you, O civilisation!_\n\n_We have seen you\u2014we allow you\u2014we bear with you for a time,_\n\n_But beware! for in a moment and, when the hour comes, inevitably,_\n\n_We shall arise and sweep you away!_\n\n\n                           AFTER CIVILISATION\n\nIn the first soft winds of spring, while snow yet lay on the ground\u2014\n\nForth from the city into the great woods wandering,\n\nInto the great silent white woods where they waited in their beauty and\nmajesty\n\nFor man their companion to come:\n\nThere, in vision, out of the wreck of cities and civilisations,\n\nI saw a new life arise.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nSlowly out of the ruins of the past\u2014like a young fern-frond uncurling\nout of its own brown litter\u2014\n\nOut of the litter of a decaying society, out of the confused mass of\nbroken down creeds, customs, ideals,\n\nOut of distrust and unbelief and dishonesty, and Fear, meanest of all\n(the stronger in the panic trampling the weaker underfoot);\n\nOut of miserable rows of brick tenements with their cheapjack interiors,\ntheir glances of suspicion, and doors locked against each other;\n\nOut of the polite residences of congested idleness; out of the aimless\nlife of wealth;\n\nOut of the dirty workshops of evil work, evilly done;\n\nOut of the wares which are no wares poured out upon the markets, and in\nthe shop-windows,\n\nThe fraudulent food, clothing, drink, literature;\n\nOut of the cant of Commerce\u2014buying cheap and selling dear\u2014the crocodile\nsympathy of nation with nation,\n\nThe smug merchant posing as a benefactor of his kind, the parasite\nparsons and scientists;\n\nThe cant of Sex, the impure hush clouding the deepest instincts of boy\nand girl, woman and man;\n\nThe despair and unbelief possessing all society\u2014rich and poor, educated\nand ignorant, the money-lender, the wage-slave, the artist and the\nwasherwoman alike;\n\nAll feeling the terrible pressure and tension of the modern problem:\n\nOut of the litter and muck of a decaying world,\n\nLo! even so\n\nI saw a new life arise.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe winter woods stretched all around so still!\n\nEvery bough laden with snow\u2014the faint purple waters rushing on in the\nhollows, with steam on the soft still air!\n\nFar aloft the arrowy larch reached into the sky, the high air trembled\nwith the music of the loosened brooks.\n\nO sound of waters, jubilant, pouring pouring\u2014O hidden song in the\nhollows!\n\nSecret of the earth, swelling sobbing to divulge itself!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nSlowly, building lifting itself up atom by atom,\n\nGathering itself together round a new centre\u2014or rather round the\nworld-old centre once more revealed\u2014\n\nI saw a new life, a new society, arise.\n\nMan I saw arising once more to dwell with Nature;\n\n[The old old story\u2014the prodigal son returning, so loved,\n\nThe long estrangement, the long entanglement in vain things]\u2014\n\nThe child returning to its home, companion of the winter woods once\nmore,\n\nCompanion of the stars and waters, hearing their words at first hand\n(more than all science ever taught),\n\nThe near contact, the dear dear mother so close, the twilight sky and\nthe young tree-tops against it;\n\nThe huts on the mountain-side, companionable of the sun and the winds,\nthe lake unsullied below;\n\nThe daily bath in natural running waters, or in the parallel foam-lines\nof the sea, the pressure of the naked foot to the earth;\n\nThe few needs, the exhilarated radiant life\u2014the food and population\nquestion giving no more trouble;\n\n[No hurry more, no striving one to override the other:\n\nEach one doing the work before him to do, and taking his chance of the\nreward,\n\nDoubting no more of his reward than the hand doubts, or the foot, to\nwhich the blood flows according to the use to which it is put;]\n\nThe plentiful common halls stored with the products of Art and History\nand Science to supplement the simple household accommodations;\n\nThe sweet and necessary labor of the day;\n\nAll these I saw\u2014for man the companion of Nature.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nCivilisation behind him now\u2014the wonderful stretch of the past;\n\nContinents, empires, religions, wars, migrations\u2014all gathered up in him;\n\nThe immense knowledge, the vast winged powers\u2014to use or not to use\u2014\n\nHe comparatively indifferent, passing on to other spheres of interest.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe calm which falls after long strife, the dignity of rest after toil;\n\nHercules, his twelve labors done, sitting as a god on the great slope of\nOlympus,\n\nLooking out over the Earth, on which he was once a mortal.\n\n\n                           THE WORD DEMOCRACY\n\nUnderneath all now comes this Word, turning the edges of the other words\nwhere they meet it.\n\nPolitics, art, science, commerce, religion, customs and methods of daily\nlife, the very outer shows and semblances of ordinary objects\u2014\n\nThe rose in the garden, the axe hanging behind the door in the outhouse\u2014\n\nTheir meanings must all now be absorbed and recast in this word, or else\nfall off like dry husks before its disclosure.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nDo you not see that your individual life is and can only be secured at\nthe cost of the continual sacrifice of other lives,\n\nAnd that therefore you can only hold it on condition that you are ready\nin your turn to sacrifice it for others?\n\nThe law of Indifference which must henceforth be plainly recognised and\nacted upon.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nArt can now no longer be separated from life;\n\nThe old canons fail; her tutelage completed she becomes equivalent to\nNature, and hangs her curtains continuous with the clouds and\nwaterfalls;\n\nScience empties itself out of the books; all that the books have said\nonly falls like the faintest gauze before the reality\u2014hardly concealing\na single blade of grass, or damaging the light of the tiniest star;\n\nThe form of man emerges in all objects, baffling the old classifications\nand definitions;\n\n[Beautiful the form of man emerges, the celestial ideal\u2014\n\nThe feet pressing the ground, the supple strong ancles and wrists, the\ncleave of the loins, the shoulders, and poised head aureoled by the\nsun;]\n\nThe politician turns round upon himself\u2014like the scientist he\nacknowledges his brain baffled by the problems; he reaches his hand for\nhelp to the hand of the People;\n\nThe commercial man turns round\u2014the firm ground gives way beneath his\nfeet also; to give now seems better than to get\u2014and what sort of a\ntrade-motto is that?\n\nAll the customs of society change, for all are significant; and the\nlong-accepted axioms of every day life are dislocated like a hill-side\nin a landslip;\n\nThe old structures can no longer stand\u2014their very foundations are\nshifted\u2014\n\nAnd men run forth in terror from the old before they can yet find firm\nground for the new.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn all directions gulfs and yawning abysses,\n\nThe ground of society cracking, the fire showing through,\n\nThe old ties giving way beneath the strain, and the great pent heart\nheaving as though it would break\u2014\n\nAt the sound of the new word spoken\u2014\n\nAt the sound of the word Democracy.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nNo volcano bursting up through peaceful pastures is a greater revolution\nthan this;\n\nNo vast mountain chain thrown out from ocean depths to form the\nprimitive streak of a new continent looks further down the future;\n\nFor this is lava springing out of the very heart of Man;\n\nThis is the upheaval of heaven-kissing summits whose streams shall feed\nthe farthest generations,\n\nThis is the draft and outline of a new creature,\n\nThe forming of the wings of Man beneath the outer husk\u2014\n\nThe outspread pinions of Equality, whereon arising he shall at last lift\nhimself over the Earth and launch forth to sail through Heaven.\n\n\n                         THE MEANING OF IT ALL\n\nAges and ages back,\n\nOut of the long grass with infinite pain raising itself into the upright\nposition,\n\nA creature\u2014fore-runner of Man\u2014with swift eyes glanced around.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nSo to-day once more,\n\nWith pain pain and suffering\u2014driven by what strange instinct\u2014who can\ntell?\n\nOut of the great jungle of Custom and supposed Necessity, into a new and\nwonderful life, to new and wonderful knowledge,\n\nSurpassing words, surpassing all past experience\u2014the Man, the meaning of\nit all,\n\nUprears himself again.\n\n\n                           THESE POPULATIONS\n\nThese populations\u2014\n\nSo puny, white-faced, machine made,\n\nTurned out of factories, out of offices, out of drawing-rooms, by\nthousands all alike\u2014\n\nHuddled, stitched up, in clothes, fearing a chill, a drop of rain,\nlooking timidly at the sea and sky as at strange monsters, or running\nback so quick to their suburban runs and burrows,\n\nDapper, libidinous, cute, with washed-out small eyes\u2014\n\nWhat are these?\n\nAre they men and women?\n\nEach denying himself, hiding himself?\n\nAre they men and women?\n\nSo timorous, like hares\u2014a breath of propriety or custom, a draught of\nwind, the mere threat of pain or of danger?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nO for a breath of the sea and the great mountains!\n\nA bronzed hardy live man walking his way through it all;\n\nThousands of men companioning the waves and the storms, splendid in\nhealth, naked-breasted, catching the lion with their hands;\n\nA thousand women swift-footed and free\u2014owners of themselves, forgetful\nof themselves, in all their actions\u2014full of joy and laughter and action;\n\nGarbed not so differently from the men, joining with them in their games\nand sports, sharing also their labors;\n\nFree to hold their own, to grant or withhold their love, the same as the\nmen;\n\nStrong, well-equipped in muscle and skill, clear of finesse and\naffectation\u2014\n\n(The men, too, clear of much brutality and conceit)\u2014\n\nComrades together, equal in intelligence and adventure,\n\nTrusting without concealment, loving without shame but with\ndiscrimination and continence towards a perfect passion.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nO for a breath of the sea!\n\nThe necessity and directness of the great elements themselves!\n\nSwimming the rivers, braving the sun, the cold, taming the animals and\nthe earth, conquering the air with wings, and each other with love\u2014\n\nThe true the human society!\n\n\n                               ANDROMEDA\n\nNow over the Mediterranean shore, fronting the sun,\n\nIn the great woods where only the peasant comes\n\nAnd brings his bottle of wine, and figs, and goat-milk cheese\u2014\n\nThe Gods yet dwell, but are not seen of men.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nSteeply the ground slopes from the chestnut woods above,\n\nThrough tangles of pine and arbutus, myrtle and rosemary,\n\nDown to the sea.\n\nThe tasseled evergreen oak grants densest shade\u2014the acacia showers its\nfragrance on the air;\n\nIn open spots the rock-rose blooms,\n\nAnd the green lizard\u2019s little heart beats fast in the sun.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHere all day long mindful of times gone by\n\nThe sun yet lingers; from the slumbering sea\n\n(On whose clear sands the yellow and horn\u00e9d poppy loves to stray)\n\nSometimes fair Aphrodite lifts an arm\n\nUnseen of mortals.\n\nThe Dryads in the aspen branches wave\n\nTheir trembling fingers, and young Hyacinth\n\nDroops earthward once more wounded by his lover.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut none resume their ancient human form.\n\nHe, the great Liberator, with the wand of love so wonderful\n\n(Who dwelt on earth, and dwells not, but must dwell again),\n\nHe comes not\u2014whom they wait.\n\nThe rocks, the trees, the flowers, the loving animals,\n\nThe sea, the heavenly winds,\n\nThe human form that chained within them all\n\nPleads for deliverance\u2014\n\nHe comes not whom they wait.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nOnly the train shrieks by with monkey faces staring out of the windows;\n\nHotel and villa desecrate the land;\n\nWealth trails its slime; the Greek has fled; and Civilisation like a\ndismal dragon guards its prey.\n\n\n                      THE TRIUMPH OF CIVILISATION\n\nOn the outskirts of a great city,\n\nA street of fashionable mansions well withdrawn from all the noise and\nbustle;\n\nAnd in the street\u2014the only figure there\u2014in the middle of the road, in\nthe bitter wind,\n\nRed-nosed, thin-shawled, with ancles bare and old boots,\n\nA woman bent and haggard, croaking a dismal song.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd the great windows stare upon her wretchedness, and stare across the\nroad upon each other,\n\nWith big fool eyes;\n\nBut not a door is opened, not a face is seen,\n\nNor form of life down all the dreary street,\n\nTo certify the existence of humanity\u2014\n\nOther than hers.\n\n\n                            THE DEAD CHRIST\n\n(_After the picture by Fra Bartolomeo_)\n\nOnce more the dead Christ lies\u2014borne down the ages.\n\nO precious head, still fragrant with the box of ointment broken,\n\nO feet for kisses,\n\nThin shrunken knees, and hands yet worn with toil,\n\nDear Mother bending over, breathing clouds\n\nOf love and pity!\n\nAh! the cruel fate!\n\nSweet lips she suckled, hands that pressed so small\n\nAgainst her breasts\u2014pierced now with shameful wounds!\n\nThe dead-pale face so gentle, the dear god\n\nShe brought forth on the Earth!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nO People crucified in every land,\n\nMothers in all the earth weeping your sons!\n\nSisters and lovers kissing the feet of love,\n\nPoor way-worn feet, gross toil-disfigured hands,\n\nSo loved, so loved!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nOnce more the dead Christ lies\u2014borne down the ages.\n\n\n                             CHRISTMAS EVE\n\nHark! the bells ringing!\n\nIn the deep night, in the depth of the winter of Man,\n\nLo! once more the son is born.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nO agelong, not in Nazareth alone,\n\nNor now to-day\u2014but through all ages of the past,\n\nThe bells of Christmas ringing:\n\nThe Savior-music like a dream from heaven\n\nTouching the slumbering heart.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nSweet promise which the people with unerring instinct cling to!\n\nO winter sun arising never more to set!\n\nO Nature slowly changing, slow transforming to the hearts of men,\n\nShrine of the soul, shrine of the new-born god\u2014of Man himself.\n\n\n     _Little heart within thy cage so many years\u2014year after year\u2014_\n\n_Beating, still beating, so tenderly yearning_\n\n_For Comrade love, the love which is to come;_\n\n_Often near stopping, or wounded like a bird, so full of pain\u2014thy thread\nof life almost snapt\u2014_\n\n_Yet with joy so wonderful over all and through all continuing:_\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n_Soon altogether shalt thou stop, little heart, and the beating and the\npain here shall cease;_\n\n_But out of thee that life breathed into the lips of others shall never\nstop nor cease._\n\n_Through a thousand beautiful forms\u2014so beautiful!\u2014through the gates of a\nthousand hearts\u2014emancipated freed we will pass on:_\n\n_I and my joy will surely pass on._\n\n\n                         WHEN I AM NEAR TO YOU\n\nNow when I am near to you, dear friend,\n\nPassing out of myself, being delivered\u2014\n\nThrough those eyes and lips and hands, so loved, so ardently loved,\n\nI am become free;\n\nIn the sound of your voice I dwell\n\nAs in a world defended from evil.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhat I am accounted by the world to be\u2014all that I leave behind:\n\nIt is nothing to me any longer.\n\nLike one who leaves a house with all its mouldy old furniture and\npitches his camp under heaven\u2019s blue,\n\nSo I take up my abode in your presence\u2014\n\nI find my deliverance in you.\n\n\n                            CRADLED IN FLAME\n\nCradled in flame,\n\nOr like a tiny charm-figure within an agate reclining, from that which\nencloses it inseparate, indivisible\u2014\n\nSo, deep in my heart, through all that chances,\n\nThy form, thy form, indelible remains.\n\n\n                             ALL NIGHT LONG\n\nAll night long in love, in the darkness, passing through your lips, my\nlove\u2014\n\nBreathing the same breath, being folded in the same sleep, losing sense\nof Me and Thee,\n\nInto empyreal regions, beloved of the gods, united, we ascend together.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThen in the morning on the high hill-side in the sun, looking down upon\nthe spires of the larches and Scotch firs,\n\nMortal, we tread again the earthy floor.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nO Earth, the floor of heaven\u2014\n\nO Sun, shining aloft in the sky so pure\u2014\n\nO children of the sun, ye flowers and streams, and little mortals\nwalking the earth for a time\u2014\n\nAnd we too gazing for a time, for a time, for a time, into each other\u2019s\neyes.\n\n\n                              OF THE PAST\n\nOf the Past\u2014of those that come no more\u2014\n\nOf the feet that tread the door-sill no more, of the eyes we no more can\nlook into\u2014\n\nThe sound of the voice so longed for, but it is not heard,\n\nThe one human form sought for over all the world, in all the throngs of\ncities, by sea-coasts and bays, over far continents and islands,\n\nAmong all the habitations of the stars, but it is not there\u2014\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nOf the self swooning down, dying utterly,\n\nOf love, love, without end and without beginning,\n\nVisiting all mortals, the sum of human life,\n\nWith wings like a vast bird passing in the night\u2014veiled awful form so\nclose, yet impossible to detain:\n\nWhy dear face so white in the night\u2014so white in the moon\u2019s faint light\nas it steals along the hill-top\u2014\n\nDear face gazing up into mine, dost thou remind me?\n\n\n                             LOVE\u2019S VISION\n\nAt night in each other\u2019s arms,\n\nContent, overjoyed, resting deep deep down in the darkness,\n\nLo! the heavens opened and He appeared\u2014\n\nWhom no mortal eye may see,\n\nWhom no eye clouded with Care,\n\nWhom none who seeks after this or that, whom none who has not escaped\nfrom self.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere\u2014in the region of Equality, in the world of Freedom no longer\nlimited,\n\nStanding as a lofty peak in heaven above the clouds,\n\nFrom below hidden, yet to all who pass into that region most clearly\nvisible\u2014\n\nHe the Eternal appeared.\n\n\n                          NEARER THAN EVER NOW\n\nIf I should be taken up into Thee, O blue blue sky\u2014to pass the bounds of\nmyself, to share thy life, O Nature:\n\nPouring pouring upon all the words which now are distilled only\npainfully from me\u2014pressed out, expressed\u2014\n\nTo mingle my breath with Thy breath, my body and its liquids with the\nearth and the sea\u2014losing my mortal outline in Thine:\n\nAh! unto those that I love swiftly running I would become their life,\n\nNearer would I touch them then, than ever now that I am prisoned in this\nform.\n\n\n                           O THOU WHOSE FORM\n\nO thou whose form is ever in my heart,\n\nO flesh that holds me pent with terrible force,\n\nDear limbs and lips that seize upon my life\n\nAnd in your fire consume it\u2014O sweet love:\n\nLo all I see\u2014\n\nThe clear and sunny hills, the woods, the streams,\n\nThe orchards, fields, the lines of poplars tall,\n\nThe belfried towns, the river at my feet,\n\nThe great blue sky, yea He who stands behind it\u2014\n\nAre mine for thee, to lose themselves in thee.\n\n\n          THE ELDER SOLDIER IN THE BROTHERHOOD TO THE YOUNGER\n\nDear comrade, at whose feet thus now I kneel,\n\nOf you perhaps so soon to be seen no more\u2014\n\nHere I give you my charge, that afterwards remembering and desiring me,\n\nYou may find me again in these others.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nSlowly out of their faces I will emerge to you\u2014lo! I swear it,\n\nBy the falling rain and dimpled thunderclouds in the East I swear it\u2014\n\n[To become your life whom I have loved so long]\n\nWith love absorbing, joy and blessedness enclosing,\n\nI will emerge to you.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThat you now to other comrades, and these again to others,\n\nOver the whole world may bear the glad covenant, perfected, finished\u2014\n\nTo form an indissoluble union and compact, a brotherhood unalterable,\n\nFar-pervading, fresh and invisible as the wind, united in Freedom\u2014\n\nA golden circle of stamens, hidden beneath the petals of humanity,\n\nAnd guarding the sacred ark.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThrough heroisms and deaths and sacrifices,\n\nAlways for the poor and despised, always for the outcast and oppressed,\n\nThrough kinship with Nature, and the free handling of all forms and\ncustoms,\n\nThrough the treasured teaching of inspired ones\u2014never lost and never\nwholly given to the world, but always emerging\u2014\n\nThrough love, faithful love and comradeship, at last emancipating the\nsoul into that other realm (of freedom and joy) into which it is\npermitted to no mortal to enter\u2014\n\nThus to realise the indissoluble compact, to reveal the form of\nhumanity.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo you, dear comrade, I transmit this charge\u2014bequeathed also to me\u2014\n\nIn love remaining faithful to you, as now, never to change,\n\nThrough all times and vicissitudes faithful faithful to you.\n\nHere now at your feet, leaning on your knees, in your eyes deep-looking,\n\nAll that I have said I confirm.\n\n\n                      INTO THE REGIONS OF THE SUN\n\nSo at last passing (the great sea stilled, the raging ocean)\u2014passing\naway,\n\nAll sorrow left behind, the great intolerable burdens which men vainly\ntry to carry,\n\nAll all abandoned, left there lying\u2014\n\nSuddenly lightened, like a bird that shakes itself free from the limed\ntwigs,\n\nSoaring, soaring, into joy supernal passing,\n\nLo! the dead we leave behind and pass to the realms of the living.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd not we alone.\n\nBy our love poured out, by the manifold threads and strands of\nattachment to others\u2014 which cannot now be severed;\n\nBy not one inwardly refused or disowned whom we have ever met;\n\nBy the dear arms of lovers circling each other all night long, by their\nkisses and mingled breath,\n\nAnd love by night and day\u2014thinking of each other when absent, rejoicing\nso to be near;\n\nBy tramps over the hills, and days spent together in the woods and by\nwatersides;\n\nBy our life-long faithful love\u2014(ah! what more beautiful, what in all\nthis world more precious!)\n\nBy the life-long faithful comradeship now springing on all sides, the\nTheban band henceforth to overcome the world\u2014its heroisms and deaths\u2014\n\nAnd him who gave the calamus-token first;\n\nBy all these\u2014\n\nNot alone, no longer alone\u2014\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut drawing an innumerable multitude with us,\n\nInto the regions of the sun, into the supernal \u00e6ther,\n\nWith love perfected, bodies changed, and joy\u2014ah! joy on earth\nunutterable\u2014\n\nLo! the dead we leave behind, and pass to the realms of the living.\n\n\n                             AS IT HAPPENED\n\nCross-legged in a low tailor\u2019s den, gasping for breath\u2014\n\nThe gas flaring, doors and windows tight shut, the thick sick\natmosphere;\n\nThe men in their shirt-sleeves, with close heat from the stove, and\nsmell of sweat and of the cloth;\n\nStitching, stitching, 12 hours a day, no set time for meals\u2014\n\nStitching, cross-stitching, button-holing, binding,\n\nSilk twist, cotton twist, black thread, white thread,\n\nStouting, felling, pressing, damping,\n\nBasting, seaming, opening seams, rantering,\n\nWith sore eyes, sick sick at heart, and furious,\n\nIn the low tailor\u2019s den he sits.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll day in his mind\u2014like a hunted criminal\u2014he revolves: How shall I\nescape?\n\nHow change this miserable pittance for Freedom, and yet not starve?\n\nAt night after some brief dream of joy he wakes to tears, tears, tears\u2014\n\nDrenching his bed with tears.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nNo God, no Truth, no Justice\u2014and under it all, no Love.\n\n[This is what is slowly killing him\u2014no Love.]\n\nA little fire burns in his heart, burns night and day;\n\nThe slow pain kills\u2014no Love.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nO the deep deep hunger!\n\nThe mean life all around, the wolfish eyes, the mere struggle for\nexistence, as of men starving on a raft at sea\u2014no room for anything\nmore.\n\nAll that he has read in books, all the stories of other times and\nlands\u2014Mignon, Eloise, Eros the beautiful boy wandering over the world\u2014so\nwonderful a world, and he in this prison, this filthy den!\n\nO the deep deep hunger of Love!\n\nAll the obscene talk of the shop is neither here nor there: it cannot\nfill the void:\n\nThe shallow laughter of his companions and the bought kisses of the\nstreet-girls are the mere husks that the swine did eat.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nO little heart, beating, beating!\n\nHeart once so strong, full-pulsed; now often at night out of some dream\nof Splendor\u2014\n\n[Dream of Love\u2014some shining form within a garden and at the gate stands\na bearded man, dagger in hand, saying \u201cThou canst not enter here, except\nthou pass the Ordeal.\u201d\n\nAnd he in his dream, beholding Love beyond, bares his breast gladly to\nthe knife, and feels the sharp point turn within his heart]\u2014\n\nWaking thus oft to pain and sick sick powerless days,\n\nAt last little heart thy strength gives way indeed.\n\nStumbling, with strange uncertain motion, like one confused\u2014now hurrying\non,\n\nNow halting in thy pace as near to stop,\n\nThat something\u2019s wrong with thee is past a doubt.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd the grave doctor comes and says the valves are weak, and recommends\nrest and good food and fresh air and other things that are not to be\nhad: but says nothing of that which lies nearest to the patient.\n\nAnd he, the patient, half misdoubts himself\u2014thinks likely the doctor\nknows best\u2014feels only strangely dull and indifferent; and after a while\nrises and goes back to his den and takes his place once more\ncross-legged amongst the rest, stitching, stitching; and the horns on\nhis heel and ancle grow again, and the air seems closer and more\nsuffocating than ever; but he drags through the days, ever more\nlethargic growing, caring not much whether he die or live\u2014thinking\nperhaps to die on the whole were better.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen, as it happened\u2014and this was the strangest of all\u2014quite suddenly,\nthe most unexpected thing in the world,\n\nTo a casual little club, which once a week he was in the habit of\nattending, there came one night a new member,\n\nOf athletic strength and beauty, yet gentle in his manners,\n\nAnd with a face like a star\u2014so stedfast clear and true that he the\nsufferer felt renewed by merely looking on it.\n\nBut what was even more strange, the newcomer turning spoke friendly to\nhim, and soon seemed to understand,\n\nAnd from that time forward came and companioned and nursed him, and\nstayed whole nights and days with him and loved him.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd out of his despair there grew something so glorious that he forgets\nit not, night nor day;\n\nGreat waves of health and strength come to him\u2014as to a man who after the\nlong Arctic night bathes in the warmth and light of the re-arisen Sun;\n\nEven the wretched tailor\u2019s den is transformed; but soon leaving that he\naccepts by preference the poorest work in the open under heaven,\n\nAnd breathes again, and tastes the sweet air afresh;\n\nAnd watches a new sun rise in the mornings and a new transparency among\nthe stars at night;\n\nAnd the body grows strong and hardy, and the little heart gathers and\nknits itself together,\n\nAnd sings, sings, sings:\n\nSings all day to its friend whether present or absent.\n\n\n                              PARTED LIPS\n\nParted lips, between which love dwells\u2014\n\nOnly a little space of breath and shadow,\n\nYet here the gate of all the world to me.\n\n\n                              SUMMER HEAT\n\nSun burning down on back and loins, penetrating the skin, bathing their\nflanks in sweat,\n\nWhere they lie naked on the warm ground, and the ferns arch over them,\n\nOut in the woods, and the sweet scent of fir-needles\n\nBlends with the fragrant nearness of their bodies;\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn-armed together, murmuring, talking,\n\nDrunk with wine of Eros\u2019 lips,\n\nHourlong, while the great wind rushes in the branches,\n\nAnd the blue above lies deep beyond the fern-fronds and fir-tips;\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nTill, with the midday sun, fierce scorching, smiting,\n\nUp from their woodland lair they leap, and smite,\n\nAnd strike with wands, and wrestle, and bruise each other,\n\nIn savage play and amorous despite.\n\n\n                              A RIVEDERCI\n\nOnce more in dreams, wandering along the road by the sea,\n\nI tarry a moment leaning my elbows on the wall beside you\u2014\n\nI look out over the blue waves with your eyes, and feel the sun on me as\nyou that feel it;\n\nMy mother it is that sits in the balcony among her pots of oleander in\nthe little narrow street, my boat that lies half-heeled upon the sand;\n\nThese are my mountains that I love,\n\nThis is your face and mine clear-cut upon the air,\n\nYour life-warm lips I kiss and mine you kiss again,\n\nAnd laughing part with bright _a rivederci_.\n\n\n                        WHO WILL LEARN FREEDOM?\n\nWho will learn Freedom?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nLo! as the air blows wafting the clinging aromatic scent of the balsam\npoplar, dear to me,\n\nOr the sun-warm fragrance of wallflowers, tarrying here for a moment,\nthen floating far down the road and away;\n\nOr as the early light edging the hills, so calm, unprejudiced, open to\nall;\n\nSo shall you find what you seek in men and women\u2014your passage and swift\ndeliverance.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAs when one opens a door after long confinement in the house\u2014so out of\nyour own plans and purposes escaping,\n\nOut of the many mirror-lined chambers of self (grand though they be, but\nO how dreary!) in which you have hitherto spent your life\u2014\n\nIn these behold once more the incommunicable freedom of the sky, the\ngreen hills, the woods and the waters,\n\nTo pass in and out for ever, having abandoned your own objects, looking\ncalmly upon them, as though they did not exist.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nNow who so despised and lost, but what shall be my Savior?\n\nIs there one yet sick and suffering in the whole world? or deformed,\ncondemned, degraded?\n\nThither hastening I am at rest\u2014for this one can absolve me.\n\nO I am greedy of love\u2014all all are beautiful to me!\n\nYou my deliverers every one\u2014from death, from sin, from evil\u2014\n\nI float, I dissolve in you!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nO bars of self you cannot shut me now.\n\nO frailest child, O blackest criminal,\n\nWhoe\u2019er you are I never can repay you\u2014though the world despise you, you\nare glorious to me;\n\nFor you have saved me from myself,\n\nYou delivered me when I was in prison\u2014\n\nI passed through you into heaven,\n\nYou were my Christ to me.\n\n\n                          AFTER ALL SUFFERING\n\nAfter all suffering, after all weariness and denial\u2014\n\nThe heart almost stopped, food ceasing to nourish, grief making the\ntongue dry,\n\nAll pleasure in life ceasing, unable to rouse interest in any object or\npursuit,\n\nBut love\u2014and that gone far away!\n\nAfter all,\n\nNearer to thy heart, O humanity,\n\nBy this of suffering we come.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI know that thou canst not deny me:\n\nI know that each pain is a door by which I approach one degree nearer to\nthee.\n\nWhat sorrow is there but I have shared it?\n\nWhat grief but it has removed an obstruction between me and some one\nelse?\n\nLook in my face and see. You cannot bar me now.\n\nI pass all doors, and am where I would be.\n\n\n                   WHEN A THOUSAND YEARS HAVE PASSED\n\nThink not that the love thou enterest into to-day is for a few months or\nyears:\n\nThe little seed set now must lie quiet before it will germinate, and\nmany alternations of sunshine and shower descend upon it before it\nbecome even a small plant.\n\nWhen a thousand years have passed, come thou again. And behold! a mighty\ntree that no storms can shake.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nLove does not end with this life or any number of lives; the form that\nthou seekest lies hidden under wrapping after wrapping;\n\nNevertheless it shall at length appear\u2014more wondrous far than aught thou\nhast imagined.\n\nTherefore leave time: do not like a child pull thy flower up by the\nroots to see if it is growing;\n\nEven though thou be old and near the grave there is plenty of time.\n\n\n                    A MESSAGE COMMITTED TO THE WAVES\n\nI see the waters flowing as of old\u2014dancing, rippling,\n\nO so light and beautiful;\n\nThe river-banks, and pollard willows leaning, and bulrushes where as\nboys we used to linger.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll transmuted, turned into words and tongues, licking me round like\nflames\u2014unearthly, scorching;\n\nAll transmuted\u2014the soft water-depths, the weeds below, the dimples of\nsunlight dancing,\n\nThe shrill piping of the lark, the kine knee-deep in grass, and the\npiled thunderclouds floating in the summer haze\u2014\n\nLike flames, unearthly, scorching.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nFor here on this water and round these banks we came floating\u2014troops of\nfriends\u2014yet not on this water; by these banks, yet not by them.\n\nAnd the dimples glanced, and the birds sang\u2014as now, yet O how different!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nMystery, mystery!\n\nO wonderful orb of creation!\n\nO frame, beauteous ever-living twining frame of human love, chalice of\nprecious drops poured out, mystic scroll on which our lives in blood are\nwritten,\n\nGreat great awful indivisible Nature\u2014birthplace and grave of Humanity!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nTremble tremble, O waves\u2014bear my love too on your breasts to generations\nyet unborn;\n\n(Lo! to you I commit it!)\n\nHear me ye perennial tongues and flames, ye fields and skies speak speak\nwhat I command you!\n\nYe hieroglyphics stand untampered to remotest time!\n\nO grasses growing so lush about my feet and the feet of those who pass,\nwhile ever you grow on earth forget not the bleeding drops wherewith you\nhave been watered!\n\nWaft, O breezes, our love and the love of all true lovers, and fail not\nwhile you blow to bring glad messages to those who faint;\n\nFor we are borne upon you\u2014\n\nI am borne upon you. From this body, broken and useless, from this\nmortal here and there, I fade, I fail utterly; I cannot remain, it is no\nuse;\n\nPouring pouring out, losing my name and place, flowing abroad,\nsurrendering myself to all\u2014I depart, to join the invisible.\n\nAh heaven! Ah sounds of harmony ineffable!\n\nAh tears, and deeps of sorrow dread and soundless!\n\nAh love! ah precious love including all!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nSo still to all\u2014\n\nTo those lingering in prison,\n\nTo the aged and forsaken, stranded like wrecks on the bleak shore of\nlife,\n\nTo the heartbroken and weary, to those stunned with despair;\n\nTo the wife awaking to the treachery of her husband;\n\nTo the exile leaving his dear ones, and probably for ever; to the\ncrippled and incapable and diseased;\n\nTo the pinned workers in back streets oscillating drearily between the\nhome and the workshop;\n\nTo those of the hopeless sad mechanical days over all the earth\u2014the\noutcast, the shunned, the persecuted;\n\nThe closing days, the narrowing grooves, the heart touched no more by\nthe sweet illusions, no more to hope responding, no more to the call of\nreligion;\n\nAh to all in the mighty brotherhood sufferers\u2014\n\nDearest, most precious ones,\n\nCorner-stones of human life, hidden bearers of burdens, under-girders of\nthe great ship with its incalculable freight!\n\nDearest and most precious of all\u2014ah, sufferers, sufferers,\n\nTo you we give our love\u2014\n\nArise! for great is your triumph!\n\n\n                              REST AT LAST\n\nAh! love\u2014having journeyed through all of life, having become freed even\nfrom thee\u2014there remains nothing glorious but thee.\n\nExhaled out of all frailty, out of this little tenement of flesh, so\nephemeral,\n\nOut of these hands and feet which are and are not\u2014out of these eyes\nthrough which I look, on which I look\u2014\n\nTHOU hast taken possession of earth and heaven: the sun is thy right\nhand and the moon thy left:\n\nIn Thee all forms, of all I seek, are mine,\n\nAnd I in them attain at last to rest.\n\n\n                            THE WIND OF MAY\n\nO glorious wind, that in my lover\u2019s face blowest,\n\nEven as now in mine\u2014though the deep sea part us\u2014\n\nFragrant wind, with heart so tenderly laden,\n\nTell him, my lover, against whose face thou goest,\n\nIn his ears and nostrils and eyes and thick hair rippling\u2014\n\nWhose passion-fountain he too, nightlong, daylong,\n\nDrinks at, inbreathing thee\u2014sweet wind, O tell him\n\nMy love like thine for ever endures, and fails not.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nGreat cloud-wet wind, through the thick woods heavily trailing,\n\nMid millions of flowers their sex-life\u2019s sweetness exhaling,\n\nHyacinth-bell and May-bloom in countless beauty:\n\nFeed him, body and soul, with secrets fairest,\n\nDisclose thy heart, O wind, and the love thou bearest.\n\n\n               _O Earth, scene of what toil and anguish!_\n\n_Century after century, thousands thousands of years,_\n\n_What reek of battles, smoke of vast wilderness-cities,_\n\n_Going up from age to age, losing itself in the calm immeasurable blue._\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n_O wonderful unutterable secret! the moon gliding through the trees!_\n\n_The soul of man slowly transforming itself, growing bursting through\nthe sheaths\u2014the stars looking on!_\n\n_The new creature born anew, in travail and in suffering, ascending into\nheaven;_\n\n_Ah! songs and harmonies angelic sounding\u2014ah! joy the mortal frame can\nscarce sustain!_\n\n\n                         A VOICE OVER THE EARTH\n\nThe sound of a voice floating round the Earth, saying:\n\nLo! I float over the world and over all cities and lands\u2014wherever men\nand women are at home I am at home.\n\n\n                                   I\n\nThe snowy peaks, in ranges, that guard the cradles of the human\nrace\u2014rising over their rocky cliffs, out of their valleys full of\ntrees\u2014the wind fluctuating the forests, the clouds swift-flying over the\ntopmost jags;\n\nThe great plains, and lower lands, dotted with farms and villages and\ncities, for scores, hundreds, thousands, of miles;\n\nThe winding rivers and the islands, and the broad seas;\n\nAll these I see, and those that inhabit them,\n\nOver the world I float, I range all human experience.\n\n\n                                   II\n\nThe broad Italian landscape spreads below me\u2014the lands of the upper Po\nand Bormida;\n\nI see the wave-like congregated hills terraced with vines to their very\ntops, the pink or yellow painted homesteads dotted here and there, the\narched stone barns, and villages clustered on the hill tops with\nbelfries high against the sky.\n\nThe old woman, my mother, with walnut brown skin haunts the lonely\nfarmhouse all day while the others are in the field;\n\nShe wanders from chamber to chamber, hardly knowing what she is doing.\nHer memory carries her back to the far past\u2014she lives not in the\npresent.\n\nSometimes into the great attic overhead she climbs, with its huge\nroof-beams and brick floor, and spreads the grapes to dry or leisurely\npicks them over.\n\nThe haymakers work barefoot in the clover patch, turning the clover and\nloading the low-wheeled waggon in the fragrant transparent evening;\n\nThe peasant plows with his one-stilted plow, or creaks along the road\nwith his cart and yoke of cream-colored oxen;\n\nThe girls and women with red or yellow kerchiefs stand among the\nbranches of the mulberry trees by the roadside, picking leaves for the\nsilkworms;\n\nThe country folk congregate on the steps of the village church, looking\nout over the hills\u2014the women passing in by ones and twos;\n\nThe men play _mora_ over their wine in the little hostelry; the boys\nplay at ball down the narrow by-streets, using the roofs and buttresses\nto baffle their opponents\u2019 strokes;\n\nThe old play of daily life goes on\u2014the centuries-long play;\n\nThe ruins of the Roman aqueduct still cross the bed of the river, the\nruins of Roman words and customs still lie embedded in the life of\nto-day;\n\nThe old blood still runs in the veins, the water runs in the rivers, the\ncrops grow in the fields\u2014the light of youth, of love, of old age, of\ndeath, shines in the eyes.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nFrom the accident of here and now,\n\nFrom this hill whence for a moment I overlook the fair garden of human\nlife, from this few feet of human flesh which I inhabit,\n\nFrom these fierce desires which hem me in, these defects, these\nlimitations, these mortal sufferings,\n\nThis little creature-dom, this brief emprisonment of life,\n\nI descend, I pass, I flow down,\n\n[O words so vain to tell\u2014O strange incredible transformation!]\n\nI pass, I flow down, into the freedom of all times, into the latitude of\nall places.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI work on the hills once more with the slave and the freedman among the\nvines, I mix the mortar for them that build the aqueduct;\n\nThe lover and his girl lean against my breast in the moonlight long ages\nback as now;\n\nThe face of the mother understands my face a thousand and ten thousand\nyears ago, as it does to-day;\n\nI am the cream-colored ox with mild eyes, and I am the driver who curses\nand goads it;\n\nI am the lover and the loved\u2014I have lost and found my identity.\n\n\n                                  III\n\nThe Piedmontese peasant takes me again into his little cottage of\nsun-dried bricks among the vineyards, and gives me a glass of cool wine\nin the shade;\n\nI see again the scantily furnished interior, the floor of native rock,\nthe rickety ladder which serves for staircase to the chamber above, the\ntable and chairs and one or two cooking utensils;\n\nAnd the great frame of sticks and canes, big as a four-poster bedstead,\nwhere he breeds his thousands of silkworms.\n\nBut here too, alas! there is grief; for the poor son, so passionately\nloved of his mother, is wasting away apparently in a decline;\n\nAll day with shawl thrown over him he squats in the sun by the door, or\nwalks feebly to and fro, unable to help his father in the field\u2014at night\nhe lies awake and hears the wearisome rustle of the silkworms eating\ntheir food;\n\nThe mother prays the good God, but knows not whether anything comes of\nit\u2014the little figure of Mary in the niche of the wall looks just the\nsame though hearts are breaking.\n\n\n                                   IV\n\nAh! fragrance of human love exhaled!\n\nGreat clouds from frail and perishable forms escaping silently,\n\nInto the night, into the vast aerial night of Time!\n\nThe little flash of youth, the reaching of hands to hands, of hearts to\nhearts, of lips to lips,\n\nThe closing in of the outer shell, the chrysalis-death, and the terrible\nstruggles for liberation;\n\nThe larv\u00e6 crawling the earth for a time\u2014on hill-sides and in valleys, in\nhuts and palaces\u2014chained to their little plots of earth, their few frail\nfeet of flesh;\n\nThe great thunderclouds passing over from snowy range to range, touching\nthe little creatures with their shadows;\n\nThe great sun out of the unfathomable touching them too with his\nfinger\u2014breeding slowly but surely within them the life which must\ndestroy their mortality.\n\n\n                                   V\n\nOnwards, onwards, I float.\n\nThe smoke and glare, the confused roar and tumult of a manufacturing\ntown spread all around; sounds of voices ascend past me into the silent\nsupernal blue.\n\nIn the tobacco factory amid rows of girls, with my little bit of mirror\nor comb concealed in a nook of my bench\u2014I sit\u2014or photograph placed where\nI can see it as I work;\n\nOr in the printing office of the daily paper\u2014printing reports of\nlaw-courts and cricket-matches\u2014I scramble with five or six others to the\nboxes for a fat take.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe long trial is over, and I am the prisoner on whom sentence has been\npronounced.\n\nThe judge in scarlet and ermine, preceded by liveried heralds blowing\ntrumpets, strides down the corridors and through the crowd thronging the\nsteps of the Town Hall, into his blue and silver paneled coach;\n\nHustled and thumped and buffeted by the police, I am fetched from the\ndock by underground passages to the prison van, and bumped through the\nstreets to the gaol\u2014there to await my execution.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nPale and desperate in the cutlery buffing shop boys and girls bend over\ntheir wheels;\n\nIn squalor and monotony the winter daylight through dirty windows dawns\nand dies away again upon them;\n\nIn squalor and monotony the light of youth and of hope dawns and dies\naway again from their eyes;\n\nThe master looks round with his hands in his pockets, well satisfied;\n\nThe cheap goods ready to fall to pieces as soon as used are duly packed\nand despatched to African and Pacific Island traders.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nCivilisation plays its part in the history of each nation and each\nindividual,\n\nUnerringly the time of its unfoldment to each arrives, and again the\ntime of its dismissal and departure.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nBrawny figures move to and fro in the iron works, halfseen through\nclouds of flying steam or against the glare of furnaces;\n\nThe flame of the Bessemer cupola roars, with showers of sparks, and\nrattling of cranes, and shouts of men;\n\nThe foreman stands calmly aside, spectroscope in hand, or gives a signal\nwith uplifted arm;\n\nI see the reversing of the cupola, and the outpour of molten steel,\nlilac with yellowing vapor around it;\n\nThe rose-colored shafts of sunlight through the high roof, the terraces\nand platforms, the glints and halos amid the vapor;\n\nThe balcony where the men stand with their hydraulic handles controlling\nthe huge lifts and cranes beneath them;\n\nThe groups steadying with iron poles and hooks the great lifted ingots\nof steel, or regulating the outflow of liquid stuff into the moulds;\n\nThe man in a corner washing his shoulders and head in a bucket of water;\n\nThe steam-hammers, the blocks of yellow-hot iron shimmering in the\nheated air;\n\nThe steel-melter\u2019s men around the crucibles with their tongs\u2014their feet\nand legs swathed in rags to keep off the heat, their sweat-handkerchiefs\nheld between their teeth;\n\nThe daring, recklessness even at times, the delight in the power and\nendurance\u2014the drink, gross talk, rough jokes\u2014throwing the great\npressures upon the novices or shamming to pick quarrels with them;\n\nThe planing and cutting of armor-plates, the huge resistless\nsteam-driven machinery, the gouges and drills,\n\nThe shaping of the plates (each one numbered) to the lines of the ships\nthey are intended for\u2014the careful drawing and planning, and following\nout of the plans;\n\nThe transporting of them to the sea-coast, the riveting of them each in\nits place;\n\nAnd the floating away of these thousands of tons over the ocean and\nround the bend of the world.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd he at the forge streaming with sweat, the striker, with bared\nbreast, turning out claw-hammer heads by the score,\n\nKeeps dreaming and dreaming all day between the strokes, of love which\nis to come and change our earth into heaven;\n\nBut his brother who works with him laughs at his dreams\u2014and the spring\ncomes in the woods to all alike:\n\nThe gnarled oak breaks into pale yellow buds against the blue, the mouse\nstirs under the dry grass, and the corn-crake runs with head erect among\nthe young green blades of corn.\n\n\n                                   VI\n\nEach morning anew the mist rests on the hills; the sun rises on fresh\nclouds to be dispersed;\n\nIt splinters its shafts against the great rock face, and brings out in\nbold relief the figure of the quarryman in his loose blue-checked shirt;\n\nWhere on a projecting angle he stands, with mighty hammer-stroke driving\nthe brods and wedges;\n\nNow he splits off a great mass and displaces it with the crowbar,\n\nWhile overhead among the tree-roots, in a sunny niche of the barings,\n\nA sparrow chirps cheerfully to him.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nMeanwhile the scythe-smith goes to see what he can do for his brother in\nprison;\n\nHe takes the train and finds out the public-house to which the turnkey\ngoes, and gives him half-a-sovereign to get his brother something to\neat.\n\nThe turnkey is a mild old man and would not willingly harm anybody;\n\nHe says nothing to the prisoner, but when he leaves his cell each day he\nquietly drops a good-sized tommy behind him.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd this is the Hogarthian interior of the Lincolnshire dancing chamber:\nthe gas, the smoke, the fiddle-scrape, the slopped drink;\n\nThe great projecting bay-window with seats in it, the twilight fading on\nthe groups in the market-place without;\n\nThe Dutch-looking ramshackle rooms lighting into one another\u2014farmers\u2019\nmen and girls tumbling and sitting on each other\u2019s knees;\n\nFat women gyrating together; the young man pressing his comrade to him\nin the dance;\n\nThe middle-aged farmer slipping off into a barn at the back with a great\nwench: she cries, \u201cHow good, how good it is, O come again!\u201d\n\n\n                        IN THE CHAMBER OF BIRTH\n\nIn the chamber of birth,\n\nCalm and joyful the exhausted mother, with disheveled hair, lies\nobliquely across the bed\u2014the little primitive conical-skulled god rests\nsnug on the pillow in front of her:\n\nThe baffling infant face, with closed eyes and flexible upper lip, and\nstorms and sunshine sweeping across its tiny orb, and filmy clouds of\nexpression!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut for her O the rest, the rest and the peace now it is all over\u2014no\ndesire to move, only to lie and rest for joy!\n\nWhile the bustling cheerful midwife is full of praises and\ncongratulations, and the good anxious husband comes to the door smiling\nagain at last.\n\n\n                       A COTTAGE AMONG THE HILLS\n\nOutside, the winter moonlight shines so peacefully upon the little\ncottage far away among the hills\u2014\n\nWhere within the old human drama repeats itself.\n\nThe aged grandmother sits in the ruddy glow by the chimney-corner\u2014her\nlittle grandson leans against her knee;\n\nThe other children (for some have come in from a neighboring cottage,\nand Christmas is now approaching) sing hymn after hymn in tireless\ntrebles, and the old grand-dad tones the bass in now and then with still\nmelodious voice;\n\nWhile silent, with tired and suffering face (thinking of the week\u2019s\nwork, and of her runaway drunken husband) the mother strips her youngest\nnaked in the firelight.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAh! the tender dreams, the griefs, the passions, and the shattered\nhopes!\n\nThe long culminating experience!\n\nThe slow change of the words the children sing\u2014to meanings unimagined!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe flickering light on joists and rafters of the low ceiling;\n\nThe old man bent with toil (road-mending now these fifty years);\n\nThe rosy children with wide open mouths; the dear god whom they sing\nof\u2014ever-coming, ever-expected;\n\nThe rose-bud black-eyed boy against his granny\u2019s knee;\n\nAnd she\u2014her white white hair, high brows, and pale transparent face\u2014so\nsacred, calm,\n\nMost like the moonlight shining there without.\n\n\n                                 ALICE\n\nWith little red frock in the fire-light, in the lingering April evening\u2014\n\n(The moonlight over the tree-tops just beginning to shine in at the\ncottage door)\u2014\n\nHer big brown eyes and comical big mouth for very gladness unresting,\nlike a small brown fairy\u2014\n\nShe stands, the five-year-old child.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThen, so gentle, with tiny tripping speech, and with a little wave of\nthe hand\u2014\n\n\u201cGood-night\u201d she says to the fire and to the moon,\n\nAnd kissing the elder wearier faces,\n\nRuns off to bed and to sleep in the lap of heaven.\n\n\n                               BABY SONG\n\nCroonie croonie, Baby baby, up and down,\n\nSing song, all day long\u2014\n\nFather\u2019s gone away for many a day, but he\u2019ll come back again,\n\nOver the waters, before long.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nCroonie croonie, Baby baby, up and down,\n\nSun shine, winds blow\u2014far behind baby the waters flow;\n\nWinds and sun round him run, peep in his eyes and off they go\u2014\n\nAll in fun.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nCroonie croonie, Baby baby, O what tears!\n\nLittle heart break, little breast shake\u2014fie such tears!\n\nMother\u2019s arms so tired with dancing,\n\nAll day long;\n\nBaby baby\u2014always baby\u2014fretting crying all day long.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nBaby baby, come to Mammy,\n\nStifle sobs upon her breast\u2014\n\nLittle blunt gums on the nipple,\n\nThat\u2019s the feel we both love best;\n\nSleep will soon come after titty,\n\nSobs will cease and baby rest.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nCroonie croonie, Baby baby, sleeping sound:\n\nBy the door we stand a moment\u2014moonlight dappled on the ground:\n\nWinds are sleeping, waters calm,\n\nKeep our little babe from harm.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe great Earth shall be his cradle,\n\nRocking rocking day by day;\n\nStar-bespangled curtains spread\n\nEvery night above his head;\n\nSuns on suns shall gild his brow:\n\nBaby baby, What art Thou?\n\n\n                             EARLY MORNING\n\nThe thrush sings meditative high in the bare oak-boughs\u2014while the still\nApril morning just drops with faint rain, and the honeysuckle climbs\nsnakelike with green wings among the underwood;\n\nThe voice of the ploughman sounds across the valley, and the cackle of\nthe farmyard mingles with the rumble of a distant train on its way to\nthe great city:\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhere, in her boudoir, by the light of the dying fire\u2014the shutters yet\nclosed and the candles guttered and gone out\u2014she lies, the Paris beauty,\nnaked on her low tiger-skin couch;\n\nAnd he, her lover, naked too, on the floor beside her has slipped\u2014his\nhead bent forward, and asleep\u2014with her hand in his dark short hair.\n\n\n                           THE GOLDEN WEDDING\n\nNow fifty years through wind and sun and rain,\n\nThrough the sweet heyday of youth, through life\u2019s maturity and age,\n\nWe\u2019ve bloomed and withered, dearest, side by side,\n\nTwo trees upon one root.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nRememberest thou\n\nHow hand in hand schoolwards we ran, we two,\n\nWith tiny feet? Yes, we two, is it not strange?\n\nOr later how the merry pealing bells rang us to Church (no music I\nthought like them);\n\nThen we reared five children, fell on troublous times, and toiled and\nsuffered till we tired of life.\n\nAnd they went one by one, and launched upon the world and sailed away,\n\nProud, with all canvas set, while we are left,\n\nOld battered wrecks\u2014here in this cottage of the hills\u2014and wondering\n\nWhich the great waves of time will first wash down.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd now dearest one, through all this lapse of years I look into your\neyes,\n\nAnd see them deep as ever;\n\nTheir beauty is to me a passion just as ever,\n\nVoiceless, unfathomable, that no time can touch.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nIf the great gulf should come and swallow me in sheer oblivion\u2014still it\nis good to have known thee;\n\nBut that thou should\u2019st die,\n\nThat thou should\u2019st perish from thyself and cease to be,\n\nI cannot credit. Somewhere nearer God,\n\nWhen this thick mortal slumber has gone by,\n\nWe shall perchance awaken.\n\n\n                       THE MOTHER TO HER DAUGHTER\n\nBeautiful child that launchest out on the great sea of life,\n\nSoon I, thy Mother, must leave thee: soon the dark shall close me in,\nand leave thee alone in the bright sunshine.\n\nAnd thy lovers shall come and make love to thee: they shall lay their\nfortunes at thy feet, and their strength and the glory of their manhood;\n\nThey shall desire thee, for thou art beautiful as the silver sickle moon\narising in heaven before the dawn.\n\nYet when they come forget not me, O my child: be not deceived by their\nwords;\n\nFor none ever again shall love thee as I love thee, none ever again\nshall know, as I know, thy hidden thoughts\u2014none shall read the light\nthat plays upon thy face as I can read it.\n\nThese shall love thee for themselves: they shall seek thee in order to\npossess thee; but I have given all that I have to thee.\n\nAll the years that we have been together since thou first pressed thy\ntiny palm upon my breast to look into my face, until now;\n\nI have given myself to thee.\n\nBefore thy feet, or ever thou couldst walk, my love has walked, my\nthoughts have circled thee, my desire has made thee very beautiful.\n\nIf I might pray, I pray that when thou hast known the love of man\n\nThou, too, may\u2019st become a mother, and so even through travail and\nsuffering may\u2019st know the greater love.\n\nThen far away down the years thou shalt remember me;\n\nAs when one ascends a mountain the opposite mountain lifts itself higher\nand higher, so as thou goest farther from me I will grow upon thee\nclearer and closer even than now.\n\n\n                         A SPRIG OF ARISTOCRACY\n\nBrowned by the sun, with face elate and joyous,\n\nPitching hay all day in the wide and fragrant hayfields,\n\nFrank and free, careless of wealth (preferring to do something useful,\nand to champion the poor and aged)\u2014\n\nO splendid boy, with many more like thee,\n\nEngland might from her unclean wallowing rise again and live.\n\n\n                           A SCENE IN LONDON\n\nBoth of them deaf, and close on eighty years old;\n\nShe stone blind, and he nearly so;\n\nSide by side crouching over the fire in a little London hovel\u2014six\nshillings a week\u2014\n\nTheir joints knotted with rheumatism, their faces all day long mute like\nstatues of all passing expression (no cloud flying by, no gleam of\nsunshine there)\u2014lips closed and silent:\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut for that now and then taking his pipe out of his mouth,\n\nHe puts his face close to her ear and yells just a word into it,\n\nAnd she nods her blind head and gives a raucous screech in answer,\n\n\n                             S. JAMES\u2019 PARK\n\nAn island ringed with surf\u2014\n\nA cool green shade and tiny enchanted spot of trees and flowers and\nfountains\u2014\n\nThe ocean raging round it.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe roar of London interminably stretching, interminably sounding,\n\nGreat waves of human life breaking, millions of drops together, torrents\nof vehicles pouring, business men marching, gangs of workmen, soldiers,\nloafers, street hawkers;\n\nShopkeepers running out of their shops to look at their own windows, a\nwoman seized with birth-pangs on a doorstep, ragamuffins and children\nswirling by eddies and rapids of fashion;\n\nThe everlasting tide, ebbing a little at night rising again in the\nday\u2014with fierce continuous roaring\u2014\n\nYet infringing not on the little island.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHere only a little spray, a dull and distant reverberation;\n\nIn the soft shade a pleasant drowsy air, the willows hanging their\nbranches to the water;\n\nThe drake preening his feathers in the sun, or swimming among the flags\nby the pond side, regardless of Nelson peering over the tree-tops from\nhis column, taking no note of the great clock-face of Westminster.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nOnly a little spray, broken water.\n\nDrop by drop, one by one, or here and there in twos,\n\nSpecimens, items out of the deep.\n\nThe baker\u2019s man, working 15 hours a day, leaves his handcart in a\nconvenient spot outside and puts in a quiet quarter of an hour here with\na novel;\n\nThe old woman\u2014her thumb gathered and disabled by incessant work on\ncrape\u2014now as a matter of course thrown out of employ\u2014goes along moaning\nand muttering to herself;\n\nThe pursy old gentleman who has made his money out of the mourning\nwarehouse also goes along;\n\nThe footman on an errand walks leisurely by, the French nurse plays with\nthe little English children;\n\nThe rather elegant young lady meets her man by appointment at one of the\ngarden seats; they study Bradshaw together in an undertone, revolving\nplans;\n\nThe middle-aged widower comes along\u2014thin, so thin, dressed all in black,\nseeing nothing, hearing nothing\u2014sitting down for a moment, then up\nagain\u2014resting only in constant movement;\n\nThe tramp, with dead expressionless face\u2014the man who is not wanted, to\nwhom every one says No\u2014comes along, and throws himself listlessly down\nunder the trees.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nOnly a little spray, broken water.\n\nThe summer sun falls peaceful on the grass,\n\nThe tide of traffic rises a little during the day and ebbs again at\nnight,\n\nBut the great roaring bates not\u2014breaks the surf\n\nOf human life forever on this shore.\n\n\n              THE TWIN STATUES OF AMENOPHIS III AT THEBES\n\nThousands of years\u2014\n\nAs now with the light of evening on their heads and featureless faces,\ntheir bases wrapt in gloom\u2014\n\nAll the hours before dawn or after sunset, in the clear circling of the\nmoon and stars, or through the long cloudless day, braving the terrific\nheat,\n\nWhile the caravans of camels go by below, and the peasant ploughs with\nhis ancient plough, or reaps his clover and lupins\u2014century after\ncentury;\n\nAnd the flood-waters of the Nile wash up and recede again, and the sun\ndarkens in the occasional sandstorm or rarer shower of rain\u2014\n\nThousands of years:\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nLike great rocks, human, colossal, part of the Earth itself,\n\nCosmic, wondrous, far-back allegories of the human soul,\n\nThey sit looking out over the world while the generations pass.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd the travelers come and gaze\u2014and go away again, wondering what they\nmeant who made such things;\n\nThe philosophers of Greece come, and Alexander comes, and the Roman\nEmperors come; and the Christian fathers and monks (fit successors of\nthe Egyptian), and the Mahomedan conquerors, and Napoleon, and the\nscientific men, come\u2014and go away again;\n\nAnd the wandering Arabs come and light their camp-fires\u2014and go away\nagain; and the Cook\u2019s tourist comes and goes away again;\n\nAnd the river changes its course, and the mountains crumble in the heat\nof the sun, and the sandhills shift, and villages are built and are\nburied;\n\nBut of him who placed the figures there these words do survive:\u2014\n\n\u201cI, Amenhotep, have made the name of the king immortal, and no one has\never done as I have in my works;\n\nI made these two statues of the king\u2014wondrous huge and high, forty\ncubits, dwarfing the Temple front\u2014\n\nIn the great sandstone mountains I made them, one on each side, east and\nwest;\n\nAnd I caused eight ships to be built, whereon they were floated up the\nriver;\n\nAnd placed them here\u2014to last as long as heaven.\u201d\n\n\n                        \u2018ARTEMIDORUS, FAREWELL\u2019\n\n(_inscribed on a mummy case in the British Museum_)\n\n          Artemidorus, farewell.\n          No more no more thy dear lips shall I touch,\n          Nor kiss thy hands\u2014those clinging hands in mine;\n          Thy gentle eyes\u2014ah! shall we never gaze\n          Again upon each other?\n          Artemidorus, dearest, dearest one,\n          Leave me, O leave me not.\n\n          All the sweet hours that by the Nile we sat\n          In palm-tree shade, and watched the swallows dip;\n          Or when we first met at the sacred tank\n          Deep in the garden grounds of Arsaphes,\n          And told our secrets (heed\u2019st thou?) to the fishes!\n          The lotus filling all the air with scent,\n          The pigeons wheeling, hundreds, overhead\u2014\n          By our sweet love and laughter, then and since,\n          A thousand times, and all thy quips and pranks,\n          Leave me O leave me not.\n\n          Where shall I go? what do? why live? O why\n          Remain when thou art gone? There\u2019s nothing left.\n          The nights so long, with pain pain at my heart;\n          The days, the staring Sun, and every sight\n          Shooting an arrow at me.\n          Could I but see thee once, or hope to see\u2014\n          One hair of thy head, one finger of thy hand,\n          To hear one little word more from thy lips\u2014\n          \u2019Twere more than all the world. But now the priests\n          Have got thee in their clutches; and already\n          They wrap the sacred linen o\u2019er thy head,\n          Thy features and thy hair they cover up,\n          And round thy arms thy fingers and thy hands\n          They wind and wind and wind and wind the bands,\n          And I shall see thee nevermore, my own.\n          And then they\u2019ll paint\n          Thy likeness on the outer mummy case,\n          And stand it by the wall, as if to mock me,\n          Throwing my arms around a lifeless shell,\n          Breaking my heart against it.\n\n          And in a hundred years stray folk will come\n          And ask, \u201cWho was Artemidorus pray?\u201d\n          Nor listen for an answer\u2014if in sooth\n          There\u2019s any that can give one. And in time\n          Strangers perhaps will overrun our land\n          And violate thy coffin, and unbind\n          With sacrilegious hands the rags, and find\n          Only a little dust\u2014Ah! nothing else....\n          And I shall be a little dust too then....\n          And whether lord Osiris, the good God,\n          Will hold our twin souls safely in his hand\n          Three thousand years through internatal forms\n          Of bird or beast or serpent, in reserve\n          For that new day they say has yet to dawn;\n          Or whether He too will chance fade to dust\n          Forgetting and forgotten of all men\u2014\n          Behold I know not.... Only this I know\n          Of all the words we said in joke or earnest,\n          And vows we vowed, and solemn troth we plighted,\n          And all the multitudinous chatter and idle tales\n          And laughter that we got through, like two streams\n          That babble for mere gladness down the lands,\n          Artemidorus dear,\n          Dearest of all things either in earth or heaven,\n          For the long silence but one word remains,\n          Remains but this\u2014\u201cFarewell.\u201d\n\n\n                          FROM TURIN TO PARIS\n\nTireless, hour after hour, over mountains plains and rivers,\n\nThe express train rushes on\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe shadows change, the sun and moon rise and set;\n\nDay fades into night, and night into day,\n\nThe great cities appear and disappear over the horizon.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nOn through the hot vineyards of Piedmont the express train rushes;\n\nThe great-limbed Ligurian peasant sprawls asleep in the third-class\ncarriage which has been put on for a portion of the course;\n\nThe calm grave country girls droop their lids to slumber;\n\nThe huge unwieldy friar with elephantine limbs, small eyes, and snout\nlike an ant-eater\u2014not a particle of religion in his whole body\u2014gazes\nblankly out of the window;\n\nAnd the young mother with black lace on her head looks after her little\nbrood.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nOn through the hot vineyards in the fierce afternoon the express train\nrushes\u2014the villages on the hill-tops twinkle through the blaze\u2014the\nfireman opens the furnace-door of the engine and stokes up again and\nagain.\n\nThe first-class passengers dispose themselves as best they may, with\nblinds down, on the hot and dusty cushions;\n\nThe respectable and cold-mutton-faced English gentleman and his wife and\ndaughters, the blas\u00e9 Chinaman with yellow fan, the little Persian boy so\nbrown, lying asleep against the side of his instructor,\n\nThe deeply-lined large-faced shaven old Frenchman, the Italian artist,\nbearded, nearing forty years old, with expressive mouth and clear\ndiscerning eyes,\n\nDispose themselves as best they may.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe sides of the carriages lie open, like glass.\n\nThe young priest fresh from College recites his evensong, then addresses\nhimself to the conversion of his Protestant fellow-traveler\u2014I see his\nwinning manners at first, and then his intimidatory frowns followed by\nthreats of hell-fire;\n\nThe group of laughing girls in one compartment are talking three or four\nlanguages;\n\nIn another an Italian officer leans close in conversation to a\nyellow-haired young woman, and touches her lightly every now and then on\nthe arm;\n\nIn a third sits a bedizened old hag, purveyor of human flesh\u2014with great\ngreedy clever eyes (once beautiful under their still long lashes), deep\nwrinkles (yet not one of wisdom or of sorrow), and thin cruel lips;\n\nOn a frequent errand from London to Italy she travels;\n\nI hear her pious expressions as she talks to the lady sitting opposite\nto her\u2014I note her habit of turning up her eyes as of one shocked;\n\nAnd still the train rushes on, and the fields fly past and the\nvineyards.\n\n\n                                   2\n\nDusk closes down, and the train rushes on and on;\n\nThe mountains stand rank behind rank, and valley beyond valley,\n\nTowering up and up over the clouds even into broad day again.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nLo! the great measureless slopes with receding dwindling perspective of\ntrees and habitations;\n\nHere at their foot the trellised gardens, and rivers roaring under the\nstone bridges of towns,\n\nAnd there the far ledges where the tumbled roofs of tiny hamlets are\nperched\u2014the terrace after terrace of vine and wheat, the meadows with\ngrass and flowers;\n\nThe zigzag path, the lonely chalet, the patches of cultivation almost\ninaccessible,\n\nThe chestnut woods, and again the pinewoods, and beyond again, where no\ntrees are, the solitary pasturages;\n\n[The hidden upper valleys bare of all but rocks and grass\u2014they too with\ntheir churches and villages;]\n\nAnd beyond the pasturages, aye beyond the bare rocks, through the great\ngirdle of the clouds\u2014high high in air\u2014\n\nThe inaccessible world of ice, scarce trodden of men.\n\n\n                                   3\n\nThere the rich sunlight dwells, calm like an aureole of glory, over a\nthousand forms of snow and rock clear-cut delaying.\n\nBut below in the dusk along the mountain-bases the train climbs\npainfully,\n\nCrossing the putty-colored ice-cold streams again and again with tardy\nwheel;\n\nTill the great summit tunnel is reached, then tilting forward,\n\nWith many a roar and rush and whistle and scream from gallery to gallery\n\nIt flies\u2014rolls like a terror-stricken thing down the great slopes into\nthe darkness\u2014and night falls in the valleys.\n\n\n                                   4\n\nHere too then also, and without fail, as everywhere else,\n\nThe same old human face looking forth\u2014\n\nWhether in the high secluded valleys where all winter comes no sound\nfrom the outer world, or whether by the side of the great iron road\nwhere the plate-layer runs to bring a passenger a cup of cold water, or\nwhether loafing in the market-place of the fourth-rate country town\u2014the\nsame.\n\nHere too from the door of her little wooden tenement the worn face\nlooking forth\u2014fringed with grey hair and cap\u2014the old woman peering\nanxiously down the road for her old man;\n\n[Saw you not how when he left her in the morning, how anxiously, how\nlovingly, with what strange transformation of countenance\u2014Death close\nbehind her\u2014she prayed him early to return?]\n\nThe little boy with big straw hat and short blouse bringing the goats\nhome at evening, the gape-mouthed shortpetticoated squaw that\naccompanies him;\n\nThe peasant lying in the field face downwards and asleep, while his wife\nand children finish the remainder of his meal; the bullock-faced workers\non the roads or over the lands;\n\nEver the same human face, ever the same brute men and women\u2014poignant\nwith what divine obscure attractions!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd the dainty-handed Chinaman in the first-class carriage surveys them\nas he passes, with mental comparisons;\n\nAnd the string of mules waits at the railroad crossing in the last dusk\nas the train thunders by, and the navvy with great shady hat and grey\nflannel shirt, and scarf round his waist, waits;\n\nAnd the inhabitants of opposite hemispheres exchange glances with one\nanother for a moment.\n\n\n                                   5\n\nThe night wears on\u2014and yet the same steady onward speed\u2014the draw of the\ngreat cities, Paris and London, beginning already to be felt;\n\nThe pause for a few minutes at a junction\u2014the good coffee and milk, the\nwarm peaceful air, the late moon just rising, the few poplars near, the\nmountains now faint in the distance behind;\n\nThe faces seen within the cars, hour after hour, with closed eyes, the\nchanged equalised expression of them, the overshadowing humanity\u2014\n\n(The great unconscious humanity in each one!)\n\nThe old bedizened hag overshadowed,\n\nThe young priest and his recalcitrant opponent both equally\novershadowed\u2014their arguments so merely nothing at all; the beautiful\nartist-face overshadowed;\n\nThe unsafe tunnel passed in the dead of the night, the slow tentative\nmovement of the train, the forms and faces of men within\u2014visible by the\nlight of their own lanterns, anxious with open mouths looking upward at\nthe roof\u2014all overshadowed;\n\nThe little traveler asleep with his head on the lap of his\ninstructor\u2014the Persian boy\u2014traveling he too on a long journey, farther\nthan London or Paris;\n\nThe westward swing of the great planets through the night, the faint\nearly dawn, the farms and fields flying past once more;\n\nThe great sad plains of Central France, the few trees, the innumerable\ncultivation, the peasants going out so early to work,\n\nThe rising of the sun, for a new day\u2014the great red ball so bold rising\nunblemished on all the heart-ache and suffering, the plans, the schemes,\nthe hopes, the desires, the despairs of millions\u2014\n\nAnd the glitter and the roar already, and the rush of the life of Paris.\n\n\n                           TO THE END OF TIME\n\nKnow that to the end of Time and the remotest corner of Space there is\nnothing that you cannot take for your own\u2014nothing without personal\nrelation to yourself, body and soul: to this body, sweet, bitter,\npainful, pleasurable, fatal\u2014to that, equal. Not the most fatal drug but\nfeeds that one, not years of slow exile or of illness.\n\nThrough this life, that life\u2014the two always conjoined; through failure,\nstedfastness; through the sight of the change and flow of things,\nimmortality; through the magnificence and splendor of nature (I speak to\nyou now seated on some wooded slope or hill\u2014the birds, the buds, the sky\nafter rain), yourself equal in magnificence and splendor.\n\n\n                        ON THE EVE OF DEPARTURE\n\nAlways on the eve of departure,\n\nThy goods all packed, thy testament signed and witnessed,\n\nTouching with lightest touch all offerings life lays at thy feet:\n\nThis is thy fate, O blest one!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAfter the day\u2019s work leaving the papers behind on the desk, the tools on\nthe bench,\n\nLetting the garden-line remain in the garden, leaving the newly\nsharpened pick in the hardening trough,\n\nLeaving the scissors and the sleeve-board on the floor where they fell,\nand the waistcoat-lining unfinished on the machine,\n\nLetting go all the plans and purposes of the day, forgetting about them\nas if they had never been:\n\nLo! this is thy fate, O blest one!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe chains of office round your neck, yet to uncoil and lay them quietly\naside,\n\nThe cares of state that have held you since morning holding you no\nlonger, the axe-handle relaxing its grasp on you;\n\nOut of the old ever-passing, free as air,\n\nFor the acceptance of all, and the praise and blame of men, alike\nwithout prejudice:\n\nLo! this is thy fate, O blest one!\n\n\n                                ARENZANO\n\nIn the great Church over the little fishing-village,\n\nIn the gloom of evening and of the spacious interior\u2014only a few candles\nlighted over a side altar\u2014\n\n[The great doors wide open to the twilight over the bay, with\nsilhouettes of figures entering, and continual tread of feet upon the\nstone floor]\u2014\n\nThere in the dusk the fisher-wives kneel and pray:\n\n_Ave Maria, ave, ave._\n\nA great throng, hardly visible, with shawls thrown over their heads\u2014and\nmen and children:\n\n_Ave Maria, ave, ave._\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe long monotonous semi-savage refrain and wash of voices,\n\nUnending, like the rhythm of the sea itself,\n\nThe untrained choir, the rise suspense and breaking of the wave of\ntrebles, the answer of the basses in passionate iteration\u2014the mesmeric\ninfluence\u2014\n\nThe great Christ over the main altar, half lost in gloom, with arms\noutstretched, and crucified,\n\nThe faint sweet smell of incense,\n\nThe long Past:\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe long Past from which it all comes\u2014\n\nStrange voices and refrains,\n\nAs from the coasts of Tyre, and the worship of Ashtoreth,\n\nOr this is Isis the ever-virgin Madonna and her infant Horus\u2014one with\nthe Virgin of the stars\u2014\n\nOr this the antiphonal music of the psalms\n\nWithin the Jewish Temple.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe same great needs of human life all down the ages\u2014\n\nEach tiny drop to feel the living wave it forms a part of;\n\nDear Love; and Death; the narrow clear-cut bounded present, the dread\nUnknown, the children clinging to each other\u2014\n\nNot one that dies, not one the waves engulf,\n\nBut tears and agony to those remaining.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAh! who can tell and who can see the end?\n\nMan that art God yet perishest as grass!\n\nI sit here in a corner of thy world-old temple\u2014\n\n(Here in this old fishing-village just as much as anywhere else)\u2014\n\nIn the dark unknown unnoticed I sit,\n\nAnd hear the ceaseless sounding of Thy Sea,\n\nAnd join the _Ave Maria, ave, ave_.\n\n\n                             O TENDER HEART\n\nO tender heart of our humanity,\n\nO bleeding sacred heart, with tears of ages.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nDear Mother, once on earth, now glorified\u2014\n\nThy arms outstretched in love o\u2019er all creation\u2014\n\nThy husk lies by the sea-shore, which Thou once\n\nDidst thus and thus inhabit (parted now,\n\nFor it could ne\u2019er contain Thee).\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nO buds and blooms of Spring once more returning,\n\nBright waters flowing, O heavenly blue still shining,\n\nAnd Thou still spreading over all and changeless,\n\nO tender heart of our humanity,\n\nO bleeding sacred heart, with tears of ages.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nArise Thou glorified,\n\nYear after year\u2014leaving thy mortal days behind\u2014\n\nDear mother in the great unseen impending,\n\nSlowly creation orbs about thy form.\n\nI follow where thou walkedst. I behold\n\nWhere ages back on earth Thou still didst pass;\n\nI see thee in the streets to-day disguised;\n\nThy spirit glides eternal\u2014and I follow,\n\nKissing the sacred foot-prints as I go.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll suffering for thy dear sake is holy\u2014\n\n(O thorn-crowned brow, O bleeding sacred heart)\u2014\n\nThou that didst bear me and thy children all\n\nWith bitter pangs and sorrow for thy cup\n\n(Thy thin hands laid at last within the grave),\n\nAll suffering for thy dear sake is holy.\n\n\n                               THE CARTER\n\nSo in the dirt, amid the filthy smoke and insensate din of the great\ncity,\n\nInto my attic came my friend the carter and sat with me for a while.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nYoung and worn, these are the words he said:\n\n\u201cNever before could I have believed it, but I see it all now;\n\nThere is nothing like it\u2014no happiness\u2014when you have clean dropped\nthinking about yourself.\n\nBut you must not do it by halves\u2014while ever there is the least grain of\nself left it will spoil all;\n\nYou must just leave it all behind\u2014and yourself be the same as others;\n\nIf they want anything, and you want it, well it is the same who gets it;\n\nYou cannot be disappointed then.\n\nI do not say it is not hard, but I know there is nothing\u2014no\nhappiness\u2014like it;\n\nIt is a new life, and them that has never tasted it, they have no idea\nwhat it is.\u201d\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThus in the din and dirt of the city, as over the mountain tops and in\nthe far forests alone with Nature,\n\nI saw the unimaginable form dwelling, whom no mortal eye may see,\n\nThe unimaginable form of Man, tenant of the Earth from far ages, seen of\nthe wise in all times\u2014\n\nDwelling also in the youthful carter.\n\n\n                            THE STONE-CUTTER\n\n\u201cAnd men to-day\u2014are they not always running about to do something?\n\nBut He says: _I have finished the work that Thou gavest me to do._\u201d\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThus to me the stone-cutter, with chisel and mallet in hand all the\nwhile dishing out a sump-cover,\n\nStanding out there in the Sun, in the light July breeze so cool,\n\nSpoke the words of Christ\u2014the old indestructible words\u2014which all down\nthe ages,\n\nWhether in the mouth of stone-cutter or carpenter,\n\nEmerge time after time from the heart of the people.\n\n\n                         THE VOICE OF ONE BLIND\n\nBlind, ah! blind\u2014it has come upon me now\u2014\n\nA veil thickening between the world and me.\n\n[I saw them move through it\u2014saw the dear faces and figures as in a fluid\nhaze,\n\nAnd then they blurred, and then I saw them not.]\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAlone? Ah no! who shall describe the joy that has come upon me?\n\nThe blow that should have crushed me broke my chains,\n\nAnd I, that was the prisoner, am free.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nSweet\u2014all of fever fled\u2014all calm now and peaceful,\n\nTo feel the warm sun on my hands, or traveling along my forehead,\n\nTo hear the sounds\u2014the rustling of the breeze or chirrup of the birds,\nthe kettle singing or the turned page of the book my loved one reads\u2014\n\nThe touches and the hands, the voices and the sweet caresses;\n\nHow they come nearer, now!\n\nI go no more to seek, I stay at home, and let them come to me.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd sweet sweet visions\u2014\n\nAh! forms I saw not when my eyes were clear\u2014\n\nSons, daughters, brothers, sisters, mortal friends,\n\nWhat gods are come about me?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd Thou above all:\n\nThou, gracious presence, sweet enfolding me\n\nFar far within, touching me nearest of all,\n\nAs through so many ages men and women Thou with the sweetness of thy\nlove hast ravished:\n\nSo I touch them through Thee\u2014through Thee to all\n\nI am come nearer now.\n\n\n                        A SONG OF ONE IN OLD AGE\n\nWeary and broken, old age, art thou now come upon me?\n\nMy faculties drying up like pools of water in summer,\n\nMy body dying, my brain rusting, my heart-beat dull and torpid\u2014\n\nFalling off like a dead leaf from the tree, unheeded, useless\u2014\n\nIs this old age then? lonely, ah! how lonely!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe world hurries by so light and glad and joyous\u2014each man following his\ncall: but I without any;\n\nThe spring returns with the budding leaves on the beech so fresh, and\nthe virgin grass, and the foals and young calves in the fields: as it\nhas returned so oft before; but I am old and must die\u2014there is no place\nfor me any longer;\n\nAt night in dreams the faces return to me\u2014the faces that I loved, ah!\ndearest faces!\u2014but when I wake the world is changed, all changed: there\nis no place for them any longer, but strangers are around me.\n\nHow should love come to me\u2014what is there that any one should seek me?\nWho will pause for the empty husk of a man, and shall I be a supplicant\nfor pity?\n\nHow could I ever have guessed when I was young that this would come upon\nme\u2014and yet it has come upon me, as it has come upon so many millions\nbefore?\n\nTo die\u2014that is it. This at last is what I have so often counted on\u2014to\ndie, to be effaced, to be made of no account\u2014and now it is forced upon\nme whether I will or no.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nO Death, I shall conquer thee yet.\n\nDidst thou think to terrify me?\u2014but lo! was I not dead before thou\ncamest?\n\nLong long years ago did I not abandon this frail tenement, all but in\nname?\u2014was not my last furniture packed up and ready to be transported?\n\nThe virgin grass received me, and the beech trees so tenderly green in\nspring, and the bodies of my lovers that I loved:\n\nThey became my dwelling, and I forgot that I existed.\n\nI passed freely and floated on the ocean of which before I had only been\npart of the shore,\n\nI took up my refuge beyond the limits where thou couldst come.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nYet now once more confined,\n\nHere in this prison cell while the walls grow thicker\u2014of all I was a\nlittle spark waits yet its liberation.\n\nCome quickly, Death, and loose this last remainder of me\u2014shatter the\nwalls,\n\nBreak down this body of mine, and let me go.\n\nOr else,\n\nIn patience let me wait seeing fulfilled\n\nThat which I sought so long\u2014to be effaced.\n\nHidden I wait\u2014this old husk suits me well\u2014for who will guess the\nlikeness of me through it?\n\nThis is my invisible cap wherein I\u2019ll ramble yet through many byways of\nsweet human life.\n\nAnd thou too, stranger, shalt pity me if thou wilt, and I will accept\nthy pity gratefully\u2014\n\nYet after all perhaps the best gift of the two\n\nI\u2019ll give to thee.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nOld age, old age?\u2014No! only there outside.\n\nHere where I am \u2019tis everlasting youth.\n\nThis is where the virgin grass springs from, I see, and the loves that\nclothe the frame of humanity.\n\nOut of this old shell passing I begin again\u2014there is no death here,\nthere can be no death,\n\nOnly perpetual joy.\n\n\n                             IN EXTREME AGE\n\nUnto Thee, O Nature, I abandon myself:\n\nAccept me, thou beautiful,\n\nMarred and deformed and stunted take me from myself\n\nUnto thy own great uses.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nLo, I outgrow this body! painfully\n\nMy life ebbs yet and flows again within it.\n\nThese hands and feet, these eyes and brain, these senses, faculties,\nhave served their turn\u2014\n\nThe dinted tools I render back to Thee.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAs when a boy I sat upon the beach in the sun, and watched the sparkling\nwaves,\n\nSo now in extreme age sitting here\n\nI trace no change\u2014scarce any change at all.\n\nSome little work done, some formal knowledge gained, some passages of\nsweet or sad experience;\n\nBut all these only outworks, falling off,\n\nLeave me the same that I have been through life.\n\n(So little one life\u2014so brief, slight, a thing.)\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nTill now at length, feeling Thee gather round me close,\n\nClose, closer, closer yet,\n\nAt last the bounds dissolve which kept us twain,\n\nAnd I and Thou are one, and I alone am not.\n\n\n                          AFTER THE DAY\u2019S WORK\n\nPassing by, passing by all exteriors,\n\nSwimming floating on the Ocean that has innumerable bays\u2014\n\nI too at length nestle down in thy breast, O humanity;\n\nTired I abandon myself to thee, to be washed from the dust of life in\nthy waves.\n\n\n                             I SAW A VISION\n\nI saw a vision of Earth\u2019s multitudes going up and down over the\nEarth\u2014and I saw the great earth itself wheeling and careering onward\nthrough space.\n\nAnd behold! here and there to one among the multitude a change came;\n\nAnd to whomsoever it came continued onward apparently as before\u2014yet as\nfrom the larva springs the perfect image,\n\nSo (as it appeared to me) from that mortal form a new being, long long\nlong in preparation, glided silently up unobserved into the breathless\npure height of the sky.\n\n\n                           AH! BLESSED IS HE\n\nAh! blessed is he that hath escaped\u2014\n\nWhom love hath opened the doors of his cage:\n\nNo more returning\n\nShall he be subject again to sin and sorrow.\n\n\n                            THE GREAT LEADER\n\nI use my name and powers, I use my great prestige,\n\nAs a joiner uses a tool: they serve my purpose well.\n\nNevertheless think not that I regard them\n\nExcept as things to be destroyed in using.\n\n\n                              I ACCEPT YOU\n\nI accept you altogether\u2014as the sea accepts the fish that swim in it.\n\nIt is no good apologising for anything you have done, for you have never\nbeen anywhere yet but what I have sustained you\u2014\n\nAnd beyond my boundaries you cannot go.\n\n\n                                  SOL\n\nCoruscating flame I behold the soul,\n\nMine, yours, whoever it may be\u2014\n\nDarting great tongues of flame thousands of miles long,\n\nThousands of years.\n\n\n                               A GLIMPSE\n\nHere at last having arrived I take my rest, my long long fill of rest,\nno more to move;\n\nThe roaring subsides, the wheels cease to go round, a calm falls on\nall\u2014the stars and the daisies shine out visibly from the bosom of God.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nYou cannot baulk me of my true life.\n\nClimbing over the barriers of pain\u2014of my own weaknesses and sins\u2014I\nescape.\n\nWhere will you hold me? by the feet, hands? by my personal vanity? would\nyou shut me in the mirror-lined prison of self-consciousness?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nBehold! I acknowledge all my defects\u2014you cannot snap the handcuffs\nfaster on me than I snap them myself: I am vain, deceitful, cowardly\u2014yet\nI escape.\n\nThe handcuffs hold me not, out of my own hands I draw myself as out of a\nglove; from behind the empty mask of my reputed qualities I depart, and\nam gone my way,\n\nUnconcerned what I leave behind me.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nInto the high air which surrounds and sustains the world,\n\nBreathing life, intoxicating, with joy unutterable, radiant,\n\nAs the wind of Spring when the dead leaves fly before it\u2014\n\nI depart and am gone my way.\n\n\n                        THE LONG DAY IN THE OPEN\n\nHour after hour passes by, the Sun wheels on, the clouds disperse and\nre-form;\n\nOn all I have to do thou lookest O Nature, I have nothing to conceal\nfrom thee; O Moon traveling so close over the hills,\n\nDost thou not say what I have to say, are not our purposes one?\n\n\n                               THE IDLER\n\nI am he that beholds and praises the universe,\n\nSinging all day like a bird among the branches,\n\nAnd the leaves put forth and the young buds burst asunder\u2014yet I myself\ndo nothing at all,\n\nBut dwell in the midst of them, singing.\n\n\n                     IN THE DEEP CAVE OF THE HEART\n\nIn the deep cave of the heart, far down,\n\nRunning under the outward shows of the world and of people,\n\nRunning under geographies, continents, under the fields and the roots of\nthe grasses and trees, under the little thoughts and dreams of men, and\nthe history of races,\n\nDeep, far down,\n\nI see feel and hear wondrous and divine things.\n\nVoices and faces are there; arms of lovers, known and unknown, reach\nforward and fold me;\n\nWords float, and fragrance of Time ascends, and Life ever circling.\n\n\n _Fly messenger! through the streets of the cities ancle-plumed Mercury\n                                 fly!_\n\n_Swift sinewy runner with arm held up on high!_\n\n_Naked along the wind, thy beautiful feet_\n\n_Glancing over the mountains, under the sun,_\n\n_By meadows and water-sides,\u2014into the great towns like a devouring\nflame,_\n\n_Through slums and vapors and dismal suburban streets,_\n\n_With startling of innumerable eyes\u2014fly, messenger, fly!_\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n_Joy joy, the glad news!_\n\n_For he whom we wait is risen!_\n\n_He is descended among his children\u2014_\n\n_He is come to dwell on the Earth!_\n\n\n                         THE COMING OF THE LORD\n\nI heard a voice saying:\n\nSon of Man stretch forth thy hand over the earth\u2014and over the sea-coasts\nand seas and cities of the earth:\n\nI, the King, am come to dwell in my own lands\u2014I am descended among the\nchildren of men.\n\n[Blessed art thou whosoever from whose eyes the veil is lifted to see\nMe;\n\nBlessed are thy mornings and evenings\u2014blessed the hour when thou risest\nup, and again when thou liest down to sleep.]\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHere on this rock in the sun, where the waves obedient wash at my feet,\nwhere the fisherman passing spreads his net on the sands,\n\nI the King sit waiting.\n\nThis mountain is my throne\u2014I breathe the incense of the myriad-laden\nmeadows;\n\nThe little white-washed cottages lie below me, and there my dwelling is\nalso.\n\n\n                                   2\n\nSee you not Me? though I stand in the height of heaven,\n\nGlorious in all forms, am I become as a nothing before you?\n\nThough I walk through the street with a basket on my arm, or leaning on\na stick\u2014or loiter in many disguises?\n\nSee you not Me,\n\nWho have looked in your eyes so long for that glance of recognition?\n\nYet when you see me no form of maid or boy, or one mature or aged,\n\nOr the truth of anything shall escape you.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn the streets of the cities, where the horses\u2019 hoofs sound hollow upon\nthe asphalte, and the old woman sits by her tray,\n\nAnd the babble of voices goes by as you stand at the corner,\n\nI will pass with the rest\u2014you shall see me and not mistake me.\n\nThe woods no more shall be merely a cover for wild animals, or so much\nvalue in timber, nor the fields for their crops alone,\n\nFor I have trodden them\u2014they are holy\u2014and my foot-prints are over all\nthe land.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWho walks in singleness of heart shall be my companion\u2014I will reveal\nmyself to him by ways that the learned understand not.\n\nThough he be poor and ignorant I will be his friend\u2014I will swear\nfaithfulness to him, passing my lips to his, and my hand to betwixt his\nthighs.\n\n\n                                   3\n\nWhere I pass, all my children know me;\n\nMy feet tread naked the grass of the valleys, the trees know me by\nname\u2014they hear my voice\u2014the brook with heaped up waters rushes past me.\n\n[O voices breaking out over the earth, O singing singing singing!]\n\nMy sun shines glorious in heaven, and my moon to adorn the night;\n\nThey are my right hand and my left hand\u2014see you not Me between?\n\n[Hark! my children sing\u2014all day and night they are singing!]\n\n\n                                   4\n\nO child\u2014you whom I touch now, having watched over you so long, so long\u2014\n\nAre you worthy to follow and behold me?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nLeaving all, leaving all behind,\n\nCaring no more for the world, for all your projects and purposes, than\nif you had been stunned by a blow on the head,\n\nLeaving all to me, absolutely all to me,\n\nThen may-be you shall see me.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nFor though you shall carry on where you are placed, and shall not\nforsake your post, though you shall be unwearied, giving all that you\nhave out of love to the least capable of making a return, though you\nshall be active before the world,\n\nYet shall you not act at all, not one single thing shall you do\u2014but I\nwill do it for you.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAfter that the arrows shall not pierce you, nor the heavy rain wet you,\nthe shafts of malice shall not penetrate to you, nor the fire though it\nconsume your body shall consume you;\n\nBut the sun shall shine, and the faces glance each morning afresh upon\nyou,\n\nFor joy, for joy\u2014and joy.\n\nI the Lord Demos have spoken it: and the mountains are my throne.\n\n\n                         THE CURSE OF PROPERTY\n\nAre they not mine, saith the Lord, the everlasting hills?\n\n(Where over the fir-tree tops I glance to the valleys.)\n\nThe rich meads with brown and white cattle, and streams with weirs and\nwater-mills,\n\nAnd the tender-growing crops, and hollows of shining apple-blossom\u2014\n\nFrom my mountain terraces as from a throne beholding my lands\u2014\n\nAre they not mine, where I dwell, and for my children?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHow long, you, will you trail your slime over them, and your talk of\nrights and of property?\n\nHow long will you build your houses to hide yourselves in, and your\nbaggage? to shut yourselves off from your brothers and sisters\u2014and Me?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nBeware! for I am the storm; I care nought for your rights of property.\n\nIn lightning and thunder, in floods and fire, I will ruin and ravage\nyour fields;\n\nYour first-born will I slay within your house, and I will make your\nriches a mockery.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nFools! that know not from day to day, from hour to hour, if ye shall\nlive,\n\nAnd yet will snatch from each other the things that I have showered\namong you.\n\nFor I will have none that will not open his door to all, treating others\nas I have treated him.\n\nThe trees that spread their boughs against the evening sky, the marble\nthat I have prepared beforehand these millions of years in the earth;\nthe cattle that roam over the myriad hills\u2014they are Mine, for all my\nchildren\u2014\n\nIf thou lay hands on them for thyself alone, thou art accursed.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe curse of property shall cling to thee;\n\nWith burdened brow and heavy heart, weary, incapable of joy, without\ngaiety,\n\nThou shalt crawl a stranger in the land that I made for thy enjoyment.\n\nThe smallest bird on thy estate shall sing in freedom in the branches,\nthe plough-boy shall whistle in the furrow,\n\nBut thou shalt be weary and lonely\u2014forsaken and an alien among men:\n\nFor just inasmuch as thou hast shut thyself off from one of the least of\nthese my children, thou hast shut thyself off from Me.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI the Lord Demos have spoken it\u2014and the mountains are my throne.\n\n\n                          OVER THE GREAT CITY\n\nOver the great city,\n\nWhere the wind rustles through the parks and gardens,\n\nIn the air, the high clouds brooding,\n\nIn the lines of street perspective, the lamps, the traffic,\n\nThe pavements and the innumerable feet upon them,\n\nI Am: make no mistake\u2014do not be deluded.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThink not because I do not appear at the first glance\u2014because the\ncenturies have gone by and there is no assured tidings of me\u2014that\ntherefore I am not there.\n\nThink not because all goes its own way that therefore I do not go my own\nway through all.\n\nThe fixed bent of hurrying faces in the street\u2014each turned towards its\nown light, seeing no other\u2014yet I am the Light towards which they all\nlook.\n\nThe toil of so many hands to such multifarious ends, yet my hand knows\nthe touch and twining of them all.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll come to me at last.\n\nThere is no love like mine;\n\nFor all other love takes one and not another;\n\nAnd other love is pain, but this is joy eternal.\n\n\n                        UNDERNEATH AND AFTER ALL\n\nThere is no peace except where I am, saith the Lord.\n\nThough you have health\u2014that which is called health\u2014yet without me it is\nonly the fair covering of disease;\n\nThough you have love, yet if I be not between and around the lovers, is\ntheir love only torment and unrest;\n\nThough you have wealth and friends and home\u2014all these shall come and\ngo\u2014there is nothing stable or secure, which shall not be taken away;\n\nBut I alone remain\u2014I do not change.\n\nAs space spreads everywhere, and all things move and change within it,\nbut it moves not nor changes,\n\nSo I am the space within the soul, of which the space without is but the\nsimilitude and mental image;\n\nComest thou to inhabit me, thou hast the entrance to all life\u2014death\nshall no longer divide thee from whom thou lovest.\n\nI am the sun that shines upon all creatures from within\u2014gazest thou upon\nme thou shalt be filled with joy eternal.\n\nBe not deceived. Soon this outer world shall drop off\u2014thou shalt slough\nit away as a man sloughs his mortal body.\n\nLearn even now to spread thy wings in that other world\u2014the world of\nEquality\u2014to swim in the ocean, my child, of Me and my love.\n\n[Ah! have I not taught thee by the semblances of this outer world, by\nits alienations and deaths and mortal sufferings\u2014all for this?\n\nFor joy, ah! joy unutterable!]\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHim who is not detained by mortal adhesions, who walks in this world yet\nnot of it,\n\nTaking part in everything with equal mind, with free limbs and senses\nunentangled\u2014\n\nGiving all, accepting all, using all, enjoying all, asking nothing,\nshocked at nothing\u2014\n\nWhom love follows everywhere, but he follows not it\u2014\n\nHim all creatures worship, all men and women bless.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is for this that the body exercises its tremendous attraction\u2014that\nmortal love torments and tears asunder the successive generations of\nmankind\u2014\n\nThat underneath and after all the true men and women may appear, by long\nexperience emancipated.\n\n\n                             A HARD SAYING\n\nWho loves the mortal creature, ending there, is no more free\u2014he has\ngiven himself away to Death\u2014\n\nFor him the slimy black Form lies in wait at every turn, befouling the\nuniverse;\n\nYet he who loves must love the mortal, and he who would love perfectly\nmust be free:\n\n[Love\u2014glorious though it be\u2014is a disease as long as it destroys or even\nimpairs the freedom of the soul.]\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nTherefore if thou wouldst love, withdraw thyself from love:\n\nMake it thy slave, and all the miracles of nature shall lie in the palm\nof thy hand.\n\n\n                     NOT FOR A FEW MONTHS OR YEARS\n\nThink not that that which is growing inside you as you battle with these\nwords is for a few months or years,\n\nOr that it will find its rest and satisfaction in the things for which\nthe world is so busy striving.\n\nFood ease lust knowledge fame\u2014\u2019twill pasture up as nonchalantly as a\ndog, and look in your face for more.\n\nThey shall not satisfy it. The list of all the things that can be named\nshall not satisfy it.\n\n\n                            DISENTANGLEMENT\n\nBe not torn by desire:\n\nWhen burning clinging love assails thee\u2014like a red-hot thing which\nsticks to the flesh it scorches\u2014\n\nBeware!\n\nFor love is good and lust is good\u2014but not to tear and rend thee.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nSlowly and resolutely\u2014as a fly cleans its legs of the honey in which it\nhas been caught\u2014\n\nSo remove thou, if it only be for a time, every particle which sullies\nthe brightness of thy mind;\n\nReturn into thyself\u2014content to give, but asking no one, asking nothing;\n\nIn the calm light of His splendor who fills all the universe, the\nimperishable indestructible of ages,\n\nDwell thou\u2014as thou canst dwell\u2014contented.\n\n\n                                   2\n\nNow understand me well:\n\nThere is no desire or indulgence that is forbidden; there is not one\ngood and another evil\u2014all are alike in that respect;\n\nIn place all are to be used.\n\nYet in using be not entangled in them; for then already they are bad,\nand will cause thee suffering.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen thy body\u2014as needs must happen at times\u2014is carried along on the wind\nof passion, say not thou, \u201cI desire this or that\u201d;\n\nFor the \u201cI\u201d neither desires nor fears anything, but is free and in\neverlasting glory, dwelling in heaven and pouring out joy like the sun\non all sides.\n\nLet not that precious thing by any confusion be drawn down and entangled\nin the world of opposites, and of Death and suffering.\n\nFor as a light-house beam sweeps with incredible speed over sea and\nland, yet the lamp itself moves not at all,\n\nSo while thy body of desire is (and must be by the law of its nature)\nincessantly in motion in the world of suffering, the \u201cI\u201d high up above\nis fixed in heaven.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nTherefore I say let no confusion cloud thy mind about this matter;\n\nBut ever when desire knocks at thy door,\n\nThough thou grant it admission and entreat it hospitably, as in duty\nbound,\n\nFence it yet gently off from thy true self,\n\nLest it should tear and rend thee.\n\n\n                                   3\n\nAnd him thou lovest or her thou lovest\u2014\n\nIf without confusion thou beholdest such one fixed like a star in\nheaven, and ever in thy most clinging burning passion rememberest Whom\nthou lovest,\n\nThen art thou blessed beyond words, and thy love is surely eternal;\n\nBut if by confusion thou knowest not whom thou lovest\u2014but seest only the\nreceptacle of desire which inhabits the world of change and suffering\u2014\n\nThen shalt thou be whirled and gulfed in a sea of torment, and shalt\ntravel far and be many times lost upon that ocean before thou shalt know\nwhat is the true end of thy voyage.\n\n\n                            THE MORTAL LOVER\n\nThis is the little mortal lover in whose heart the low scorching flame\nof rejected love burns night and day, withering all his life.\n\nIn vain the great mountains and the sea, in vain the sun in heaven, in\nvain all faces offer themselves;\n\nThere is no rest: only death and annihilation for everything that is\nborn;\n\nOnly a corpse swinging up-river with the tide among the mud-banks, and\nswinging down again with the ebb;\n\nAnd the tide ebbing and flowing aimlessly for ever in a land where all\nare dead.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHe lies awake all night and strains his eyes for a glimmer of light, but\nthere is none;\n\nEvery pursuit, every hope, all of life, is a mockery\u2014he has been gulled\ninto existence.\n\nWe have been brought here (he says), a mass of sensitive capacities, to\nbehold a possible satisfaction\u2014then to be trampled underfoot like worms,\nwithout redemption, never again to know each other or ourselves.\n\nThe heart aches and burns in slow torture, the sounds of daily life are\na mockery, the pursuits of men are like the laughter of maniacs playing\non the brink of a precipice.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nMillions and millions approach the edge\u2014a vast body always moving on\nfrom behind;\n\nThe gulf is measureless in depth, but the young and those who are in the\nrear know not of it\u2014they only feel the vast onward movement, and with\nloud chants and rollicking songs march gaily confidently on;\n\nThen suddenly those who are older and nearing the edge behold the\nhorrible and naked truth\u2014they see the avalanche of human beings for ever\ngoing over into the abyss;\n\nWith shouts and cries of warning they turn upon those that are behind:\nbut it is useless, they too are pushed on relentlessly;\n\nBehind is a babel of sounds, cries of Forward, Progress, God,\nImmortality, and the like; around are shrieks and despairing threats,\ncurses and plaintive unheeded warnings; before is the abyss of oblivion,\n\nInto which countless generations before have gone, and we must go;\n\nAnd this is the hell of existence.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHe lies awake all night with pain gnawing at his heart, and strains his\neyes for a glimmer of light, but there is none.\n\n\n                            THE END OF LOVE\n\nSeek not the end of love in this act or in that act\u2014lest indeed it\nbecome the end;\n\nBut seek this act and that act and thousands of acts whose end is love\u2014\n\nSo shalt thou at last create that which thou now desirest;\n\nAnd then when these are all past and gone there shall remain to thee a\ngreat and immortal possession, which no man can take away.\n\n\n                               A NEW LIFE\n\nHenceforth I propound a new life for you\u2014that you should bring the peace\nand grace of Nature into all your daily life\u2014being freed from vain\nstriving:\n\nThe freed soul, passing disengaged into the upper air, forgetful of\nself,\n\nRising again in others, ever knowing itself again in others.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe villa stands with its picturesque gables and garden, its\nrhododendrons all in flower, and exotic firs, with clumps of tulips;\n\nThe ploughman to his horses clicks and calls all day in the midst of the\nvocal landscape;\n\nThe rivers wind lazily about the land; the slow air floats on from the\nWest and South, bringing on its bosom long-promised gifts.\n\nOut of houses and closed rooms, out of the closed prison of self which\nyou have inhabited so long;\n\nInto the high air which circles round the world, the region of human\nequality,\n\nWith outspread wings balanced, resting on that which is not self,\n\nFloating high up as a condor over the mountains in aerial suspense,\n\nOr as an eagle flying screaming over the cities of the earth, with joy\ndelirious\u2014\n\nSo passing enfranchised shall you regain after long captivity\n\nYour own your native abode.\n\n\n                          THE LAW OF EQUALITY\n\nYou cannot violate the law of Equality for long.\n\nWhatever you appropriate to yourself now from others, by that you will\nbe poorer in the end;\n\nWhat you give now, the same will surely come back to you.\n\nIf you think yourself superior to the rest, in that instant you have\nproclaimed your own inferiority;\n\nAnd he that will be servant of all, helper of most, by that very fact\nbecomes their lord and master.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nSeek not your own life\u2014for that is death;\n\nBut seek how you can best and most joyfully give your own life away\u2014and\nevery morning for ever fresh life shall come to you from over the hills.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nMan has to learn to die\u2014quite simply and naturally\u2014as the child has to\nlearn to walk.\n\nThe life of Equality the grave cannot swallow\u2014any more than the finger\ncan hold back running water\u2014it flows easily round and over all\nobstacles.\n\nA little while snatching to yourself the goods of the earth, jealous of\nyour own credit, and of the admiration and applause of men,\n\nThen to learn that you cannot defeat Nature so\u2014that water will not run\nup hill for all your labors and lying awake at night over it:\n\nThe claims of others as good as yours, their excellence in their own\nline equal to your best in yours, their life as near and dear to you as\nyour own can be.\n\nSo letting go all the chains which bound you, all the anxieties and\ncares,\n\nThe wearisome burden, the artificial unyielding armor wherewith you\nwould secure yourself, but which only weighs you down a more helpless\nmark for the enemy\u2014\n\nHaving learned the necessary lesson of your own identity\u2014\n\nTo pass out, free, O joy!\u2014free, to flow down, to swim in the sea of\nEquality\u2014\n\nTo endue the bodies of the divine Companions,\n\nAnd the life which is eternal.\n\n\n                       TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE\n\nNot by running out of yourself after it comes the love which lasts a\nthousand years.\n\nIf to gain another\u2019s love you are untrue to yourself then are you also\nuntrue to the person whose love you would gain.\n\nHim or her whom you seek will you never find that way\u2014and what pleasure\nyou have with them will haply only end in pain.\n\nRemain stedfast, knowing that each prisoner has to endure in patience\ntill the season of his liberation; when the love comes which is for you\nit will turn the lock easily and loose your chains\u2014\n\nBeing no longer whirled about nor tormented by winds of uncertainty, but\npart of the organic growth of God himself in Time\u2014\n\nAnother column in the temple of immensity,\n\nTwo voices added to the eternal choir.\n\n\n                  ABANDON HOPE ALL YE THAT ENTER HERE\n\nTo die\u2014for this into the world you came.\n\nYes, to abandon more than you ever conceived as possible:\n\nAll ideals, plans\u2014even the very best and most unselfish\u2014all hopes and\ndesires,\n\nAll formulas of morality, all reputation for virtue or consistency or\ngood sense; all cherished theories, doctrines, systems of knowledge,\n\nModes of life, habits, predilections, preferences, superiorities,\nweaknesses, indulgences,\n\nGood health, wholeness of limb and brain, youth, manhood, age\u2014nay life\nitself\u2014in one word: To die\u2014\n\nFor this into the world you came.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll to be abandoned, and when they have been finally abandoned,\n\nThen to return to be used\u2014and then only to be rightly used, to be free\nand open for ever.\n\n\n                              TO ONE DEAD\n\nYou must look at your own body lying dead there quite calmly\u2014\n\n[If you have ever loved and quietly surrendered that love you will\nunderstand what I mean]\u2014\n\nThe dear fingers and feet, the eyes you have looked in so often\u2014they are\nyours no longer;\n\nYou are not bound to them, you are something else than you thought.\n\nNow you see that these things are only a similitude:\n\nA new and wonderful life opens out\u2014so wonderful, O so wonderful!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThose eyes whose answer once you forebore to ask for\u2014do you remember how\nafter all, how wide and wonderful at last they opened upon you, shining\nup for you (yes for you) from depths you saw not in them before?\n\nAnd that body which now you have forsaken, so now for the first time do\nyou understand it and its life (all the old passages in it so clear, so\nreal, so wonderful, so transparent);\n\nNow it radiates back upon you what you are\u2014of whom it is only the\nsimilitude;\n\nAnd even so it is only one of your similitudes.\n\n\n                          OF ALL THE SUFFERING\n\nOf all the suffering\u2014\n\n(Think think of it, and learn what Freedom is)\u2014\n\nAll the weary disappointed faces,\n\nThe lives narrowed down, the dark and joyless prospect,\n\nCapacities stunted that might have been developed, hope gone, the cross\nof anguish on the forehead;\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nOf the fair might-have-been, the lips so loved that Death has hid from\nview,\n\nThe dread inexorable past, the nothing left to live for,\n\nAge empty purposeless\u2014a mere cold husk\u2014\n\nDeath coming slow, with pain and foul disease;\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nOf all the cruelty of one to another,\n\nSlights that cut the heart\u2019s tenderest chords, words said that can never\nbe unsaid;\n\nOf the deliberate cruelty of savages and half-formed people, gloating in\nrevenge, or amused by others\u2019 pain;\n\nThe victim staked out horizontally on the ground, the little fires built\nbeside or under his arms and legs, or upon his breast,\n\nThe careful ingenious torture lasting for hours, the jeers, the diabolic\nlaughter\u2014the moaning of the deserted and half-charred remnant through\nthe long night\u2014the stars looking on;\n\nOf the thousands languishing in prisons, slowly succumbing through all\nmental tortures into madness;\n\nOf the millions over whom the dread night-mares hang\u2014deaths, partings,\nexiles, illness, pain and persecution\u2014the brief respite in sleep, the\nwaking to despair:\n\nThink think of these, and learn what Freedom is.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nOf all the delusion of thinking oneself apart from others\u2014and all the\nneedless torment that springs from it;\n\nOf the fear that one might somehow tumble out of the world of\nExistence\u2014dying oneself while others lived on;\n\nOf the lightning-flashes of love which fitfully and for a moment to\ndazed wanderers reveal the truth;\n\nOf after pain endured the immense and widened outlook;\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nOf the poor little thing that shuts itself in its own cell, and then\nlooks forth with anxious eyes upon the world\u2014as though there were no\nescape\u2014tossed by winds of Chance, subject to Death and Dissolution:\n\nThe little primitive cell that grows and differentiates and grows till\nthat which was in it attains at last to Manhood and Deliverance;\n\nOf all the beating about in the dark round the walls of one\u2019s prison,\nyet never hitting the secret door of exit;\n\nOf all the sorrow and blindness that inveil for a time the unformed\nembryonic creature\u2014\n\nInveil fatally and forethoughtfully for ends glorious beyond all mortal\nimagination:\n\nThink think of these and learn what Freedom is.\n\n\n                             A LONG JOURNEY\n\nThe long insatiable yearning of the mortal creature, for absolute\nunion\u2014never accomplished;\n\nEach mortal love the symbol, the promise, and the part-fulfilment of\nthat for which all life exists.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nNot this year or next, not this life or perhaps the next,\n\nBut day by day and day by day as long as thou art, pass thou nearer to\nthat great joy.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHere too (as so often said before) it is no matter of chance:\n\nIt is not that these are lucky having found their mates, and thou art\nunfortunate standing alone (for they have not found their mates, and\nthou standest not alone);\n\nBut every day and every day (for thee as well as for them and all) the\nway lies on before\u2014to be slowly accomplished\u2014\n\nTo make thyself fit for the perfect love which awaits and which alone\ncan satisfy thee.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nLo! that divine body which dwells within thy mortal body, slowly\npreparing its own deliverance\u2014\n\nWhat is all suffering before that? to surrender this is but to open the\nway for that\u2014\u2019tis but the law of Equality.\n\nBegin to-day to walk the path which alone is gain;\n\nIn the sunshine, as the sunshine, calm contented and blessed, envying no\none, railing not, repining not;\n\nReceiving the message of the patient trees and herbs, and of the\ncreatures of the earth, and of the stars above;\n\nPossessing all within thyself, with showers of beauties and blessings\nevery moment\u2014to scatter again to others with free hand;\n\nNeither hurrying nor slackening, but sure of thy great and glorious\ndestiny, walk thou\u2014\n\nAnd presently all around thee shalt thou see the similitude of him whom\nthou seekest:\n\nHe shall send a multitude of messengers in advance to cheer thee on thy\nway.\n\n\n                      THE SECRET OF TIME AND SATAN\n\nIs there one in all the world who does not desire to be divinely\nbeautiful?\n\nTo have the most perfect body\u2014unerring skill, strength, limpid clearness\nof mind, as of the sunlight over the hills,\n\nTo radiate love wherever he goes, to move in and out, accepted?\n\nThe secret lies close to you, so close.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nYou are that person; it lies close to you, so close\u2014deep down within\u2014\n\nBut in Time it shall come forth and be revealed.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nNot by accumulating riches, but by giving away what you have,\n\nShall you become beautiful;\n\nYou must undo the wrappings, not case yourself in fresh ones;\n\nNot by multiplying clothes shall you make your body sound and healthy,\nbut rather by discarding them;\n\nNot by multiplying knowledge shall you beautify your mind;\n\nIt is not the food that you eat that has to vivify you, but you that\nhave to vivify the food.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAlways emergence, and the parting of veils for the hidden to appear;\n\nThe child emerges from its mother\u2019s body, and out of that body again in\ntime another child.\n\nWhen the body which thou now hast falls away, another body shall be\nalready prepared beneath,\n\nAnd beneath that again another.\n\nAlways that which appears last in time is first, and the cause of\nall\u2014and not that which appears first.\n\n\n                                   2\n\nFreedom has to be won afresh every morning,\n\nEvery morning thou must put forth thy strength afresh upon the world, to\ncreate out of chaos the garden in which thou walkest.\n\n(Behold! I love thee\u2014I wait for thee in thine own garden, lingering till\neventide among the bushes;\n\nI tune the lute for thee; I prepare my body for thee, bathing unseen in\nthe limpid waters.)\n\n\n                                   3\n\nWondrous is Man\u2014the human body: to understand and possess this, to\ncreate it every day afresh, is to possess all things.\n\nThe tongue and all that proceeds from it: spoken and written words,\nlanguages, commands, controls, the electric telegraph girdling the\nearth;\n\nThe eyes ordaining, directing; the feet and all that they indicate\u2014the\npath they travel for years and years;\n\nThe passions of the body, the belly and the cry for food, the heaving\nbreasts of love, the phallus, the fleshy thighs,\n\nThe erect proud head and neck, the sturdy back, and knees well-knit or\nwavering;\n\nAll the interminable attitudes and what they indicate;\n\nEvery relation of one man to another, every cringing, bullying, lustful,\nobscene, pure, honorable, chaste, just and merciful;\n\nThe fingers differently shaped according as they handle money for gain\nor for gift;\n\nAll the different ramifications and institutions of society which\nproceed from such one difference in the crook of a finger;\n\nAll that proceed from an arrogant or a slavish contour of the neck;\n\nAll the evil that goes forth from any part of a man\u2019s body which is not\npossessed by himself, all the devils let loose\u2014from a twist of the\ntongue or a leer of the eye, or the unmanly act of any member\u2014and\nswirling into society; all the good which gathers round a man who is\nclean and strong\u2014the threads drawing from afar to the tips of his\nfingers, the interpretations in his eyes, all the love which passes\nthrough his limbs into heaven:\n\nWhat it is to command and be Master of this wondrous body with all its\npassions and powers, to truly possess it\u2014_that_ it is to command and\npossess all things, that it is to create.\n\n\n                                   4\n\nThe art of creation, like every other art, has to be learnt:\n\nSlowly slowly, through many years, thou buildest up thy body,\n\nAnd the power that thou now hast (such as it is) to build up this\npresent body, thou hast acquired in the past in other bodies;\n\nSo in the future shalt thou use again the power that thou now acquirest.\n\nBut the power to build up the body includes all powers.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nDo not be dismayed because thou art yet a child of chance, and at the\nmercy greatly both of Nature and fate;\n\nBecause if thou wert not subject to chance, then wouldst thou be Master\nof thyself; but since thou art not yet Master of thine own passions and\npowers, in that degree must thou needs be at the mercy of some other\npower.\n\nAnd if thou choosest to call that power \u2018Chance,\u2019 well and good. It is\nthe angel with whom thou hast to wrestle.\n\n\n                                   5\n\nBeware how thou seekest this for thyself and that for thyself. I do not\nsay Seek not; but Beware how thou seekest.\n\nFor a soldier who is going a campaign does not seek what fresh furniture\nhe can carry on his back, but rather what he can leave behind;\n\nKnowing well that every additional thing which he cannot freely use and\nhandle is an impediment to him.\n\nSo if thou seekest fame or ease or pleasure or aught for thyself, the\nimage of that thing which thou seekest will come and cling to thee\u2014and\nthou wilt have to carry it about;\n\nAnd the images and powers which thou hast thus evoked will gather round\nand form for thee a new body\u2014clamoring for sustenance and satisfaction;\n\nAnd if thou art not able to discard this image now, thou wilt not be\nable to discard that body then: but wilt have to carry it about.\n\nBeware then lest it become thy grave and thy prison\u2014instead of thy\nwinged abode, and palace of joy.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nFor (over and over again) there is nothing that is evil except because a\nman has not mastery over it; and there is no good thing that is not evil\nif it have mastery over a man;\n\nAnd there is no passion or power, or pleasure or pain, or created thing\nwhatsoever, which is not ultimately for man and for his use\u2014or which he\nneed be afraid of, or ashamed at.\n\nThe ascetics and the self-indulgent divide things into good and evil\u2014as\nit were to throw away the evil;\n\nBut things cannot be divided into good and evil, but all are good so\nsoon as they are brought into subjection.\n\nAnd seest thou not that except for Death thou couldst never overcome\nDeath\u2014\n\nFor since by being a slave to things of sense thou hast clothed thyself\nwith a body which thou art not master of, thou wert condemned to a\nliving tomb were that body not to be destroyed.\n\nBut now through pain and suffering out of this tomb shalt thou come; and\nthrough the experience thou hast acquired shalt build thyself a new and\nbetter body;\n\nAnd so on many times, till thou spreadest wings and hast all powers\ndiabolic and angelic concentred in thy flesh.\n\n\n                                   6\n\nAnd so at last I saw Satan appear before me\u2014magnificent, fully formed.\n\nFeet first, with shining limbs, he glanced down from above among the\nbushes,\n\nAnd stood there erect, dark-skinned, with nostrils dilated with passion;\n\n(In the burning intolerable sunlight he stood, and I in the shade of the\nbushes);\n\nFierce and scathing the effluence of his eyes, and scornful of dreams\nand dreamers (he touched a rock hard by and it split with a sound like\nthunder);\n\nFierce the magnetic influence of his dusky flesh; his great foot,\nwell-formed, was planted firm in the sand\u2014with spreading toes;\n\n\u201cCome out\u201d he said with a taunt, \u201cArt thou afraid to meet me?\u201d\n\nAnd I answered not, but sprang upon him and smote him.\n\nAnd he smote me a thousand times, and brashed and scorched and slew me\nas with hands of flame;\n\nAnd I was glad, for my body lay there dead; and I sprang upon him again\nwith another body;\n\nAnd he turned upon me, and smote me a thousand times and slew that body;\n\nAnd I was glad and sprang upon him again with another body\u2014\n\nAnd with another and another and again another;\n\nAnd the bodies which I took on yielded before him, and were like\ncinctures of flame upon me, but I flung them aside;\n\nAnd the pains which I endured in one body were powers which I wielded in\nthe next; and I grew in strength, till at last I stood before him\ncomplete, with a body like his own and equal in might\u2014exultant in pride\nand joy.\n\nThen he ceased, and said, \u201cI love thee.\u201d\n\nAnd lo! his form changed, and he leaned backwards and drew me upon him,\n\nAnd bore me up into the air, and floated me over the topmost trees and\nthe ocean, and round the curve of the earth under the moon\u2014\n\nTill we stood again in Paradise.\n\n\n                             BRIEF IS PAIN\n\n(\u201c_Kurz ist der Schmerz, und ewig ist die Freude._\u201d)\n\nSlowly, out of all life unfolded, the supreme joy;\n\nOver all storms, above the clouds, beyond Night and the shadow of the\nEarth,\n\nThe Sun in the blue \u00e6ther changeless shining.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nGrief passes, sorrow endures for a moment;\n\nTo a certain stage belonging it dogs the footsteps of the individual;\n\nThen fading and passing it leaves him free, a new creature, transfigured\nto more than mortal.\n\nThe myriad spindles of the grass reflecting the light, the long and\nlevel meadows waving to the breeze,\n\nThe faint haze of summer, blue in deep shadows of the foliage,\n\nThe toilers toiling in the fields, the bathers to the water descending\nor standing on the banks in the sunlight,\n\nThe secret that lies wrapt in the summer noon and the slow evolution of\nraces,\n\nThe which what voice can utter, what words avail to frame it?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nNot pleasure alone is good, but pain also; not joy alone but sorrow;\n\nFreed must the psyche be from the pupa, and pain is there to free it.\n\nThroes and struggles and clenchings of teeth\u2014but pain is there to free\nit.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nLo! the prison walls must fall\u2014even though the prisoner tremble.\n\nLong the strain, sometimes seeming past endurance\u2014then the dead shell\ngives way, and a new landscape discloses.\n\nCurtain behind curtain, wall behind wall, life behind life;\n\nDying here, to be born there, passing and passing and passing,\n\nAt last a new creature behold, transfigured to more than mortal!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nFor brief after all is pain, but joy ah! joy is eternal!\n\nAnd thin the veil that divides, the subtle film of illusion\u2014\n\nThe prison-wall so slight, at a touch it parts and crumbles,\n\nAnd opens at length on the sunlit world and the winds of heaven.\n\n\n                         THE BODY AND THE BOOK\n\nThe chambers are all in order, all the doors stand open.\n\nEnter Thou\u2014this is the house that I have stored for thee among the rest:\n\nTo all that is here thou art welcome.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut for me ask not.\n\nOnce when the house was closed I dwelt here\u2014a prisoner;\n\nBut now that it is open\u2014all open\u2014I have passed out,\n\nInto the beautiful air, over the fields, over the world, through a\nthousand homes\u2014journeying with the wind\u2014O so light and joyous,\n\nLight and invisible,\n\nI have passed, and my house is behind me.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAsk not for the prisoner, for he is not here;\n\nAsk not for the free, for thou canst not find him.\n\nGo back thou too and set thy house in order,\n\nOpen thy doors, let them stand wide for all to enter\u2014thy treasures, let\nthe poorest take of them;\n\nThen come thou forth to where I wait for thee.\n\n\n\n\n                                PART IV\n                      WHO SHALL COMMAND THE HEART\n\n\n            _Because the starry lightnings and the life\n              Of all this Universe which is our Home\n            Weave round each soul a web of mortal strife,\n              Hard is its speech to hear and slow to come,_\n\n            _As to one waking from a lonely dream\n              The friendly taper dwindles to a star,\n            So to each man men\u2019s faces distant seem\u2014\n              Their dearest words sound faint and very far._\n\n            _Daily we pass, like shadows in dreamland,\n              And careless answer in the old curt tone,\n            Till Death breaks suddenly between us, and\n              With a great cry we know we have not known._\n\n            _Ah! surely, to have known and to behold\n              The beauty that within the soul abides,\n            For this Earth blossoms and the skies unfold,\n              For this the Moon makes music in the tides;_\n\n            _For this Man rises from his mould of dust,\n              Ranges his life and looks upon the Sun,\n            For this he turns and with adventurous trust\n              Forsakes this world and seeks a fairer one._\n\n\n                      WHO SHALL COMMAND THE HEART\n\nWho shall command the heart, that wondrous Thing,\n\nThat wild love-creature, roaming the wilderness,\n\nThat none can tame?\n\nRoaming the world, devouring with eyes of flame, eyes of desire,\n\nAll forms of heavenly Beauty?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nSay, little heart, that beatest pulsest here beneath the ribs,\n\nWho chained thee in this body?\u2014what Titan ages agone?\u2014\n\nWho muzzled thee to drive this crank machine,\n\nThou wanderer of the woods, thou crimson leopard,\n\nNo better than a turnspit?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nNay, but thy \u2019prenticeship long enough surely thou hast served;\n\nThe time has come, and thy full age and strength;\n\nThe cage-bars hold no longer, and the body-machine breaks down;\n\nBut thou art young and beautiful as ever.\n\nWild pard who lovest thus to hunt with Man,\n\nI bid thee loose.\n\nSay, wilt thou come with me, and shall we ride,\n\nCompanions of the Chase, the universe over?\n\n\n                           FROM CAVERNS DARK\n\n Behold, a hundred and a thousand lives,\n And thousands more, in caverns dark within thee.\n No secret wish that flits along thy fancy,\n But lo! far back in some ancestral form\n It dwelt, had eyes and feet, and ranged its life;\n No thought, no dream, but long-dead men and women\n Live in the quiet murmur of its wings\n Far down, far down, and move about thy brain\n And look on the Sun again.\n\n Ah, silence! hearest not the whispering\n In darkness, of those countless multitudes?\u2014\n That maiden fair who languished out her soul,\n Long generations back, and spake no word;\n That father whose young daughter to the grave\n Bore down his heart with hers; that sturdy soldier\n Who hacked and hewed in fervent piety\n All who opposed him; that untiring mother\n Who wore her life out for her children; aye,\n And all the throngs that passed thro\u2019 city streets,\n Centuries gone, \u2019neath overhanging gables,\n Or toiled on rustic leas\u2014the cleric youth\n Who dreamed romance in manuscript and missal,\n Gurth herding pigs and whittling bow and arrows\n In beechen forests; haughty baron, and serf,\n And vain and timid and night-mare-ridden souls,\n And trustful, proud, ambitious\u2014all are there!\n Hearest the whispering of multitudes?\u2014\n All dead\u2014yet all are there.\n\n And ages farther, born of the time before man walked the earth,\n Wild forms behold! and roaming spirits of animals,\n Hungering, thirsting, loving\u2014beautiful beings\n That saw and wondered worshiping each other,\n And found their mates and fought their enemies,\n And sang and danced and hoarded, skulked and scolded,\n In passion\u2019s every mood; yet never once\n Turned eyes of consciousness upon themselves.\n Unwieldy beasts that bellowed through the tree-ferns for their young,\n And flying dragons and the roaring lion,\n And bats and moths just glimmering thro\u2019 the dark\n Like faintest memories\u2014aye, all are there!\n Hearest the whispering of multitudes?\u2014\n All dead\u2014yet all are there.\n\n And in the ages yet to come the same:\n A hundred and a thousand lives within thee!\n And thousands more\u2014which yet shall walk the Earth.\n Dreams, faint desires, scarce conscious of themselves,\n Shall take swift shape and people the lands with forms\n Of thy conceiving, strange similitudes\n Even of thyself.\n And, hungering thirsting loving, beautiful beings\n Sprung from thy heart and brain and sexual part,\n Half animal, half angel,\n Shall see and wonder worshiping each other;\n And find their mates and front their enemies\n Onward through long processions of the Suns,\n By shores of other continents than now,\n In unimagined haunts and cities fair,\n To where they fade from view and take at last\n Their flight from Earth to homes beyond the Earth.\n\n This mighty Life\u2014past present and to come\u2014\n Enfolds thee. This thou art. This thou upgatherest;\n And this Thou, tiny creature, pourest forth\u2014\n Where now thou standest\u2014\n Lord of the world, from caverns dark within thee.\n\n\n                           THE LAKE OF BEAUTY\n\nLet your mind be quiet, realising the beauty of the world, and the\nimmense the boundless treasures that it holds in store.\n\nAll that you have within you, all that your heart desires, all that your\nNature so specially fits you for\u2014that or the counterpart of it waits\nembedded in the great Whole, for you. It will surely come to you.\n\nYet equally surely not one moment before its appointed time will it\ncome. All your crying and fever and reaching out of hands will make no\ndifference.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nTherefore do not begin that game at all.\n\nDo not recklessly spill the waters of your mind in this direction and in\nthat, lest you become like a spring lost and dissipated in the desert.\n\nBut draw them together into a little compass, and hold them still, so\nstill;\n\nAnd let them become clear, so clear\u2014so limpid, so mirror-like;\n\nAt last the mountains and the sky shall glass themselves in peaceful\nbeauty,\n\nAnd the antelope shall descend to drink, and to gaze at his reflected\nimage, and the lion to quench his thirst,\n\nAnd Love himself shall come and bend over, and catch his own likeness in\nyou.\n\n\n                          THE WANDERING PSYCHE\n\nYou, who un-united to yourself roam about the world,\n\nSeeking some person or some thing to which to be united\u2014\n\nSeeking to ease that way the pain at your heart\u2014\n\nDeceive not yourself, deceive not others.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nFor united to that which you really are you are indeed beautiful, united\nto Yourself you are strong, united to yourself you are already in the\nhearts of those you love;\n\nBut disunited you are none of these things\n\nAnd how shall men desire a mere shell, or how will you offer them a husk\nsaying, There is fruit within, when there is no fruit\u2014but only vacancy?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd these are the Gods that seek ever to come in the forms of men\u2014the\nageless immortal Gods\u2014to make of earth that Paradise by their presence;\n\nBut while you bar the way and weave your own little plans and purposes\nlike a tangle of cobwebs across the inner door,\n\nHow shall they make their entrance and habitation with you?\n\nHow shall you indeed know what it is to be Yourself?\n\n\n                   I HEAR THY CALL, MYSTERIOUS BEING\n\nI hear thy call, Mysterious Being;\n\nIn the dead of night, when the stars float grey overhead, and the\nNorthern lights flicker faintly,\n\nIn the blazing noon when the sunlight rims with a luminous ring the wide\nhorizon,\n\nFlooding, enfolding all\u2014\n\nI hear thy call.\n\nIn the hollow depths below\u2014I hear thee, Mysterious Being.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n[I am swept out, as the tide to the call of the Moon is swept out from\nthe shores it knows\u2014to wonderful other shores;\n\nI am carried away, away, in a swoon to the ends of Creation.]\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nDeep, deep is Thy heart. As I sink in it, lo! there is nothing, nothing\nwhich is not held by thy love.\n\nOn the surface there is rejection and discrimination, but in the depth\nlo! everything is held by it.\n\nSwift, swift is Thy flight. In an instant now here, now there\u2014it is all\nthe same to Thee.\n\nAs the lambent fire of sex within the body, as the Northern lights with\nluminous fingers over the sky\u2014\n\nSo Thou through all creation.\n\nAs the great Sun blazing down at noon on the Him\u00e1layan forests, and\nbathing each leaf the same for hundreds, thousands, of miles\u2014\n\nSo Thou through all creation.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Flutter on little leaves\u2014ye that break the light into a million\nbeautiful forms!\n\nFlutter on little worlds, that float in the \u00e6ther of space!\n\nFlutter on little hearts, whom the great Heart feeds and encloses!]\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd thou, O stranger who dwellest perchance in yonder star, or globe\nthat circles dark about yon star,\n\nOr thou, dear lover that on this earth of ours holdest my heart in\nthine,\n\nCan Death, I say, or Space or Time or Worlds avail in the end against\nus?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nTake me, great Life\u2014O take me, long-delaying,\n\nUnloose these chains, unbind these clogs and fetters;\n\nI hear thy call\u2014so strange\u2014Mysterious Being,\n\nI hear thy call\u2014I come.\n\n\n                             SO THIN A VEIL\n\nSo thin a veil divides\n\nUs from such joy, past words.\n\nWalking in daily life\u2014the business of the hour, each detail seen to;\n\nYet carried, rapt away, on what sweet floods of other Being:\n\nSwift streams of music flowing, light far back through all Creation\nshining,\n\nLoved faces looking\u2014\n\nAh! from the true, the mortal self\n\nSo thin a veil divides!\n\n\n                            THE OPEN SECRET\n\nSweet secret of the open air\u2014\n\nThat waits so long, and always there, unheeded.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nSomething uncaught, so free, so calm large confident\u2014\n\nThe floating breeze, the far hills and broad sky,\n\nAnd every little bird and tiny fly or flower\n\n_At home_ in the great whole, nor feeling lost at all or forsaken,\n\nSave man\u2014slight man!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHe, Cain-like from the calm eyes of the Angels,\n\nIn houses hiding, in huge gas-lighted offices and dens, in ponderous\nchurches,\n\nBeset with darkness, cowers;\n\nAnd like some hunted criminal torments his brain\n\nFor fresh means of escape, continually;\n\nBuilds thicker higher walls, ramparts of stone and gold, piles flesh and\nskins of slaughtered beasts,\n\n\u2019Twixt him and that he fears;\n\nFevers himself with plans, works harder and harder,\n\nAnd wanders far and farther from the goal.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd still the great World waits by the door as ever,\n\nThe great World stretching endlessly on every hand, in deep on deep of\nfathomless content\u2014\n\nWhere sing the Morning-stars in joy together,\n\nAnd all things are at home.\n\n\n                   THE SONGS OF THE BIRDS, WHO HEARS\n\nThe songs of the birds, who hears? in the high trees calling,\n\nAll the long noon high calling?\u2014\n\nIn the meadows below them the wind runs over the grass, the shadows\nlengthen.\n\nWho sees, who hears?\u2014\n\nIn the wonderful height of heaven the clouds are flocked like sails,\n\nSlow moving, floating, rounding from deep to deep.\n\nThe light swims slowly, changing over the world,\n\nThe distant peaks are touched; and the hills lie silent.\n\nWho sees, who hears?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe fox-gloves tall out of the earth arise;\n\nThey stand up out of green shadow;\n\nOut of night, out of seeds dim in the earth arising,\n\nThey look forth on the blue and green wilderness, and are changed as it\nchanges\u2014\n\nChanged out of all recognition.\n\nWho sees, who hears?\u2014\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nFor all things melt and run\u2014if you only watch them long enough!\n\nAnd you cannot emprison anything in one shape\u2014it will surely give you\nthe slip.\n\nNothing in essence dies, and nothing in mortal form remains. All is in\nmovement, long calculated, long determined on, with regard to another\nkind of Form.\n\nThe diamond that you wear in your hair, the gold piece you hold so solid\nin your hand\u2014they are no more solid than a swarm of bees is solid, of\nwhich the units are in constant motion to and fro, some leaving and some\njoining the swarm.\n\nThey have other business than yours to attend to\u2014they have other spheres\nbeside the market and the drawing-room\u2014and they will surely give you the\nslip.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe rocks flow and the mountain shapes flow,\n\nAnd the forests swim over the lands like cloud-shadows;\n\nThe lines of the seeming-everlasting sea are changed,\n\nAnd its waves beat on unmapped phantom shores:\n\n\u2018Not here, not here!\u2019\n\nAll creatures fade from the embraces of their names,\n\n[And you and I, slow, slowly disentangling,]\n\nThe delicate hairbells quivering in the light,\n\nThe gorse, the heather, and the fox-gloves tall,\n\nThe meadows, and the river, rolling, fade:\n\nFade from their likenesses: fade crying \u2018Follow! Follow, for ever\nfollow!\u2019\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWho hears, who sees?\n\nWho hears the word of Nature?\n\nThe word of her eternal breathing, whispered wherever one shall listen,\n\nThe word of the birds in the high trees calling,\n\nOf the wind running over the grass,\n\nThe word of the glad prisoners, the tender footless creatures, the\nplants of the earth,\n\nRising too, bright-eyed, out of their momentary masks?\n\n\u2018Not here! not here!\u2019\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut over all the world, shadowing, shadowing:\n\nThe dream! the vast and ever present miracle of all time!\n\nThe long-forgotten never-forgotten goal!\n\nOver your own heart, out of its secretest depths:\n\nIn crystalline beauty!\n\nOut of all creatures, cloud and mountain and river:\n\nExhaling, ascending!\n\nFrom plant and bird and man and planet up-pouring:\n\nThousand-formed, One,\n\nThe ever-present only present reality, source of all illusion,\n\nThe Self, the disclosure, the transfiguration of each creature,\n\nAnd goal of its agelong pilgrimage.\n\n\n                          A CHILD AT A WINDOW\n\nI sat in the dark, at night, outside a little cottage door,\n\nAnd the light from within streamed through the casement and broke in\nspray upon the climbing ivy-leaves.\n\nAnd presently, overhead, a chamber-window opened, and a child peeped\nsilently forth,\n\nAnd looked up into the vast night and at the all-trembling stars.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd at the same moment, in a far far globe wheeling unseen round a\ncertain star, a child-face peeped forth from its habitation, and looked\nout into the night, even in the direction of the first child;\n\nAnd in other globes other faces looked forth;\n\nBut they all shrank back and trembled, seeing nothing but vacancy, and\nsaying, How dark, how vast, how awful is the Night!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nYet all the while it was the great Day of the universe into which they\nlooked,\n\nLit by a million suns.\n\n\n                                 NIGHT\n\nDarkness o\u2019erhead, around,\n\nA curtain closing down upon the earth,\n\nDrowning the woodland tree-tops.\n\nStretching of hands, straining of eyes\u2014to feel, to see,\n\nTo catch the faint faint glamor here and there amid the branches,\n\nThe wavering dubious forms and presences.\n\nNo floor, no sky, no sound. Only a soft warm moisture in the nostrils,\n\nFolding and brooding all the land in silence.\n\n\n                                 APRIL\n\nO April, month of Nymphs and Fauns and Cupids,\n\nMonth of the Sungod\u2019s kisses, Earth\u2019s sweet passion,\n\nOf fanciful winds and showers;\n\nApollo, glorious over hill and dale\n\nEthereally striding; grasses springing\n\nRapt to his feet, buds bursting, flowers out-breathing\n\nTheir liberated hearts in love to him.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n[The little black-cap garrulous on the willow\n\nPerching so prim, the crested chaffinch warbling,\n\nAnd primrose and celandine, anemone and daisy,\n\nStarring the tender herb which lambs already nibble.]\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nMonth of all-gathering warmth,\n\nOf breathless moments, hotter and hotter growing\u2014\n\nSmiles turned to fire, kisses to fierce earnest\u2014\n\nOf sultry swoons, pauses, and strange suspense\n\n(Clouds and d\u00e6monic thunder through the blue vault threateningly\nrolling);\n\nThen the delirious up-break\u2014the great fountains of the deep, in Sex,\n\nLoosened to pouring falling rushing waters;\n\nShafts of wild light; and Sky and Earth in one another\u2019s arms\n\nMelted, and all of Heaven spent in streams of love\n\nTowards the Loved one.\n\n\n                                LUCIFER\n\nSeest thou me pass\u2014swift with my angels out of heaven propelled\u2014\n\nAll stars and lightning in a fluid train?\n\nSeest thou me pass, I say?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHis brows, the Lord\u2019s, in heaven are glorious;\n\nHis eyes give light there, fashioning and beholding rapt all forms\ndivine;\n\nHis mighty loins are plunged in night and shadow.\n\nAnd I\u2014\n\nI am the lightning of the generations through them,\n\nSeed of the worlds to be.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHe is the Lord, in moment of creation, fixed everlasting,\n\nThe Universe entire\u2014or little flower starred in ecstasy;\n\nAnd I, orgasmic, fierce, His swift deliverance.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Seest thou me pass\u2014all stars and lightning in a fluid train?\n\nFrom heaven down into chaos seest thou me pass, I say?]\n\n\n                            THE OCEAN OF SEX\n\nTo hold in continence the great sea, the great ocean of Sex, within one,\n\nWith flux and reflux pressing on the bounds of the body, the beloved\ngenitals,\n\nVibrating, swaying emotional to the star-glint of the eyes of all human\nbeings,\n\nReflecting Heaven and all Creatures,\n\nHow wonderful!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nScarcely a figure, male or female, approaches, but a tremor travels\nacross it.\n\nAs when on the cliff which bounds the edge of a pond someone moves, then\nin the bowels of the water also there is a mirrored movement,\n\nSo on the edge of this Ocean.\n\nThe glory of the human form, even faintly outlined under the trees or by\nthe shore, convulses it with far reminiscences;\n\n(Yet strong and solid the sea-banks, not lightly to be overpassed;)\n\nTill may-be to the touch, to the approach, to the incantation of the\neyes of one,\n\nIt burst forth, uncontrollable.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nO wonderful Ocean of Sex,\n\nOcean of millions and millions of tiny seed-like human forms contained\n(if they be truly contained) within each person,\n\nMirror of the very universe,\n\nSacred temple and innermost shrine of each body,\n\nOcean-river flowing ever on through the great trunk and branches of\nHumanity,\n\nFrom which after all the individual only springs like a leaf-bud!\n\nOcean which we so wonderfully contain (if indeed we do contain thee),\nand yet who containest us!\n\nSometimes when I feel and know thee within, and identify myself with\nthee,\n\nDo I understand that I also am of the dateless brood of Heaven and\nEternity.\n\n\n                         AS THE GREEKS DREAMED\n\nOn the loose hot sands at foot of the cliffs\u2014\n\nThe cloudless blue burning above in furious mid day heats\u2014\n\nAs I bask,\n\nBathing my brown-tanned body in the warm dry clean grit, or cooling it\nin the sea;\n\nAnd the sea creeps up, spacious, in curves along the shore,\n\nWith fringes of tawny lacework, and green and blue, deepening into the\nloveliest violet,\n\nAnd Aphrodite herself out of this marvellously beautiful robe, this\nliquid cincture, swiftly gliding, for a moment stands,\n\n(Her feet on the watery plain, her head in the great height against the\nSun,)\n\nVast, glorious, white-armed, visible and invisible;\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAs the sea stretches miles and miles, and the grey chalk cliffs and\ncapes, fainter and fainter, run forward into it, looking on,\n\nAnd the fisherman slumbers in the shade of his boat, impervious,\n\nAnd fainter still and more slumbrous on the horizon, in haze and silence\nthe far ships go by;\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThrough it all, meseems, I see\n\nHow the human body bathed in the sheen and wet, steeped in sun and air,\n\nMoving near and nude among the elements,\n\nMatches somehow and interprets the whole of Nature;\n\nHow from shoulder to foot of mountain and man alike the lines of grace\nrun on;\n\nHow, as the Greeks dreamed, in rock and rill divinest human forms lie\nshrined, or in the wild woods lurk embosomed;\n\nAnd how at length and only in the loving union and uncoveredness of Man\nwith Nature may either know or understand the other.\n\n\n                          IN A SCOTCH-FIR WOOD\n\nIn a Scotch-fir wood\u2014\n\nWhere the great rays of the low sun glanced through the trees, in open\nbeauty under the shaggy green,\n\nLighting stem behind stem in lofty strength interminable;\n\nAnd the wild sweet air ran lightly by, with warm scent of pine-needles\u2014\n\nI heard a voice saying:\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nO Man, when wilt thou come fit comrade of such trees, fair mate and\ncrown of such a scene?\n\nPoor pigmy, botched in clothes, feet coffined in boots, braced, stitched\nand starched,\n\nToo feeble, alas! too mean, undignified, to be endured\u2014\n\nGo hence, and in the centuries come again!\n\n\n                           THE DREAM GOES BY\n\nThe dream goes by, touches men\u2019s hearts, and floats and fades again\u2014\n\nFar on the hills away from this nightmare of modern cheap-jack life:\n\nThe finished free Society.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nFinished and done with so much that clogs to-day the weary spirit, weary\nbody;\n\nFinished and done with all the old cumbersome apparatus of Law and\nAuthority, with the endless meanness of \u2018business\u2019 and money-making,\nwith the silly paraphernalia of distinction and respectability, with the\nterrible struggle of each against all, and the trampling of the weak\nunderfoot by the strong;\n\nDone with the endless joyless labors for the bread that perisheth, for\nclothing which keeps not the heart warm, for possessions which only\nweigh their owners to the ground;\n\nWith envies, greeds, jealousies\u2014loads and burdens of life too great to\nbe borne\u2014Sisyphus toils that bring no nearer to the goal.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe grown man hand in hand with his little girl, walking the woodland\npath,\n\nWith brown uncovered bodies, both of them, so glad, content,\nunconscious;\n\nAnd all the wealth and beauty of the world is theirs;\n\nThe Sun shining on their limbs; and in their minds the long results of\nhuman culture.\n\nThe simple dresses of the public thoroughfare, used or not used with\nquiet sense of fitness;\n\nThe simple diet so easily won, so gladly shared;\n\nThe stores of human science, human knowledge, accessible to all\u2014for all\nto use.\n\nAnd Death no longer terrible, but full\n\nOf poignant strange Expansion; Labor too\n\n(Which is our daily death\n\nAnd resurrection in the thing created)\n\nAn ever-abiding joy.\u2014\n\nA life so near to Nature, all at one with bird and plant and beast and\nswimming thing,\n\nSo near to all its fellows in sweet love\u2014\n\nIn joy unbounded and undying love.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe dream goes by, touches and stirs men\u2019s hearts, And floats, and\nwaits, again.\n\n\n                       SURELY THE TIME WILL COME\n\nSurely the time will come when humanity will refuse to be diseased any\nlonger.\n\nThis list of filthy and hideous complaints,\u2014too filthy to be calmly\nspoken of: these small-poxes, typhoids, choleras, cancers, tumors,\ntubercles,\u2014dropsy, diabetes, ur\u00e6mia\u2014all preventible, and easy enough to\nprevent;\n\nAnd yet\u2014incredible though it seems\u2014men and women still tolerating and\ncondoning them;\n\nMen and women who pride themselves on their culture, refinement,\npunctiliousness of nose, and so forth\u2014and who would turn up the latter\nat the sight of a pig and a few fowls in an Irishman\u2019s cabin\u2014actually\ntolerating in their own persons the perpetual presence of the most\ndisgusting organisms;\n\nAnd other men and women, through sheer ignorance, believing such a state\nof affairs to be necessary.\n\nSurely the time will come when to be diseased, to spread disease around\none, or transmit it to descendants,\n\nTo live willingly in the conditions that produce disease, or not\nstrenuously to fight against such conditions,\n\nWill be looked on as a crime\u2014both of the individual and of society.\n\nFor since a little self-control, since a clean and elementary diet, pure\nwater, openness of the body to sun and air, a share of honest work, and\nsome degree of mental peace and largesse, are the perfectly simple\nconditions of health, and are, or ought to be, accessible to everybody\u2014\n\nTo neglect these is sheer treason;\n\nWhile to surrender them out of fear (should one stick to them) of being\nrobbed of other things far less precious, is to be a fool, as well as a\ncoward.\n\nSurely the time will come when people, seeing how obvious and simple is\nthe problem of human life,\n\nWill refuse (even at the bidding of the Parson, the Policeman, Mrs.\nGrundy, and the commercial Slave-drivers and Tax-collectors) to live the\nlives of idiots;\n\nWill refuse to do other work than that which they like, and which they\nfeel to be really needed;\n\nWill cease to believe that their own well-being can only be maintained\nat the cost of the Fear, Torment, and Slaughter of the animals, and the\nHanging and Imprisonment of men;\n\nAnd will waste the hours no more in elaborately preparing food which,\nwhen prepared, does but rot the vitals of those who consume it, and in\nschemes of money-making and \u2018business\u2019 which but destroy their souls.\n\nThe time will come surely when we shall cease to burden our limbs and\nbecloud our skins with garments, the major part of which are useless,\nunless as a breeding ground of ill-health, deformity, and indecency;\n\nShall cease to build walls and fortifications of property and possession\neach round ourselves as against the others\u2014deliberately confining so and\ncrucifying the great god of love within us\u2014\n\nAnd shall at last liberate our minds and bodies from that funny old\nlazar-house of the centuries, of which none but ourselves, after all,\nare the warders and gaolers.\n\n\n                           THE ONE FOUNDATION\n\nOnly that people can thrive that loves its land and swears to make it\nbeautiful;\n\nFor the land (the Demos) is the foundation-element of human life, and if\nthe public relation to that is false, all else is of need false and\ninverted.\n\nHow can a flower deny its own roots, or a tree the soil from which it\nsprings?\n\nAnd how can a people stand firmly planted under the sun, except as\nmediators between Earth and Heaven\u2014\n\nTo dedicate the gracious fruits of the ground to all divine uses?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThink of it\u2014\n\nTo grow rich and beautiful crops for human food, and flowers and fruits\nto rejoice the eye and heart,\n\nWhat a privilege!\n\nYet this to-day is a burden and a degradation, thrust upon the poor and\ndespised.\n\nThe Scotch farm-lad strides across the ploughed leas, scattering with\nprincely hand the bread of thousands;\n\nThe Italian peasant ties his vines to the trellised canes with twigs of\nbroom, and the spring sunlight glances and twinkles on him from the\ncistern just below;\n\nThe Danish boy drives the herds home from the low-lying pasture-lands in\nthe sweet clear air of evening;\n\nAnd the world which is built upon the labor of these disowns them, and\nthey themselves sink earthward worn out with unheeded toil;\n\nWhile the Politician and the Merchant who flourish on lies and fill the\npeople\u2019s ears and mouths with chaff are publicly seated in the highest\nplaces.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd the Earth rolls on, with all her burden of love unheeded,\n\nAnd sadness falls on the peoples divorced from the breasts that fain\nwould suckle them.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThink of it\u2014\n\nTo place a nation squarely on its own base, spreading out its people far\nand wide in honored usefulness upon the soil,\n\nBuilding up all uses and capacities of the land into the life of the\nmasses,\n\nSo that the riches of the Earth may go first and foremost to those who\nproduce them, and so onward into the whole structure of society;\n\nTo render the life of the people clean and gracious, vital from base to\nsummit, and self-determining,\n\nDependent simply on itself and not on cliques and coteries of\nspeculators anywhere; and springing thus inevitably up into wild free\nforms of love and fellowship;\n\nTo make the wild places of the lands sacred, keeping the streams pure,\nand planting fresh blooms along their edges; to preserve the air\ncrystalline and without taint\u2014tempting the sun to shine where before was\ngloom;\n\nTo adorn the woodlands and the high tops with new trees and shrubs and\nwinged and footed things,\n\nSparing all living creatures as far as possible rather than destroying\nthem;\n\nWhat a pleasure!\n\nTo do all this in singleness of heart were indeed to open up riches for\nmankind of which few dream\u2014\n\nSo much, so infinitely more than what is now called Wealth.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut to-day the lands are slimed and fenced over with denials; and those\nwho would cannot get to them, and those who own have no joy in\nthem\u2014except such joy as a dog may have in a fodderam.\n\nAnd so, even to-day, while riches untold are wrung from the Earth, it is\nrather as a robbery that they are produced\u2014without gladness or\ngratitude, but in grief and sadness and lying and greed and despair and\nunbelief.\n\nSay, say, what would those riches be, if the Earth and her love were\nfree?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut all waits. And the thunderclouds brood in silence over the lands,\nmeditating the unlipped words of destiny; and the sky rains light upon\nthe myriad leaves and grass, searching inevitably into every minutest\nthing;\n\nAnd Ignorance breeds Fear, and Fear breeds Greed, and Greed that Wealth\nwhose converse is Poverty\u2014and these again breed Strife and Fear in\nendless circles;\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut Experience (which in time to all must come) breeds Sympathy, and\nSympathy Understanding, and Understanding Love;\n\nAnd Love leads Helpfulness by the hand, to open the gates of Power\nunlimited\u2014even for that new race which now appears.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd the blue sea waits below the girdle of the sun-fringed shores, and\nlips and laps through the millenniums, syllabling the unformed words\nwhich man alone can pronounce entire;\n\nAnd the sunlight wraps the globe of the Earth, and dances and twinkles\nin the \u00e6ther of the human heart,\n\nWhich is indeed a great and boundless ocean, in which all things float\nsuspended.\n\n\n                         A MIGHTIER THAN MAMMON\n\nAt last, after centuries, when the tension and strain of the old society\ncan go no further, and ruin on every side seems impending,\n\nBehold! behind and beneath it all, in dim prefigurement, yet clear and\nnot to be mistaken\u2014the Outline and Draft of a new order.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen Machinery has made affluence possible for everybody, and yet the\nscramble for Wealth is keener than ever, the line between rich and poor\nas sharp;\n\nWhen locomotion and intercommunication practically make the whole World\none, and yet the Nations stand round armed tooth and claw, and glaring\nat each other;\n\nWhen it is recognised that culture and manual labor are not only\ncompatible but necessary in combination with each other, and yet society\nremains divided into brutalised workers and cultivated nincompoops;\n\nWhen men and women everywhere are hungering for community of life, to\npass freely, to love and be loved; and yet they remain frozen up,\nstarched, starved, coffined, each in their own little cells of\npropriety, respectability, dirty property, and dismal poverty;\n\nWhen the cells are alive and in pain, because the body is lifeless;\n\nWhen thousands of pulpits preach religion, and there is not a word of\nreligion in it;\n\nWhen the great web and framework of the old order, Law, is collapsing\nwith its own weight\u2014myriads and myriads of statutes, overlapping,\noverlying, precedents, principles, instances, tumbled buried one behind\nanother in inextricable confusion\u2014and yet never before in the history of\nthe world was there such a rigid brute-pharisaical apparatus of police,\nmilitary and prisons to enforce the \u2018heads or tails\u2019 of the Courts, and\nthe cant of the \u2018superior\u2019 classes;\n\nWhen the Millionaire appears on the scene\u2014a new type of human being\u2014as\nthe Dinosaur may have appeared ages ago upon the Earth, gigantic,\nlumbering, fateful and dangerous; yet destined perhaps finally to break\ndown the ancient jungle of \u2018Government,\u2019 and the barriers of the old\nNationalities; and to be a link in the evolution of the future;\n\nWhen Art is divorced from Life, Science from human feeling, Marriage\nfrom Love, Education from Affection;\n\nWhen to work freely at one\u2019s own chosen trade and to interchange freely\nthe products with others is what almost everybody really desires\u2014and is\nobviously the indicated social form of the future; and yet when nearly\neveryone is a wage-slave or works at work which he detests!\n\nWhen the longing for the life of Nature, for the Air and the Sun, for\nthe freedom of the Earth and the waters, for liberation, wildness,\nspontaneity, is upon folk as perhaps it never was before; and yet they\nare mewed up more than ever in houses clothes, \u2018business,\u2019 and general\nasphyxia and futility;\n\nWhen similarly the longing for freedom of Sex is upon people, for purity\nof love, unashamed, unshackled, creating its own law\u2014and yet love is\neverywhere shamed and shackled and impure;\n\nWhen the Electric Tension in every direction, owing to this separation\nof polarities, is becoming so great that the luminous spark, the\nlightning, the vital flash, has become inevitable;\n\nThen at last, not to be mistaken, the outline and draft of the new\ncreature appears\u2014\n\nThe soul that soon shall knit the growing limbs glides in.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nA new conception of Life\u2014yet ancient as creation (since indeed, properly\nspeaking, there is no other)\u2014\n\nThe life of the Heart, the life of friendship and attachment:\n\nSociety forming freely everywhere round this\u2014knit together by this,\nrather than by the old Cash-nexus:\n\nThe love and pride of race, of clan, of family, the free sacrifice of\nlife for these, the commemoration of these in grand works and deeds;\n\nThe dedication of Humanity, the wider embrace that passes all barriers\nof class and race;\n\nAnd the innumerable personal affection in all its forms\u2014\n\nThese, and a proud beautiful sane utterance and enduring expression of\nthem, first; and the other things to follow.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe love of men for each other\u2014so tender, heroic, constant;\n\nThat has come all down the ages, in every clime, in every nation,\n\nAlways so true, so well assured of itself, overleaping barriers of age,\nof rank, of distance,\n\nFlag of the camp of Freedom;\n\nThe love of women for each other\u2014so rapt, intense, so confiding-close,\nso burning-passionate,\n\nTo unheard deeds of sacrifice, of daring and devotion, prompting;\n\nAnd (not less) the love of men for women, and of women for men\u2014on a\nnewer greater scale than it has hitherto been conceived;\n\nGrand, free and equal\u2014gracious yet ever incommensurable\u2014\n\nThe soul of Comradeship glides in.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe young heir goes to inspect the works of one of his tenants;\n\n[Once more the king\u2019s son loves the shepherd lad;]\n\nIn the shed the fireman is shovelling coal into the boiler furnace. He\nis neither specially handsome nor specially intelligent, yet when he\nturns, from under his dark lids rimmed with coal-dust shoots something\nso human, so loving near, it makes the other tremble.\n\nThey only speak a few words, and lo! underneath all the differences of\nclass and speech, of muscle and manhood, their souls are knit together.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Cinghalese cooly comes on board a merchant vessel at Colombo, every\nday for a week or more, to do some bits of cleaning.\n\nHe is a sweet-natured bright intelligent fellow of 21 or so. One of the\nengineers is decently kind and friendly with him\u2014gives him a knife and\none or two little presents;\n\nBut the Cinghalese gives his very soul to the engineer; and worships his\nwhite jacket and overalls as though they were the shining garment of a\ngod.\n\nHe cannot rest; but implores to be taken on the voyage; and weeps\nbitterly when he learns that the ship must sail without him.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Ah! weep not, brown-bodied youth wandering lonely by the surf-ridden\nshore\u2014as you watch your white friend\u2019s vessel gliding into the offing,\nunder the sun and the sun-fringed clouds;\n\nOut, far out to sea, with your friend whom you will never see again;\n\nWeep not so heart-brokenly, for even your tears, gentle boy, poured now\nupon the barren sand are the prophecy of amity that shall be one day\nbetween all the races of the earth.]\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd here are two women, both doctors and mature in their profession,\nwhose souls are knit in a curiously deep affection.\n\nThey share a practice in a large town, and live in the same house\ntogether, exchanging all that they command, of life and affection and\nexperience;\n\nAnd this continues for twenty years\u2014till the death of the elder\none\u2014after which the other ceases not to visit her grave, twice every\nweek, till the time of her own last illness.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd this is of a poor lad born in the slums, who with aching lonely\nheart once walked the streets of London.\n\nMany spoke to him because he was fair\u2014asked him to come and have a\ndrink, and so forth; but still it was no satisfaction to him; for they\ndid not give him that which he needed.\n\nThen one day he saw a face in which love dwelt. It was a man twice his\nown age, captain of a sailing vessel\u2014a large free man, well acquainted\nwith the world, capable and kindly.\n\nAnd the moment the lad saw him his heart was given to him, and he could\nnot rest but must needs follow the man up and down\u2014yet daring not to\nspeak to him, and the other knowing nothing of it all.\n\nAnd this continued\u2014till the time came for the man to go another voyage.\nThen he disappeared; and the youth, still not knowing who or whence he\nwas, fell into worse misery and loneliness than ever, for a whole year.\n\nTill at last one day\u2014or one evening rather\u2014to his great joy he saw his\nfriend going into a public house. It was in a little street off Mile-end\nRoad. He slipped in and sat beside him.\n\nAnd the man spoke to him, and was kind, but nothing more. And presently,\nas the hour was getting late, got up and said Goodnight, and went out at\nthe door.\n\nAnd the lad, suddenly seized with a panic fear that he might never see\nhis friend again, hurried after him, and when they came to a quiet spot,\nran up and seized him by the hand, and hardly knowing what he was doing\nfell on his knees on the pavement, and held him.\n\nAnd the man at first thought this was a ruse or a mere conspiracy, but\nwhen he lifted the lad and looked in his face he understood, for he saw\nlove written there. And he straightway loved and received him.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd this is of a boy who sat in school.\n\nThe masters talked about Greek accidence and quadratic equations, and\nthe boys talked about lobs and byes and bases and goals; but of that\nwhich was nearest to his heart no one said a word.\n\nIt was laughed at\u2014or left unspoken.\n\nYet when the boy stood near some of his comrades in the cricket-field or\nsat next them in school, he stocked and stammered, because of some\nwinged glorious thing which stood or sat between him and them.\n\nAnd again the laughter came, because he had forgotten what he was doing;\nand he shrank into himself, and the walls round him grew, so that he was\npent and lonely like a prisoner.\n\nTill one day to him weeping, Love full-grown, all-glorious, pure,\nunashamed, unshackled, came like a god into his little cell, and swore\nto break the barriers.\n\nAnd when the boy through his tears asked him how he would do that, Love\nanswered not, but turning drew with his finger on the walls of the cell.\n\nAnd as he drew, lo! beneath his finger sprang all forms of beauty, an\nendless host\u2014outlines and colors of all that is, transfigured;\n\nAnd, as he drew, the cell-walls widened\u2014a new world rose\u2014and folk came\ntrooping in to gaze,\n\nAnd the barriers had vanished.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWonderful, beautiful, the Soul that knits the Body\u2019s life passed in,\n\nAnd the barriers had vanished.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nEverywhere under the surface the streamers shoot, auroral,\n\nStrands and tissues of a new life forming.\n\nAlready the monstrous accumulations of private wealth seem useless and a\nburden\u2014\n\nAt best to be absorbed in new formations.\n\nThe young woman from an upper class of society builds up her girls\u2019\nclub; the young man organises his boys from the slums. Untiring is their\ncare; but something more, more personal and close, than philanthropy\ninspires them.\n\nThe little guilds of workers are animated by a new spirit; to have\npleasure in good work seems something worth living for; the\nhome-colonists turn their backs on civilisation if only they may realise\na friendly life with Nature and each other; the girls in the\ndress-making shop stand in a new relation to their mistress, and work so\ngladly for her and with her; the employer of labor begins to doubt\nwhether he gets any satisfaction by grinding the faces of his men\u2014a new\nidea is germinating in his mind; even to the landlord it occurs that to\ncreate a glad and free village life upon his estate would be more\npleasure than to shoot over it.\n\nAs to the millionaire, having spent his life in scheming for Wealth, he\ncannot but continue in the web which himself has woven; yet is heartily\nsick of it, and longs in a kind of vague way for something simple and\nunembarrassed. He is pestered to death by sharks, parasites, poor\nrelations, politicians, adventurers, lawyers, company-promoters, begging\nletters and business correspondence, society functions, charitable and\nphilanthropic schemes, town and country houses, stewards, bailiffs,\nflunkeys, and the care of endless possessions; and sees that to cast all\nthese aside and devote his wealth if possible to the realisation of a\ngrand life for the mass-peoples of the Earth were indeed his best hope\nand happiness.\n\nThe graduate from Cambridge is a warm-hearted impulsive little woman,\ngenuine and human to the core. Having escaped from high and dry\nhome-circles, she found curiously the answer of her heart in a\nwage-worker of an East London workshop\u2014a calm broad-browed woman,\nstrong, clearheaded, somewhat sad in expression, and a bit of a leader\namong her trade-mates.\n\nHaving got into touch with each other, the two came at last to live\ntogether; and immediately on doing so found themselves a focus and\ncentre of activities\u2014like opposite poles of a battery through which when\nin contact the electricity streams.\n\nSo the news and interests of the two classes of society streamed through\nthem. Through them too, folk from either side, especially women, came\ninto touch with each other, and discovered a common cause and sympathy\namid many surface differences.\n\nThus by a thousand needs beside their own compelled, was their love\nassured, their little home made sacred.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nEverywhere a new motive of life dawns.\n\nWith the liberation of Love, and with it of Sex, with the sense that\nthese are things\u2014and the joy of them\u2014not to be dreaded or barred, but to\nbe made use of, wisely and freely, as a man makes use of his most\nhonored possession,\n\nComes a new gladness:\n\nThe liberation of a Motive greater than Money,\n\nAnd the only motive perhaps that can finally take precedence of Money.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nMen and women mate freely again;\n\nThe sacredness of sex in freedom is taught in schools and churches; the\nulcer of prostitution slowly disappears; the wasted love that flows in a\nmorbid stream through the streets, or desiccates in grand mansions, runs\nonce more into the channels of free devotion and life.\n\nOne by one, here and there, in silence perhaps, unremarked, or perhaps\nthe centre of a little cyclone of excited abuse, a couple, offstanding,\nexempt, determined, assert their right to the highest and best that life\ncan give.\n\n[Fear not, gentle girl, the sneers of the womenkind, nor thou, young\nman, the pointed fingers of who can credit not the truth of love.]\n\nTo lead their own lives, irrespective of all criticism and custom, and\ngraft into the great Heart of the world and each other.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWild as a raven, and a free lover of Nature, is the Irish squire\u2019s\ndaughter. She hates all the conventions and proprieties with an\ninstinctive hatred\u2014she hardly knows why. She is loved by a man whom the\nfamily consider beneath them. He is not without his faults certainly.\nBut when her parents turn fiercely on her and him, she determines at all\ncosts to stick to him. Her sister, the dove, approved and admired by\neverybody, marries a young Earl just come into the title; and she on the\nsame day goes off with her friend, and is forbidden to cross, and in\nfact never crosses, the threshold of her home again.\n\nThe newly-made wife, wedded to an army officer, finds almost immediately\nafter marriage that their temperaments are wholly incompatible. Instead\nof sacrificing herself to \u2018duty\u2019 or propriety, she has the good sense to\ninsist on leaving him: on leaving him his freedom, and herself the same,\nas far as may be, for the future.\n\nAnd this is of a young man, a man about town and the clubs, and well up\nin the finesse of society, but of real affectionate nature\u2014who was truly\nbored with his own pursuits and surroundings, and so for him too the\nbarriers vanished.\n\nHe fell in with a girl of quite rustic birth and life, but\nbright-looking, and of sturdy almost stubborn common-sense and wit; and\nwas charmed\u2014partly by her contrast to all that he was accustomed to.\n\nUltimately\u2014and after some obstinate and exasperating refusals on her\npart\u2014he made her his wife; much to the disgust of his relatives\u2014whose\nonly consolation was to find he did not intend to bring her among them!\n\nShe in fact felt (and he knew) that she could not cope with \u2018society\u2019\nways and customs, and her true instinct was to spare herself the\nvulgarity.\n\nThey took a little house near London, and lived quietly and happily,\nallowing any of their friends, who had good sense enough, to come and\nsee them\u2014she meanwhile learning much about the great world, and he\nlearning much which he had never known before about practical work and\nthe needs of the people.\n\nThen, later on, when he came into his estate, and they went down into\nthe country, instead of living in the ancestral wigwam they agreed it\nbetter to build a decent-sized cottage in the grounds for their own use;\n\nAnd the Hall and outbuildings they fitted up as Workshops; and gradually\ngetting the village lads and girls together found them employment at\nvarious small trades and crafts;\n\nTill with the output of good and artistic work, their market became\nassured, and the affair grew rapidly in extent and solidity.\n\nAnd the larger rooms they adorned in every way for library and reading\npurposes, and music and entertainments of all kinds; and the grounds\nwere partly for recreation and partly for the cultivation of produce;\n\nSo that before long the place became much known and sought after, and\nthe employees (who all had a share in the concern) were mighty proud of\nit.\n\nCertainly the old county society felt somewhat shocked and\nuncomfortable, and even the tenant-farmers thought things were being\ncarried too far;\n\nBut the young couple stuck to their programme, and as years went on, and\nafter various obstacles and opposition lived down, their lives became\nthe centre of the love and affection of the whole neighborhood, great\nand small, but especially the small;\n\nAnd they achieved a real distinction, and the finest kind of\naristocracy.\n\n\n  _O little sister Heart, without thy big brother the rude Brain what\n                           wouldst thou do?_\n\n_So I see thee sitting in thy solitary chamber, poring over a figure in\na cameo\u2014_\n\n_So yearning lost desirous, faint forgetful,_\n\n_Failing almost thy daily service of the body._\n\n_Then comes thy brother and snatches thee by the hand, saying, \u201cCome out\nhere into the world:_\n\n_See all these wonderful things, and all there is to do;\u201d_\n\n_And talks so eloquent, so persuasively,_\n\n_Soon thou art busy with him and his affairs, and the great world\noutside there in the sun;_\n\n_Till presently he rests or sleeps awhile\u2014and thou returning_\n\n_Gazest again on the cameo in thy chamber._\n\n\n                     FORMS ETERNAL AS THE MOUNTAINS\n\nSo, when for an instant my friends (and I myself) appeared like\ninsubstantial forms whirled to and fro in the world, now jostled against\neach other, now carried apart\u2014the sport of the winds and the waves, and\npuppets moved by the tangled threads of chance:\n\nAll at once the heavens opened, and I beheld, magnificent, serene\u2014\n\nLike mountains in the morning towering over the earth, changeless, or\nchanging only as the mountains change,\n\n[And Time and all the years were but a mist which rolled against them,\n\nHiding, revealing, here an outline, there an outline,\n\nHere a ledge of blooming flowers, there a black and lowering crag]\u2014\n\nThat other world where the Sun shines for ever,\n\nThose other Forms that move not from their place.\n\n\n                        SPENDING THE NIGHT ALONE\n\nTo lie all night beside the loved one\u2014how lovely!\n\nTo hold in one\u2019s arms something so precious, so beautiful,\n\nDear head and hair and lips and limbs that shrine eternity,\n\nThrough scent and sense and breath and touch and love\u2014\n\nForgetting all but this one\u2014all but this one.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd then again to spend the night alone, to resume oneself\u2014\n\nTo sail out in the silent watches over the sleeping world, and drink of\nthe intoxication of space,\n\nCalm, self-centred, to the great first One united;\n\nOver-looking the wide sleeping-grounds of Time\u2014forms of the past, the\nfuture\u2014comrades innumerable,\n\nLovers possible, all safely eternally embosomed;\n\nKissing them lightly on the lips, the forehead,\n\nLeaving them sleeping,\n\nSpending the night alone.\n\n\n                        O JOY DIVINE OF FRIENDS\n\nO joy divine of friends!\n\nTo hold within the circle of one\u2019s arms\n\nMore than the universe holds:\n\nSo sweet, so rare, so precious beyond words,\n\nThe god so tenderly mortal!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nNot kisses only or embraces,\n\nNor the sweet pain and passion of the flesh alone;\n\nBut more, far more,\n\nTo feel (ah joy!) the creature deep within\n\nTouch on its mate, unite, and lie entranced\n\nThere, ages down, and ages long, in light,\n\nSuffused, divine\u2014where all these other pleasures\n\nFade but to symbols of that perfect union!\n\n\n                           O CHILD OF URANUS\n\nO child of Uranus, wanderer down all times,\n\nDarkling, from farthest ages of the Earth the same\n\nStrange tender figure, full of grace and pity,\n\nYet outcast and misunderstood of men\u2014\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThy Woman-soul within a Man\u2019s form dwelling,\n\n[Was Adam perchance like this, ere Eve from his side was drawn?]\n\nSo gentle, gracious, dignified, complete,\n\nWith man\u2019s strength to perform, and pride to suffer without sign,\n\nAnd feminine sensitiveness to the last fibre of being;\n\nStrange twice-born, having entrance to both worlds\u2014\n\nLoved, loved by either sex,\n\nAnd free of all their lore!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI see thee where down all of Time thou comest;\n\nAnd women break their alabaster caskets, kiss and anoint thy feet, and\nbless the womb that bare thee,\n\nWhile in thy bosom with thee, lip to lip,\n\nThy younger comrade lies.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nLord of the love which rules this changing world,\n\nPassing all partial loves, this one complete\u2014the Mother love and\nsex-emotion blended\u2014\n\nI see thee where for centuries thou hast walked,\n\nLonely, the world of men,\n\nSaving, redeeming, drawing all to thee,\n\nYet outcast, slandered, pointed of the mob,\n\nMisjudged and crucified.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nDear Son of heaven\u2014long suffering wanderer through the wildernesses of\ncivilisation\u2014\n\nThe day draws nigh when from these mists of ages\n\nThy form in glory clad shall reappear.\n\n\n                             ONE AT A TIME\n\nA million faces, loves, bodies, lives\u2014a million souls,\n\nPouring down Time\u2014\n\nAs in a dream I see, and know my own.\n\nAll nations, classes, trades, ranks, temperaments,\n\n[The soldier\u2019s cap, the felon\u2019s crop, the bishop\u2019s mitre,\n\nUnder the eyelids of the peasant woman, beneath the burnous of the Arab\nchieftain,]\n\nA million souls, yet from the rest at once distinguished\u2014by the first\nglance revealed\u2014\n\nI see, and know my own.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Nay through the ages, loved ones, true to you,\n\nInseparable at heart I still remain,\n\nNor doubt you for an instant, nor myself.]\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut here, to-day, may-be of all One only\n\nThe hour, the strict Eternity of Time,\n\nPresents\u2014and I accept.\n\nMay-be the least, unworthiest as the world would say,\n\nYet even so sufficient\u2014for blest the hour\n\nWhich brings what, else, Eternity would miss!\n\nAnother day the worthiest may claim me;\n\nTo-day we two alone will be the world:\n\nAnd Love, the Lord of all, shall dwell between us.\n\n\n                            THE DEAD COMRADE\n\nThere among the woods, after the battle returning,\n\nIn a little open spot\u2014how well I remember it\u2014\n\nWhere the ground was red with the blood of my lover, my dead comrade,\n\n[Him whom to save I would have died so gladly, O so gladly,\n\nWhom I could not at any time bear to see suffer even a little hurt,\n\nSo tenderly we loved, so tenderly,]\n\nThere on the stained red ground, in the midst of the clotted precious\nblood, not even yet dry, stood a small yellow flower\u2014\n\nThe little Cow-wheat they call it, with its slender yellow blossoms in\npairs, and its faint-tinged lips.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd now in the woods each year\u2014in the silent beautiful woods, so calm,\nso sweet\u2014though the same flowers spring by hundreds\u2014\n\nNot a word do they utter of that awful scene, not a word of all that\ncarnage,\n\nOf the splintered trees, the blood-smeared corpses, the devilish noises\nand the sights and smells,\n\nOr of the livid face and faint-blue lips of him I loved as never another\nI could love.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nO how can you grow so careless, little flowers, and yet continue ages to\ngrow under the trees the same\u2014\n\nAnd all the light gone out of the world for me?\n\nEach year when summer comes and July suns,\n\nTo the woods I must go like one drawn by a fatal dread and fascination,\n\nTo see the sight I most abhor to see\u2014\n\nThe patch of blood, and the unharmed flower in the midst,\n\nAnd faint in death the lips I love so well.\n\n\n                          PHILOL\u00c4US TO DIOCLES\n\nHow often at dusk, dear friend, when thou art absent,\n\nSitting alone I wonder of what thou doest,\n\nAnd dream, and wait of thee.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll the sweet noons and moons we have spent together;\n\nAll the glad interchange of laughter and love,\n\nAnd thoughts, so grave, or fanciful:\n\nWhat can compare with these, or what surpass them?\n\nAll the unbroken faith and steadfast reliance\u2014nigh twenty years twining\nthe roots of life far down;\n\nAnd not a mistrustful hour between us\u2014or moment of anger:\n\nWhat can surpass all this, or what compare?\n\nCould riches or fame?\n\nOr if the Thebans honor me for their law-giver,\n\nOr thou, Diocles, in Olympic fields art victor beloved and crowned,\n\nWhat are these things to that?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd still thou growest upon me, as a mountain,\n\nSeen from another mountain-summit, rises\n\nClearer, more grand, more beautiful than ever;\n\nAnd still within thine eyes, and ever plainer,\n\nI see my own soul sleeping.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nSay, did not Love, the Olympian blacksmith, find us,\n\n\u00c6ons ago, in heaven,\n\nAnd weld our souls together before all worlds?\n\n\n                                  II.\n\nWhen thou art far, and the days go by without thee,\n\nStrangely I suffer.\n\nPerhaps even so in winter suffer the plants and the trees, when the Sun\nwithdraws his life-ray;\n\nThin runs the blood in my limbs, sucked out of the arteries;\n\nThe heart shrinks closed and painful\u2014I lose command and vigor;\n\nAt times like these, methinks, I too have strayed from my body,\n\nAfar, in pursuit of thee, my sun and my savior.\n\n\n                                  III.\n\nThou art so beautiful to me, sweet friend,\n\nYears bring no shadow between us;\n\nAlways I praise the very ground beneath thy feet,\n\nThat leads thee toward me,\n\nAnd give my unbelieving hands free leave to hold thee,\n\nFor still to assure myself that thou art there\n\nIs my first need.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nLove, that entwined our souls before all worlds,\n\nBinds the great orbs of heaven too in their courses,\n\nBut by no bond more lasting.\n\n\n                                  IV.\n\nAnd sweeter far to suffer is it, dear one, being sometimes absent,\n\nThan (if indeed \u2019twere possible) to feel the opposite pain\n\nOf too much nearness, and love dying so\n\nDown to mere slackness.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nNow, as it is, the harp is firmly strung;\n\nA tender tension animates the strings;\n\nAnd every thought of Thee, and all the winds which blow along the world,\n\nWake a sweet \u00e1ccord underneath the din,\n\nAnd harmonize life\u2019s wilderness for me.\n\n\n                                   V.\n\nTherefore I say, stay, comrade, lover mine,\n\nNor wander far from me while life remains,\n\nBut let us rather, and if it may be, hand in hand,\n\nPass to that last strange change, therein perhaps to know each other\n\nNearer even than now.\n\n\n                                  VI.\n\nIndeed, thou art so deep within my heart,\n\nI fear not Death. And though I die, and fail,\n\nFalling through stupors, senselessness, oblivion,\n\nDown to the roots of being; still, thou art there.\n\nI shall but sleep as I have slept before,\n\nSo oft, in dreamless peace, close-linked with thee.\n\n\n                        HAFIZ TO THE CUP-BEARER\n\nDear Son, that out of the crowded footways of Shir\u00e1z,\n\nWith hesitant step emerging,\n\nCamest and laid thy life down at my feet,\n\nFaint and ashamed, like one by some divine wine vanquished:\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI take thy gift, so gracious and sparkling clear,\n\nThy na\u00efve offering, as of a simple Nature-child,\n\nWondering, like one who sees a rose in winter blooming, or cypress \u2019mid\na wilderness of rocks;\n\nOr finds among the marl and clay beneath his feet\n\nA ruby fair embedded\u2014and stops and takes it.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n[The Earth, so dead and gross, and yet to points of finest light\n\nStill working in the silence of her unseen chambers!\n\nAnd thou, great common People, slavish still and brute and ignorant, in\nalley and tavern,\n\nYet in thy rugged mass fair hearts of finest glow\n\nInfallibly condensing!]\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nCome, son (since thou hast said it), out of all Shir\u00e1z\n\nH\u00e1fiz salutes thee comrade. Let us go\n\nA spell of life along the road together.\n\n\n                     IN THE STONE-FLOORED WORKSHOP\n\nThere in the stone-floored workshop in the middle of a great dirty\ncity\u2014the windows half made up with dust\u2014\n\nThree men, astraddle on their horsings, and over their grinding wheels\nbending.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe drum that brings the power from the engine-room pounds and thumps,\nthe belting slaps and crackles, whizz go the wheels so steady in their\nsockets, and the streams of sparks fly rustling.\n\nAll is so old-fashioned, perhaps much as it was four or five centuries\nago;\n\nThe old stone trows half full of water, in which the wheels run; the\npuddles, the mud, the wheelswarf spattered and crusting the walls and\neven the clothes of the grinders with yellow dirt;\n\nThe rude wooden bearings for the axles, soused with water when they get\ntoo hot; the drawing-up stones, emery wheels, polishers, glazers;\n\nThe little wheels, made out of fragments of larger ones, for hollow\ngrinding, and (more modern) the fan for drawing and expelling the dust.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere astraddle, in their rough clothes, with clogs on their feet, and\nfaces yellow-splashed, hour by hour bending over, the men sit\u2014\n\nWith careful grasp of one hand and pressure of the other, holding the\nblades to the stone\u2014the pads of their finger-tips worn through to the\nvery quick where they now and then and unavoidably touch it in its swift\ncareer.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nVery careful and responsible is the work\u2014the least slip may cause an\naccident.\n\nA man comes in from the hardening shop, puts down a bundle of\nrough-shaped blades, and goes out again.\n\nAnd still the heads sway rhythmically from side to side as eye and hand\nfollow their work across the wheel.\n\nVery careful is the testing and examining of a new stone and the fitting\nit on its axle: a single flaw and in the great speed it will fly,\nbringing danger to all around it.\n\nNow and then one pauses and takes a swipe out of a can; or throws his\nband off, to change his wheel for another; or goes to the fire to\nexamine some blades which are heating in a tray over it.\n\nCurt is the talk (of fancy-backs, rattlers, sours and wasters, tangs and\nheels and shoulders), for the noise is too great, and the strain, for\nmuch beyond monosyllables.\n\nDingy the den and dense the grit that settles thick upon everything.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nYet at last out of it all, out of this primitive scene, emerges\nsomething so finished, so subtly perfect\u2014\n\nA razor, keen and brilliant, a very focus of light in the whole shop,\nwith swift invisible edge running true from heel to point, and ringing\nso clear to the twang of the thumb-nail on it\u2014\n\nEmerges (his work done) a figure with dusty cap and light curls escaping\nfrom under it, large dove-grey eyes and Dutch-featured face of tears and\nlaughter,\n\n(So subtle, so rare, so finished a product,)\n\nA man who understands and accepts all human life and character,\n\nKeen and swift of brain, heart tender and true, and low voice ringing so\nclear,\n\nAnd my dear comrade.\n\n\n                              THE TRYSTING\n\nFar over the hills, ten miles, in the cloudless summer morning,\n\nBy grassy slopes and flowering wheatfields, and over the brooks, he\nstrides\u2014\n\nA young man, slender, wistful-eyed\u2014with a great bouquet of flowers in\nhis hand.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nGreat roses, red and white (in the cottage-home garden gathered),\n\nAnd sweet-scented ladslove and rich marigolds and mignonette and lilies,\n\nAll trembling in the glimmer of brimming eyes, and steeped in fragrant\nmemories,\n\nWith full full heart he carries;\n\nAnd calls in spirit, the while he goes, to her so loved\u2014\n\nMore than all other women on earth beloved\u2014\n\nHis mother who bore him.\n\nTill at length by the town arriving,\n\nOn her grave in the cemetery ground he faithfully lays them.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd this the trysting.\n\nThis the trysting for which in the little garden, with tears, he\ngathered the flowers,\n\nFor which o\u2019er the hills he hastened.\u2014\n\nAnd this, what means, what boots it?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere truly, below, with head fallen on one side, a shapeless\nindistinguishable mass, her body lies\u2014\n\nThree years already from this life departed\u2014\n\nNor hears nor sees, nor understands at all,\n\nSenseless as any clod.\n\nAbove, the flowers he has brought lie wilting in the sun;\n\nAround, the common-place dingy scene extends\u2014the dreary cemetery,\n\nThe stones, the walls, the houses.\u2014\n\nWhat boots it all?\n\nThese senseless things that neither see nor hear,\n\nTo senseless things what message can they bear?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nYet he, he hears and sees.\n\nA natural child, untaught, reckless of custom and what they call\nreligion,\n\nHe hears and sees things hidden from the learn\u00e9d;\n\nHe glimpses forms beyond the walls of Time.\n\nOf bibles, creeds and churches he knows nothing,\n\nAnd all that science has said about life and death and atom-dances and\nthe immutable laws of matter,\n\nAnd all the impassable lines and barriers that the professors and\nspecialists have built up out of their own imaginations\u2014\n\nThese simply exist not, for him.\n\nHe only knows she comes, the loved and worshiped\u2014\n\nComes, takes the flowers,\n\nStands like a thin mist in the sun beside him,\n\nLooks in his eyes, and touches him again.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd to its depth his heart shakes, breaking backward,\n\nTears rise once more, earth reels, the sun is splintered,\n\nStones, houses, and the solid sky dissolve,\n\nAnd that far marvelous vibration of the soul,\n\nSwifter than light, more powerful than sound,\n\nFlies through the world, pierces the rocks and tombs,\n\nAnd gains her Presence at the feet of God.\n\n\n                       THE LOVER FAR ON THE HILLS\n\nHere on this high top far above the world\u2014\n\nThis mute and glorious scene, earth\u2019s panorama:\n\n[The swelling mountains, all in green and gold,\n\nRound-topped, or broken into savage crags;\n\nThe valleys scarcely shown, like narrow rifts;\n\nThe slate-dark shadows, and the tarns and lakes,\n\nAnd vistas over them to sunny lands\n\nOf tiny patchwork, with quaint fields and farms,\n\nWhite sails on waters, and the sun-splashed sea:]\n\nHere on this high top dreaming, to it all\n\nI find but one fit likeness\u2014\n\nNamely the gracious form of her I love.\n\nThe limbs and hair, the lips, the eyes, I love\u2014\n\nTwin heavenlit lakes\u2014\n\nAnd undulant lines that run from hips to shoulder;\n\nFair world of hollow and rondure, hill and plain,\u2014\n\nSo solid-fair like this, so dewy-fragrant,\n\nAnd all inwrought with that dear life that holds me.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHow calm this air! this silence here in heaven\n\nCalm blue, and tender hanging clouds delaying\n\nTo kiss their shadows on the hills\u2019 deep breasts;\n\nAnd far around this dream of human presence\u2014\n\nNature, and my sweet Helpmate whom I worship,\n\nWith the dear god that dwells behind them both.\n\n\n                                THE BABE\n\nThe trio perfect: the man, the woman, and the babe:\n\nAnd herein all Creation.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe two, with wonder in their eyes, from opposite worlds\n\nOf sex, of ancestry, pursuits, traditions,\n\nEach other suddenly, amazed, confronting\u2014\n\nA nameless glory each in each surmising.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nA frenzy as of Gods\u2014\n\nImperial rage, flinging the goods of the world aside as dross, to reach\nto a priceless treasure:\n\n[He madly invasive,\n\nShe deeply wise, and drawing farther back\n\nEven to the gates of Paradise as he approaches:]\n\nStrange ecstasy of warfare!\n\nSeisin and ravishment of souls and bodies,\n\nVeils rent asunder,\n\nHeaven opening measureless, overhead, in splendor,\n\nAnd all life changed, transfigured!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd then a calm.\n\nWeeks of humdrum and mortal commonplace,\n\nAnd months perchance in monotone of toil,\n\nBut still behind it all some deep remembrance,\n\nSome sure reliance,\n\nAnd sweet and secret knowledge in each other.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd then the Babe:\n\nA tiny perfect sea-shell on the shore\n\nBy the waves gently laid (the awful waves!)\u2014\n\nBy trembling hands received\u2014a folded message\u2014\n\nA babe yet slumbering, with a ripple on its face\n\nRemindful of the ocean.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd two twined forms that overbend it, smiling,\n\nAnd wonder to what land Love must have journeyed,\n\nWho brought this back\u2014this word of sweetest meaning:\n\n_Two lives made one, and visible as one_.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd herein all Creation.\n\n         _O gracious Mother, in thy vast eternal sunlight\n         Heal us, thy foolish children, from our sins;\n         Who heed thee not, but careless of thy Presence\n         Turn our bent backs on thee, and scratch and scrabble\n         In ash-heaps for salvation._\n\n\n                           I SAW A FAIR HOUSE\n\nI saw a fair house standing in a garden, but no one moved about it;\n\nAnd I said to some who stood by, Who is the owner or dweller here?\n\nAnd they said, We know not. Sometimes we see a form at a window, but it\nis for a moment only, and then it is gone.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThen I went up to the door of the house, and turned the handle very\nsoftly, and went in.\n\nAnd the house was like a place deserted, yet was there a kind of order\nas if it might be used; and the tables were laid with victuals, and\nthere was no lack of necessaries or of comforts;\n\nAnd servants passed along the corridors; so I asked one of them, Where\nis the mistress of your house?\n\nAnd he said, I know not.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThen I went on again, and passed softly through many rooms, and peeped\ninto others;\n\nAnd at last in a far chamber I came upon the figure of a woman, alone,\nand seated on a chair, with her head on her knees, and buried in her\nhands;\n\nAnd I said, Are you the mistress of this house?\n\nAnd when she lifted her face I saw it was very beautiful, and her eyes\nwere glorious as the eyes of Love himself, but they were stained with\nweeping.\n\nAnd she said, This is not my house, it is my prison.\n\nAnd I said, Are not these servants here to minister to you?\n\nShe answered, Yes\u2014\u2014but what is that if they are only here to minister to\nme?\n\nBut these rooms, I said, and well-set tables?\n\nYes\u2014but what is that if they are only swept and garnished for me?\n\nAnd this garden, and the fair outlook from it?\n\nYes\u2014but since I may not even go my own errands beyond the gate?\n\nAnd I said, How is that?\n\nAnd she answered, Indeed I long to go down into the world, but I may\nnot; no sooner do I show the face of Love than I am execrated as one\nforbidden and an outcast. For in this city so long as one remains within\none\u2019s house one may do there what meanness and selfishness one will,\nprovided one keeps fair the front of the house; but to go forth openly\nand share one\u2019s life and the gladness of life with others, that is not\npermitted.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd I said, It is a strange city.\n\nAnd I went out and walked through the streets; but gloom and sadness\nreigned, and only in some houses the noise of feasting and debauchery,\nand in others a sound of weeping.\n\n\n                         A DREAM OF HUMAN LIFE\n\nI dreamed that I saw a wild and lonely promontory on which the sea beat;\nand the waves dashed against rocky cliffs and bastions, and flew in\nspray over the edges of them, and clouds drifted on overhead, mingling\nwith the seamist below in one veil which wrapped and shadowed all, save\nwhere now and then a watery beam from the sun glanced through.\n\nAnd in the midst among the rocks and crags was (it seemed to me) an\nancient ancient fane, like some far forgotten Abbey Church built in an\nelder world\u2014nor was it easy to say whether it was indeed built up of\nordinary masonry, or whether by some rude art it had been shapen from\nthe very crags themselves. But round about it and over the promontory on\nall sides the rocks and cliffs were carven in strange forms\u2014sea-monsters\nhalf submerged beneath the waves, and serpents stretching along the\nbases of the cliffs, and evil shapes thrown up on land and grasping at\nthe rocks with iron claws; and beside them forms heroic of men and women\non ledges here and there and pinnacles, through the mist half-shown\u2014as\nit might have been S. George against the dragon, or Andromeda to the\nrock-face chained, or Perseus with the Gorgon\u2019s head in hand.\n\nBut who they really were I could not well see. Only ever as the spray\nand wind wreathed by, the figures as in mortal combat seemed to move and\nmenace each other, and serpents writhed and sea-beasts plunged through\nwaves. And from the ancient fane came the sound of music continually\u2014now\nlow and distant, now rising with the storm and mingling with the\nocean-roar and wild cry of the wind: while overhead amid the breaking\nlights was a fluttering as of Wings.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd presently a change came over my dream; and looking again I saw that\nthe storm had ceased, and the promontory was lying there in the\nsunshine, calm and peaceful; and the rocks were black no more, but full\nof color and glory; and the hero figures were in their places, at rest\nand beautiful to look on; and even the monsters that had seemed so\nterrible had a grace of their own, transformed in the peaceful light to\nharmless grotesque things. And the whole land seemed to thrill with a\nsubterranean music, and on a high crag brooding over all was a figure\nwith arms outstretched.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd once more my dream changed; and I looked, and the rocks had become\nlike ordinary rocks and sea-cliffs, and grasses and wild flowers grew,\nand little habitations nestled, in the hollows of them; and the sea\ncrawled about the boulders lying below them; and the promontory ran out\ninto the ocean, and ships went past it to all parts of the world.\n\n\n                          THE COAST OF LIGURIA\n\nA thousand years are nothing.\n\nOnce the Ligurian, sturdy and thickset, scaled these rocks,\n\nAnd built his beehive huts of unhewn stone on the limestone terraces,\n\nAnd gathered snails for food, and fought his tribal battles.\n\nNow the Greek wanders along the shore, and oleander and rosemary\n\nShine in the moon for him, or Daphne hides\n\nAmong the laurel groves, or Heracles\n\nDrives his red cattle home along the coast-line.\n\nLater, the Roman makes great roads, and marches columns of soldiers\nthrough the dust,\n\nWhere overhead some temple of Castor and Pollux on the height\n\nGives omen of good fortune. The Christian follows,\n\nPeacefully toiling in his olive-garden,\n\nHymning the gentle god,\n\nAnd turns the Temple to a shrine of Michael\u2014rechristens Mars, St.\nMartin.\n\nBut presently the Moor with fire and rapine sweeps the coast,\n\nOr in his mountain-fastness, for a moment resting, watches the shining\nscimitar of the sea\n\nSheathed in the bay, its scabbard. Then, in their turn,\n\nBishops and Barons rule the land, and rage against each other. In the\nend the Modern\n\nBuries it all in a big Hotel\u2019s foundations\n\nOr the embankment of a Railroad.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nYet still beneath the surface all is alive.\n\nStill the old peasant-woman\u2014grin-faced, big-mouthed, with big-palmed\nhands, short fingers, and bandy climbing legs\u2014among the rocks\n\nGoes foraging for snails. The people still\n\nDimly athwart the mists of time remember,\n\nOf Heracles the Savior,\n\nHow on this Plain, that Promontory, he rested\n\nFrom his great labors in the West returning.\n\nStill the little Church of St. Michael on the rock\n\nStands dearer to the folk for being pagan;\n\nAnd still proven\u00e7al songs and dances gladden the vintage;\n\nAnd Moorish faces, and Greek, and old Ph\u0153nician,\n\nStir in the villages a stones-throw from the rail.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd still old names and festivals and customs\n\nLinger along the coast and country side;\n\nAnd still the hills stand, still the herbs diffuse\n\nFrom the warm ground the old intoxication\n\nOf aromatic sweetness. The waters still\n\nLap blue against the rocks. The snowy Alps\n\nLook o\u2019er the foot-hills and far out to sea,\n\nTo where and when perchance a worthier race\n\nThan all that yet has been at length shall come\n\nAnd gaze with grateful eyes upon their beauty,\n\nAnd crown their slopes with gladness.\n\n\n                       EASTER DAY ON MT. MOUNIER\n\n(_In the Alpes Maritimes_)\n\nSilence.\u2014\n\nHere on a rock in blue mid-air nine thousand feet,\n\nThe whole encircling sky flooded with light\u2014the sun an unfaceable point\nin the dazzling zenith,\n\nWarm, windless, basking\u2014the snow at our feet a million bright points\nglittering;\n\nAnd far around a multitudinous sea of peaks,\n\nFrozen, of rock and ice, and fields of rounded whiteness,\n\nAnd jutting shoulders, and slopes of shale, and walls,\n\nBehind each other rising:\n\nAll drenched, dissolved, in light,\n\nAnd waiting, silent, rapt, as if to break into song.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut not a sound.\n\nBuried in invisible valleys\u2014\u2019mid pine and larch and torrent-beds below\u2014\n\nVillages ply their daily round of labor;\n\nThe peasant hacks deep the soil around his vine-roots, or with his long\npole beats the boughs of olive;\n\nFar by the sea, mid garden-terraces, hotels and villas, the great town\nkeeps its carnival of Easter\u2014\n\nUnseen, unthought-of, here.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHere only rests the stillness of the Earth, waiting upon the glory of\nthe Sun; or here and there in some calm lakelet imaged.\n\nAges fly by, and almost without change; dim lines of floating cloud just\nfringe the horizon; vistas of far lands, distant times, unfold;\n\nAnd the silence of centuries holds the secret of history\n\nLost in the light of heaven.\n\n\n                               AT MENTONE\n\nWhy speak ye not, ye beautiful lands and seas,\n\nHung like a magic curtain in the light?\n\nWhat dumbness holds you, O divine vast Earth?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nYe stretches of smooth bare rock, dotted with cactus and aloe,\n\nRising so bold in the sun, from your deep dark gorges below;\n\nYe pine woods on the mountain flanks;\n\nAnd ye, ye terraces of endless labor, planted with vine and lemon and\nthe abounding olive,\n\nWith peasant cots and cabins here and there, and cisterns where the\nfrogs croak night and day;\n\nWhy speak ye not, why speak ye not?\n\nWhy with that strange prophetic glance of yours\n\nHang ye in heaven there, magic lands and seas,\n\nNor say the word we wait for?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Campanile and red roof of the village church show out seaward\nagainst the sky-line; and the cypresses stand sentinel in the cemetery\non the hill above;\n\nThe borage-flowers beneath the lemon branches catch the hues of sea and\nsky; runnels of water sparkle through the grass by the pathside; the\nscent of orange-bloom is in the air;\n\nFar back into the valleys stretch the gray shade and gloom of the\nolive-yards; and the narrow tumbled alleys of the mountain-villages are\nlike huge rock-burrows of human beings;\n\nThe grizzled wrinkled old man on his little plot of ground, and the\nyoung man beside him, work doggedly on with their mattocks through the\nheat of the day;\n\nThe broad-bosomed placid-eyed girl tends her flock of goats on the\nhigher ledges.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nYe leafing fig-trees, like silver candelabra of green flame!\n\nAnd ye, pale-blossoming peaches, dainty bright!\n\nAnd ye, ye immemorial aromatic herbs and bushes\u2014 arbutus, myrtle,\nlavender, rosemary, thyme\u2014trampled to perfume by the feet of\nlong-forgotten races;\n\nAnd thou, blue bay, with myriad points of light, and sky above with\nsubtle answering quiver,\n\nAnd high far crests of gleaming purple crag, and snows beyond,\n\nFlaming, all flaming in the light!\n\nWhy speak ye not?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nCave men and women and children, on your sides by the sea-shore,\n\nYour long skulls resting still in the palms of your bony hands,\n\nA score millenniums lying in the same position\u2014\n\nWhy wake and speak ye not?\n\nWhy utter not the thoughts that were, for you, the world?\n\nYe dead that build the rocks, and are the Earth, and fill, without a\nvoid, the crystal air!\n\nAnd Thou one dead (for each and all of us)\u2014one dead for whom our life\nwe\u2019ld gladly give\u2014\n\n[Thou whose remembrance passes through all sights and sounds,\ntransforming and transforming them]\u2014\n\nWhy through the veil of this material texture showest thou not, dear\nsoul of things, thy face?\n\nWhat dumbness holds you?\n\nO divine vast Earth,\n\nWhy utterest not the voice we long to hear?\n\n\n                              MONTE CARLO\n\nAll the long afternoon in a cloudless sky, slowly towards its setting\nthe sinking sun\n\nLooks on a scene of wonderful beauty.\n\nDeep below over the rocks, through luscious tangles of geranium and rose\nand heliotrope in flower, the sea sparkles a rich turquoise blue;\n\nPalms mingle with mimosa and myrtle amid the gardens;\n\nThe little cape of Monaco stands out, a stone\u2019s-throw across the\nharbour\u2014the mountains of Mentone run down to the sea\u2014and overhead in the\nclear air rise (two thousand feet) the great frowning rocks of Turbia,\nwith their ancient Roman tower.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn front of the Casino, on a gravelled space, dazzling in light, a\nthrong of all nationalities\u2014Germans, Russians, French, Italians,\nEnglish, Americans\u2014goes to and fro,\n\nOr sits at the Caf\u00e9 tables, sipping coffee and cognac and maraschino:\n\nThe puffy fussy Germans, the dull-eyed English, the feverish Russians\nand French.\n\nThe band, beneath its awning, plays; carriages drive up, and automatic\ncars with dusty occupants arrive; the newcomers alight and ascend the\nsteps of the Casino; fashionable women are in evidence, some carrying\nlong roulette-purses with chains;\n\nGirls walk about singly or in pairs\u2014pale, with carefully set profiles,\nlips, hair, and with immense hats and choice-colored costumes,\norange-red or primrose or lavender or dead-white;\n\nThe knots, the groups, form and re-form; the waiters hurry to and fro;\nwhile in a corner with easel and palette an artist takes a sketch of the\nwhole scene.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd still the sun nears its setting.\n\nThe air floats over, with the delicious scent of orange-blossom and\nmimosa from the gardens; the shadows form in blue folds on the distant\nmountains, the rocks overhead stand sturdier, more and more\nbastion-like, as though an earth-shock might tumble them on the crowd;\n\nIn the little harbour the wharf-men, with dusty sashes round their\nwaists, are coaling a great white yacht, already half lost in shadow;\n\nAlong the shore in a green high-prowed boat some fishermen row and drop\ntheir seine net in the same old fashion of centuries;\n\nThe peasant climbs his terraces of olive, the goatherd looks down from\nhis high perch among the rocks, and hears the faint strains of the band\nand catches the glance of the dresses.\n\nAnd still the sun nears its setting.\n\nAnd still, within, as all day since noon, the feverish crowd sits or\nstands round the tables;\n\nNigh twenty tables\u2014well nigh a thousand people, for the most part bent\non business\u2014all but a few by the glitter dazed of the eyes of the great\ngod Chance.\n\nHats doffed, a hush reigns; tiptoe they move about that huge saloon, as\nin some Temple.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd now the great shaded lamps are lighted, hanging close over the green\ncloth.\n\nSee! how beautiful is the face of this little old lady, with tiny\nshrunken body and trembling mittened hands\u2014the deep eyes, and dark\nshades in the eye sockets, and pitiful tender mouth!\n\nEach round she carefully places a gold piece on some compartment, and\nwatches for the result\u2014nor seems to doubt her occupation for a moment.\n\nNext her a young girl of eighteen or nineteen, aristocratic-featured,\nsits intent, and hides her hot eyes and straight somewhat pinched mouth\nunder the brim of a broad white hat.\n\nClose by again, see, a woman in black, of clear frank simple-minded\ntype, almost a rustic, standing behind a chair and trying one or two\nthrows;\n\nAnd here a man, faultlessly attired and with absurdly unconcerned\nmanner, sitting close by a croupier, and every now and then changing a\nthousand-franc note for gold\u2014which he dots about the board in the most\ncasual way, and apparently with complete want of success;\n\nAnd there, an old man with bald hot-veined forehead and grey hair,\ndeeply thinking, pencilling, computing, doubles his stakes with\ndetermination as he steadily loses.\n\nTwo demi-mondaines in waved and fretted hair, with long kid gloves\ncovered with bracelets, push somewhat petulantly a little pile of gold\nacross the board\u2014then rake together their winnings and walk away.\n\nThere again, in the shade of many standing behind her, sits a strange\nSibyll-like woman, with bat-wing trimmings in her hat. A half-formed\nsmile dwells on her impassive face. She always wins, they say; and not a\nfew furtively follow her lead in the chances.\n\nHere is a young German student with old scars across his face; there, a\nDundreary-whiskered yellow-haired Englishman of a type almost extinct at\nhome; there, a business-like woman in mourning, with sharp nose and\ndecided manner, evidently retrieving the fortunes of her family;\n\nAnd there behind her an elderly respectable English matron, most anxious\nto speculate, but looking carefully round first to see if anyone\nrecognises her;\n\nAnd here again a big-chinned, flabby French youth with a suppressed boil\non his neck.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nCurious, the suppressed feverish sentiment of the whole scene, the\nquiet, the politeness; the occasional sharp glances, or hurried\nretirement from the table, the swift self-satisfactions, and the inward\ngnashings of teeth;\n\nThe many faces seamed with wrinkles spreading fanshaped upwards from the\nbridge of the nose, or with twirled goat\u2019s-horn mustachios;\n\nThe little bald director on his high chair, white-skinned and\nwhite-haired, with big head, and quick beady eyes glancing through\nstrong spectacles, watching closely the croupiers and the public;\n\nThe detectives among the throng;\n\nThe arrival at one of the tables of a roll of notes for a hundred\nthousand francs, to support the failing bank\u2014the little stir of\nexcitement among the gamblers, and the added stakes in consequence.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd now, outside, the sun has sunk.\n\nLight-blue and white the calm sea lies beyond the palm-fronds, white\nsails speck the horizon, and the blue shadows on the silent hills are\nbeautiful.\n\nThe fishermen have finished their haul, and stand chatting on the beach\nas they thumb from the meshes of the net and store in baskets the fish,\nwhich bring them a few pence for their day\u2019s labor, presently to be\nserved up at fabulous prices in the restaurants.\n\nThe goatherds drive their goats homeward, with tinkling bells, and\npeering over the rocks look downward on the Eden which they may not\nenter.\n\nThe primitive peasant-woman, with great mouth and ears unlearned of\naught so modern as French or Italian, returns to the arched streets of\nher hill-top village\u2014Roccabruna or Eza or Turbia\u2014and ere the glow of\nsunset dies from the sky is fast asleep.\n\nBut the lights of the Casino shine reflected in the water, and the\nstrains of the band, through the scented air, vibrate, and from the\ngaming-tables the crowd drifts to its supper-tables\u2014while late through\nthe night the telegrams flash to Vienna or London or Paris.\n\n\n                         INDIA, THE WISDOM-LAND\n\nHere also in India\u2014wonderful, hidden\u2014over thousands of miles,\n\nThrough thousands of miles of coco-nut groves, by the winding banks of\nimmense rivers, over interminable areas of rice-fields,\n\nOn the great Ghauts and Him\u00e1layas, through vast jungles tenanted by wild\nbeasts,\n\nUnder the cloudless glorious sky\u2014the sun terrible in strength and\nbeauty\u2014the moon so keen and clear among the tree-tops,\n\nIn vast and populous cities, behind colors and creeds and sects and\nraces and families,\n\nBehind the interminable close-fitting layers of caste and custom,\n\nHere also, hidden away, the secret, the divine knowledge.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAges back, thousands of years lost in the dim past,\n\nA race of seers over the northern mountains, with flocks and herds,\n\nInto India, the Wisdom-land, descended;\n\nThe old men leading\u2014not belated in the rear\u2014\n\nEagle-eyed, gracious-eyed old men, with calm faces, resolute calm\nmouths,\n\nActive, using their bodies with perfect command and power\u2014retaining them\nto prolonged age, or laying them down in death at will.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThese men, retiring rapt\u2014also at will\u2014in the vast open under the sun or\nstars,\n\nHaving circled and laid aside desire, having lifted and removed from\nthemselves the clinging veils of thought and oblivion,\n\nSaw, and became what they saw, the imperishable universe.\n\nWithin them, sun and moon and stars, within them past and future,\n\nInteriors of objects and of thoughts revealed\u2014one with all being\u2014\n\nLife past, death past\u2014the calm and boundless sea\n\nOf deep, of changeless incommunicable Joy.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd now to-day, under the close-fitting layers of caste and custom,\nhidden away,\n\nThe same seers, the same knowledge.\n\nAll these thousands of years the long tradition kept intact,\n\nHanded down, the sacred lore, from one to another, carefully guarded;\n\nBeneath the outer conventional shows, beneath all the bonds of creed and\nrace, gliding like a stream which nothing can detain,\n\nDissolving in its own good time all bonds, all creeds,\n\nThe soul\u2019s true being\u2014the cosmic vast emancipated life\u2014Freedom,\nEquality\u2014\n\nThe precious semen of Democracy.\n\n\n                               TANZB\u00d6DELI\n\nHigh on a rock that juts above the Lauterbrunnen valley,\n\nSeven thousand feet in air, a little floor of grass,\n\nEven and smooth, with flowers\u2014\n\nThe little dancing-ground, they call it (and have called, how many\ncenturies?)\u2014\n\nAnd then across the gorge, and again some seven thousand feet higher,\n\nIn slopes of rock and ice, the Jungfrau towering over, Proud and\nmagnificent; and in her train seven mountains\u2014\n\n(Roth-thalhorn, Gletscherhorn, Ebne Fluh, Mittaghorn, Grosshorn,\nBreithorn and Tschingelhorn)\u2014\n\nStanding there like a wall and sending their glaciers to the valley.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n[And far behind the wall, far miles and miles, but invisible from here,\n\nGreat rivers of ice between the glistening black and scarred crags\n\nFlow, tossing and twisted, with sea-green escarpments and fissures, and\nscaly snaky moraines, and glittering snowfields above them, sharp on the\ndark blue sky,\n\nAll stretching, far as the eye may see, in endless silence,\n\nSave for the fitful rattle of falling rocks, or muffled roar of an\navalanche.]\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut at the end of the train, and closing it and the valley,\n\nRises a huge bare cliff, the frowning G\u2019spaltenhorn,\n\nDiabolic and dark, an inferno of crags and pinnacles.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThis on one side; on the other the landscape opens\n\nTo lower valleys and pastures\u2014the huts of Gimmelwald and M\u00fcrren,\n\nLying serene in the sunlight, with herds of cows just visible,\n\nAnd the blue-vista\u2019d gorge of Lauterbrunnen running down to the distant\nhills of the twin lakes,\n\nAnd tiny villages and towns, half seen and half imagined,\n\nAll folded in light and glory\u2014as the peaks above are folded.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd there below us, in the huts of the upper pastures, the herdsmen\ngather and milk the cows, and in their great cauldrons warm the milk,\nand strain and press the cheeses;\n\nStaying a few weeks in one spot till the feed is exhausted, and then\nleading the tinkling-belled herd by precipitous paths to other huts and\npastures,\n\nAll summer long, till the autumnal return to the lowlands;\n\nAnd in the little chalets the daily life goes on, with knitting and\nspinning and beating of flax, and storage of winter fuel and fodder;\n\nAnd men with small short scythes mow the slopes of grass almost too\nsteep to stand on, or carry their heavy wooden brantes of milk, braced\nto their shoulders, down the mountain-bases;\n\nAnd for a brief season the stream of visitors arrives, and the hotels\nwake from sleep, and distant music is heard;\n\nAnd guides and climbers sally forth with lanterns in the dark, and are\nglad if they may remain for a few minutes at early morning in the thin\nicy wind of some silent summit;\n\nAnd even tiny invisible trains attempt to ascend the unimaginable\nmountains.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut here on this little palm of grass, Earth\u2019s hand uplifted,\n\nAll is the same as though the centuries moved not;\n\nAnd the peaks stand round and wreathe themselves in clouds, and take the\ncolors and the lights of morning and evening;\n\nAnd the moon sails, and an occasional eagle, overhead;\n\nAnd the valleys plunge below in depths and darks invisible;\n\nAnd the butterflies and flowers quiver and leap in the light and living\nair;\n\nAnd we, in our turn, on the little dancing-ground of centuries,\n\nForming a circle, dance\u2014till the mountains too wheel round us.\n\n\n                            A VILLAGE CHURCH\n\nA stump of oak\u2014a huge old ruin of a tree, shored up with props;\n\nAnd close beside it a vast and splendid Yew\u2014still flourishing though\nfully a thousand years of age\u2014\n\nWith congregated stems upstanding, straight as a gothic pillar, and\nmighty outspread arms on every side\u2014a home for birds for countless\ngenerations;\n\nAnd almost underneath the branches of the yew, sunk somewhat in the\nground,\n\nA tiny little Church\u2014squat roof and belfry\u2014with Saxon walling and low\ndark Norman doorway.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd evening falls, and to us sitting in the lane\n\nFrom the low door as from some cavern-mouth of the Earth\n\nCome sounds of old old chants and murmur of ancient prayers, and the\nwailing of responses,\n\nWafted\u2014and a faint faint odor of incense (for High Church is the\nservice),\n\nAnd dimly seen, as through the mists of time, the glint of candles on\nthe altar-table.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nVoices indeed of Time and the Earth, like some strange incantation,\n\nIssuing from the gloom beneath the Yew-tree,\n\nComing adown forgotten centuries\u2014\n\nVoices and echoes of ages of Christianity, borne onward with the sound\nof Norman and Saxon chisels:\n\nPhrases that Chrysostom wrote, or good St. Basil; or borrowed from\nprimitive liturgies of the earliest Christians;\n\nScraps of antiphonies sung within the Catacombs; tags, litanies and\nKyrie Eleisons, adapted from pagan rituals;\n\nFragments of Creeds and Glorias from the days of Athanasius and the\nCouncils; or sanctioned by the use of Sarum;\n\nGregorian chants, and quaint melodic strains from far Greek sources:\n\nThese blent together,\n\nAnd laden with hopes and fears of hearts long buried,\n\nCome issuing from the doorway.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd all the while under the evening sky\n\nThe landscape stretches, so fair, so calm, so actual,\n\nAnd in the air the delicious waft of hawthorn-blossom\n\nFloats, and the red June sunset hangs in the West,\n\nAnd high in the branches of the Yew, a peacock,\n\nPreening its feathers, sits.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHow strange!\n\nTo think of the old old life for a thousand years that has gathered\nround these stones, and since the yew was a seedling planted,\n\nOf the generations of men and women to whom the Church has been the\ncentre of their days\u2014their first and latest home;\n\nThe old clock striking the hours and the quarters through years and\ndecades,\n\nThe old bell tolling its way through the centuries, with pendulum-swing\nof life-times;\n\nThe infants and wide-eyed children brought in for baptism; and after\neighty years brought in again\u2014mere broken husks of aged folk\u2014for burial;\n\nAnd their children the same, and theirs again the same, and theirs, and\ntheirs;\n\nTill at length by the font where the monk once muttered his Latin\nblessing, a smug young curate stands and lisps the service;\n\nThe marriages, the festivals, the long tradition of the mass and the\nholy communion from that last supper in Jerusalem;\n\nThe glow of religious adoration, and the pain of broken hearts, age\nafter age; the hopes of Heaven, the nightmare doubts of Hell;\n\nAnd the trio of Gods aloft, looking on all the time,\n\nThe Father, the Son, and the Ghost,\n\nAnd the dear Mother Mary, a little aside, apart,\n\nAnd the crowd of Saints in the background\u2014\n\nThe council-chamber of heaven.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd the terrestrial councils held in the Church,\n\nThe conferences of the local Barons with the clergy, the visitations of\nBishops,\n\nThe stormy scenes in the vestry, while the congregation is waiting in\nthe pews;\n\nThe Folk-motes called in the Churchyard, the preparations for defence in\ntime of civil war;\n\nThe fierce fights on occasions all round the building and amongst the\ntomb-stones; and up the stone stairs of the Tower\u2014the monks and priests\nlaying about them with heavy candlesticks.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo think of it all:\n\nOf the images that have stood in those niches and been cast down and\nbroken to shards;\n\nAnd of the tapestries and altar-cloths that have been woven and stitched\nwith pious care, and that have long since faded away\u2014\n\nAnd the little church still standing!\n\nAnd still the old vague-toned Gregorian phrases wandering down, and\nstill the golden voice of Chrysostom sounding from afar over the hubbub\nof the ages,\n\nFloating on the waft of incense, and mingling with the breath of the\nhawthorn, this June night, 1900.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHow wonderful!\n\nThe romance, the poetry, the heart-yearnings\u2014\n\nAs once perhaps they gathered round some Greek Temple:\n\n[Where the young man, having washed his body and offered a sacrifice\nbefore the laurel-crowned priest, poured out his heart in prayer to\nApollo, touching the knees of the god with a leafy olive-wand;\n\nOr the expectant mother came to Juno Lucina with a branch of palm in her\nhands;\n\nOr the old man at midnight, with a propitiatory offering, to the shrine\nof Proserpine:]\n\nSo, all these centuries and round the village church,\n\nA like romance has gathered.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd presently an alien folk will come, with alien thoughts and customs;\n\nAnd this little shrine half-buried in the ground, with its candles and\nincense and stuffy dingy interior,\n\nAnd its three Gods sitting up aloft, and its doubtful glances at Mary,\n\nWill seem as far back and strange as anything Greek or Egyptian.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThus as I dreamed, wandering away in thought through the long long past\nand future,\n\nThe service ended, and in the last glow of sunset\n\nOut came a crowd of gaily-colored girls in silks and muslin, and village\nyouths, and a top-hat squire or two\u2014all modern as modern\u2014\n\nAnd knowing or recking nothing of Chrysostom and Basil:\n\nInto the sweet evening air and dusk they came, with cheerful babble,\n\nDiscussing the local fashions or last event in politics,\n\nWhen sudden a yell rang out in the sky, like the yell of a monstrous\ncat,\n\nAnd with a great rush of wings, and to a chorus of exclamations,\n\nThe peacock flew from its tree overhead to the East and into the Night.\n\n\n                               SHEFFIELD\n\nWhere a spur of the moors runs forward into the great town,\n\nAnd above the squalid bare steep streets, over a deserted quarry, the\nnaked rock lifts itself into the light,\n\nThere, lifted above the smoke, I stood,\n\nAnd below lay Sheffield.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe great wind blew over the world,\n\nThe great soft Southwest, making a clear light along the far horizon;\n\nThe sky overhead was serenest blue, and here and there a solitary white\ncloud scudded swiftly below it.\n\nThe great soft wind! How it blew in gusts as it would unroot the very\nrocks, eddying and whistling round the angles!\n\nThe great autumnal wind! bearing from the valley below clouds of paper\nand rubbish instead of dead leaves.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nYet the smoke still lay over Sheffield.\n\nSullenly it crawled and spread;\n\nRound the bases of the tall chimneys, over the roofs of the houses, in\nwaves\u2014and the city was like a city of chimneys and spires rising out of\na troubled sea\u2014\n\nFrom the windward side where the roads were shining wet with recent\nrain,\n\nRight across the city, gathering, mounting, as it went,\n\nTo the Eastward side where it stood high like a wall, blotting the land\nbeyond,\n\nSullenly it crawled and spread.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nDead leaden sound of forge-hammers,\n\nGaping mouths of chimneys,\n\nLumbering and rattling of huge drays through the streets,\n\nPallid faces moving to and fro in myriads,\n\nThe sun, so brilliant here, to those below like a red ball just visible,\nhanging;\n\nThe drunkard reeling past; the file-cutter humped over his bench, with\nceaseless skill of chisel and hammer cutting his hundred thousand\nfile-teeth per day\u2014lead-poison and paralysis slowly creeping through his\nframe;\n\nThe gaunt woman in the lens-grinding shop, preparing spectacle-glasses\nwithout end for the grindstone\u2014in eager dumb mechanical haste, for her\nwork is piecework;\n\nBarefoot skin-diseased children picking the ash-heaps over, sallow\nhollow-cheeked young men, prematurely aged ones,\n\nThe attic, the miserable garret under the defective roof,\n\nThe mattress on the floor, the few coals in the corner,\n\nWhite jets of steam, long ribbons of black smoke,\n\nFurnaces glaring through the night, beams of lurid light thrown\nobliquely up through the smoke,\n\nNightworkers returning home wearied in the dismal dawn\u2014\n\nAh! how long? how long?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd as I lifted my eyes, lo! across the great wearied throbbing city the\nfar unblemished hills,\n\nHills of thick moss and heather,\n\nComing near in the clear light, in the recent rain yet shining.\n\nAnd over them along the horizon moving, the gorgeous procession of\nshining clouds,\n\nAnd beyond them, lo! in fancy, the sea and the shores of other lands,\n\nAnd the great globe itself curving with its land and its sea and its\nclouds in supreme beauty among the stars.\n\n\n                         A LANCASHIRE MILL-HAND\n\nShe died at the age of sixty-three, mother of a family of four children,\nand having during that time worked for fifty-three years in a Lancashire\ncotton-mill!\n\nYou know the scene: the great oblong ugly factory, in five or six tiers,\nall windows, alive with lights on a dark winter\u2019s morning, and again\nwith the same lights in the evening; and all day within, the thump and\nscream of the machinery, and the thick smell of hot oil and cotton\nfluff, and the crowds of drab-faced drab-dressed men and women and\nchildren\u2014the mill-hands\u2014going to and fro or serving the machines;\n\nAnd, outside, the sad smoke-laden sky, and rows of dingy streets, and\nwaste tracks where no grass grows, and tall chimneys belching dirt, and\nthe same same outlook for miles.\n\nHere she had grown up a bright-eyed strenuous girl, to blushing\nmaidenhood, and had become a young woman, and in time married; and here\nshe lived, and bore her family, and died.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn those days\u2014it happens even now\u2014whole families, father, mother and\nchildren, would go out (locking up the house behind them) to work in the\nMills; thus to earn perhaps a decent combined wage.\n\nAnd in this instance it was so. But the mother worked hardest of all:\nher one idea\u2014her blind religion\u2014being work: to bring up her children to\nwork\u2014never to give in.\n\nDuring the last twenty-four years of her life she never missed a single\nwork-morning being at the mill at 6 a.m.\n\nEven before that, on each occasion of her confinement, she would only\nallow herself three weeks off. When she returned to the mill she would\nleave the new-born babe every morning at the house of a nursing woman on\nthe way.\n\nThe youngest-born\u2014and he it was who told it all\u2014said he remembered very\nwell as a child being picked out of bed in the early dawn, wrapped in a\nshawl, and carried through the streets, just as he was, to the house of\nan old woman.\n\nHere his mother would just pop him down, and hurry on to _work_.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAt the last, after her half-century of toil, she was terribly broken\nwith bronchitis. Often, after going out at 5.30 a.m. into the cutting\nwinds of winter, the gas-lamps would reveal her leaning for a while,\nwheezing and coughing, in the shelter of a doorway to get her breath and\nstrength.\n\nNevertheless she never missed a single day, or even a quarter.\n\nShe never gave in till the very last.\n\nThen one day at dinner-time she came home and went to bed.\n\nBut at 9 p.m. the youngest son going up found her dressed!\u2014\u201cO yes, the\nhouse wanted tidying, and she would attend to it, as she was going to\nwork in the morning, and there was no one else to do so!\u201d\n\nBut in the morning there _was_ someone else, and the house was tidied\nwithout her;\n\nFor she lay in her chamber, dead.\n\n\n                                A TRADE\n\nIn a little stinking shop, hardly seven feet square\u2014\n\nJust one room in a London back street, where nearly every room lodges a\nfamily\u2014\n\nWith two or three little paraffin stoves in, and bowls and pots horribly\nsteaming, for dyeing gloves\u2014\n\nA man, some forty years old, burly and well-brained but broken down and\nbloated with drink, plying a trade.\n\n\u201cDo you see?\u201d he says, \u201cI buy these white evening kids, what have been\ncast off, from the slop-dealers, at so much a score. Then I gets a woman\nto mend \u2019em and put buttons on, and then I dyes \u2019em black, in these \u2019ere\npots.\n\n[As good as new, d\u2019you see? See how they shine when they\u2019re got up\u2014and\nthe black\u2019ll never come orf.]\n\nThen I goes out into the markets\u2014Leather Lane and the street-markets I\nmean\u2014and sells them at sixpence a pair.\n\n[Yes, and I mean to get a stamp and stamp \u2019em inside; then they\u2019ll be\n_just_ like new.]\n\nO it aint so bad in mild weather, but when it\u2019s like this, cold and\nrainy, folk won\u2019t stop to buy nothing, they won\u2019t.\u201d\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd there were the gloves, shriveled, black, and hanging in rows on\nstretched strings, like the corpses of weasels and moles strung by\ngamekeepers in the woods;\n\nAnd there was the filthy suffocating odor of the den and the chemicals,\nand the intelligent eye of the man wavering in slavery to his protruding\nlower lip.\n\n\u201cLor!\u201d he said, \u201cI often stay here at nights as well as days. I don\u2019t\nlive with my wife now. She\u2019s a regular bad \u2019un!\u201d\n\n\n                             THE PLOUGHBOY\n\nThe blackbirds sing so sweetly in the morning;\n\nThey are building a nest yonder in the hedgerow, where I pass at\nsunrise: and I think their song is sweeter then than else at any time of\nday.\n\nI take care not to disturb them: they work as hard as anybody for their\nliving.\n\nAnd I think they know me now, they are that bold. But they do not follow\nin the furrow, like the wagtails and robins; they seem to hang to the\ngrass-lands.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is pleasant then, in the morning: the air is so sweet.\n\nAnd the smell of the earth\u2014and I like the warm smell of the horses.\n\nJeannie goes in the furrow, and Rob on the fallow: they go very steady;\n\nAnd when the ground is soft-like, it\u2019s good enough going, but when it\u2019s\nstiff it stretches your arms a bit:\n\nLord! it does make you sweat!\n\n\n                              THE JACKDAW\n\nChork! chork!\n\nThe white sea-cliff, the crawling waves, the fringe of weed between,\n\nMidway a cleft in the rock\u2014from above, from below, unseen.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nChork! chork!\n\nThe sun alone looks in where my nest is; the moon shines in the blinking\neyes of my children.\n\nSweet is the warm night nestling all together, sweet the dawn by the\nfresh air fanned,\n\nSweet to arise and soar into the blue weather\u2014to see the brown fields\nand pastures inland!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo sail inland, a dozen together, to the feeding grounds, and unearth\nthe fat white slugs, (chork! chork!)\n\nTo roam and range with the others\u2014how sweet!\u2014and yet not with them,\n\nForgetting never\n\nMy own particular cleft in the rock and the tuft of sea-poppies beside\nit\u2014like yellow flames burning\u2014\n\nAnd the red wide throats of my chicks as they catch my black shadow upon\nthem, returning.\n\n\n                             BY THE MERSEY\n\nI watched the sunlight on the river Mersey\u2014all glorious with sailing\nclouds and shadows\u2014and sailing craft and steamers on the tide\u2014a stirring\nsight!\n\nAnd heard the clang and clamor of Liverpool behind me;\n\nAnd saw in front the crowded ferry-boats crossing, and gulls in clusters\nswooping down for garbage;\n\n[Two steps on the green water with webbed feet\u2014and up again, their full\nbeaks raised in air!]\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd the great Atlantic liner lay at the landing-stage, towering up, a\nmighty wall of iron, full thirty feet, over the little people who rushed\nto and fro below, completing the last shipments and farewells.\n\nFor even now the gong sounded in the ship\u2019s interior; and all was\nready\u2014every rope in place;\n\nThe shrouds and stays were taut on mast and spar;\n\nTwo slender wires, Marconi\u2019s, at the stern, ran sloping down from\nmizen-truck to wheel-house,\n\nReady to catch (far out at sea) a faint thrill from the home-land.\n\nThe little tug\u2019s towing-cable strained too at the monster; but still\nfour mighty hawsers held her fast;\n\nAnd still she delayed to move, and still the folk, on ship and shore,\nwith jokes and quips beguiled the hour of parting.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThen sudden rang a bugle from the deck. Down came blue peter; and the\nfoghorn sounded.\n\nThe hawsers fell, and she was free. A moment more, magnificent, she\nglided down the river.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd instantly from all the decks (from some of the portholes too) there\nburst a flutter of waving hands and scarves\u2014a fringe of white, answered\nby such another fringe on shore;\n\nAnd instantly I saw\u2014what I had missed before\u2014\n\n[Stronger, it seemed, than even cable and hawser, more numerous and\ntense than shrouds and stays, finer and subtler than Marconi wires,]\n\nA thousand invisible threads which bound the ship, and would not be cast\noff or loosed or snapt,\n\nBut tugged and strained at living human hearts\u2014and strained and tugged\nand tore\u2014\n\nTill hearts were sore and broken:\n\nThreads of some unseen world\u2014that stretched and stretched, and floated\nlike fair gossamers in the evening light\u2014\n\nSo fine and strong, so stronger even than steel;\n\nAnd followed lengthening as the great ship faded\u2014lost in the glory of\nsunset\u2014\n\nFar out to the Atlantic.\n\n\n                     IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM LIBRARY\n\nHow lovely!\n\nThis vast vast dome\u2014and the suspended sounds within it!\n\nSounds and echoes of the great city vibrating tirelessly night and day;\n\nVoices and footfalls, of the little creatures that walk about its floor,\nhalf-lost in the huge concave;\n\nSuspended whispers, from its walls, of far forgotten centuries.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHow lovely!\n\nAll the myriad books\u2014well-nigh two millions of volumes\u2014the interminable\niron galleries, the forty miles or so of closely-packed shelves;\n\nThe immense catalogue\u2014itself a small library\u2014of over a thousand volumes;\n\nThe thousands of editions of the Bible and parts of the Bible, with\ntexts, commentaries, translations in every known tongue\u2014these alone\noccupying sixteen volumes of catalogue;\n\nThe thousands of Shakespeare books, or of Aristotle, the hundreds of\nHomer, Virgil, Chaucer, Dante, Montaigne, Goethe, Voltaire, Byron;\n\nThe mountain-peaks of literature, and the myriads of lesser hills and\nshoulders and points\u2014the mole-hills and grass-blades even;\n\nThe interminable discussions of the Schoolmen and Grammarians, the\nequally interminable discussions of modern Science\u2014the investigations\ninto ghostly geometries of four or five dimensions, or into the values\nof _c_ and _g_ in the Lunar Theory, or into the alternation of\ngenerations in some obscure Annelids;\n\nHow bewildering! how impossible to sum up and estimate!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd then to think how slight it all is\u2014\n\nA little remnant of faded thought;\n\nA little dust just crumbled through the fingers, hardly more;\n\nThe residue and deposit of ages;\n\nThe dead leaves, the skeleton foliage, which generations of trees have\ncast upon the earth\u2014and which with infinite care we sort and catalogue!\n\nAnd then to leave the mouldy stuffy vault, and go out, and breathe\nfreely,\n\nHow lovely!\n\nOne living bud upon a little branch,\n\nOne face that looks and passes in the street,\n\nAnd these contain it all.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHow lovely!\n\nTo think there are all these books\u2014and one need not read them;\n\nTo think of all the patient purblind accumulations, all the dry-as-dust,\nthe fatuous drivel, the maundering vanity, the endless repetitions of\nvain things,\n\nThe endless care and industry and science used to sort out the pearls\nfrom the vast heap\u2014\n\n[And we only know they are pearls because we already have the same\nwithin ourselves\u2014]\n\nAnd to think we need not stop to count them.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhat is it, such a library?\n\nIt is the homage of industrious dulness to the human soul.\n\n[Once there lived a man\u2014he actually thought and felt\u2014he wrote even a\nsingle sentence of sense\u2014he uttered a word from his heart.\n\nThen all the nations said, \u201cO if we may but attain to save this divine\nspark from oblivion, let us erect even such a labyrinthine monument as\nthis.\u201d]\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nCome, come away!\n\nThe single hair of Buddha encased in a d\u00e1goba-mountain of brick and\nmortar grows now, even such a hair, upon thy loved one\u2019s head.\n\nCome, come away! leave books, traditions, all the dross of centuries,\n\nClean, clean thy wings, and fly through other worlds.\n\nHeaven\u2019s stars shine all around thee;\n\nDeep in thy Heart the ageless celestial Museum\n\nWaits its explorer. All that they said\u2014those wise ones\u2014\n\nThey say and repeat it now, where the plough-boy drives his furrow:\n\nBe still, O Soul, and know that thou art God.\n\n\n                                 EMPIRE\n\n    _Blind, fooled, and staggering from her throne, I saw her fall,\n    Clutching at the gaud of Empire;\n    And wondering, round her, sons and daughter-nations stood\u2014\n    What madness had possessed her,\n    But when they lifted her, the heart was dead,\n    Withered within the body, and all the veins\n    Were choked with yellow dirt._\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nO England, fooled and blind,\n\nCome look, if but a moment, on yourself!\n\nSee, through your streets\u2014what should be living sap of your free blood\u2014\n\nThese brutish squalid joyless drink-sodden populations flowing;\n\nAnd in your mills and factories the weary faces, sad monotonous lives,\n\nOr miles of cottage tenements with weakly red-eyed children, worn-out\nmothers.\n\nSee, from your offices and shops at closing hours, the morbid stream\u2014as\nfrom unhealthy glands within the body\u2014\n\nCrowds issuing of an\u00e6mic youths and girls, pale, prematurely sexual,\n\nWith flabby minds and bodies (held together chiefly by their clothes)\nand perky pick-me-up manners;\n\nSee, on the land, where at least there should be courage and grit and\nsinew,\n\nA thin-legged slouching apathetic population, ignorant even of\nagriculture,\n\nAnd in the mines and coal-pits, instead of lusty power, poor rickety\nlimbs and ill-built bodies;\n\nAnd ask yourself the searching question straight,\n\nHow out of such roots shall a strong nation grow?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd then look upward, at the surface show and flaunt of society,\n\nThose that are well-fed, and (out of the labor of the others) have\nplenty of chink in their pockets\u2014\n\nThe club and drawing-room life\u2014\n\nLook well, look well, and see the feebleness and insincerity of it:\n\nThe scores and scores of thousands of titled and moneyed persons\u2014a vast\nand ever-growing multitude\u2014living the lives of idiots,\n\n_Faiblesse oblige_ their motto:\n\nOf men scarce fit even to be good officers, much less good\nadministrators; of women hardly worthy to be mothers;\n\nA society wielding enormous wealth and privilege, skilled chiefly in the\nfinesse of personal gain and advancement, and honeycombed by cynicism\nand unbelief:\n\nAnd for the rest, the hundreds and hundreds of thousands swarming in\ncommercial dens and exchanges,\n\nThe life of the successful business man, the company promoter, the\nlawyer; the manufacturer, traveller, factor, dealer, merchant,\nspeculator; the bank, the counting-house, the big store, the director\u2019s\noffice; the advertising agent, and the vendor of patent medicines;\n\nThink of all these, and of the ideals beneath and behind them\u2014and ask\nagain the question,\n\nHow out of such stuff can a strong nation grow?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhere (and the question must be faced),\n\nWhere, anywhere over the surface of England to-day, do the necessary\nconditions exist for the outcrop of a decent population\u2014if only a body\nof a few hundreds at a time?\n\nWhere are the conditions for the growth of men and women,\n\nHealthy and well-formed of limb, self-reliant, enterprising, alert,\nskilled in the use of tools, able to cope with Nature in her moods, and\nwith the Earth for their sustenance, loving and trustful of each other,\nunited and invincible in silent faith?\n\nWhere is the Statesman who makes it the main item of his programme to\nproduce such a population? Where the Capitalist, where the Landlord?\n\nWhere indeed\u2014in a country in which Politics are but a game of party\nbluff, where Labor is a modified slavery, and where Land (for such\npurposes as indicated) is simply not to be had?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd the answer comes: The conditions do not exist.\n\nThe conditions (says the doctor) of life and vitality are gone\u2014already\nthe process of decay has set in, which only a swift crisis can arrest:\n\nThe heart is dying down,\n\nWithering within the body; and the veins\n\nAre choked with yellow dirt.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd this Thing cries for Empire.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThis Thing from all her smoky cities and slums, her idiot clubs and\ndrawing-rooms, and her brokers\u2019 dens,\n\nCries out to give her blessings to the world!\n\nAnd even while she cries\n\nStand Ireland and India at her doors\n\nIn rags and famine.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThese are her blessings of Empire!\n\nIreland (dear Sister-isle, so near at hand, so fertile, once so\nprosperous),\n\nRack-rented, drained, her wealth by absentees in London wasted, her\npeople with deep curses emigrating;\n\nIndia the same\u2014her life-blood sucked\u2014but worse:\n\nPerhaps in twenty years five hundred millions sterling, from her\nfamished myriads,\n\nTaken to feed the luxury of Britain,\n\nTaken, without return\u2014\n\nWhile Britain wonders with a pious pretence of innocence\n\nWhy famine follows the flag.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nLast, but not least, insult is added to injury.\n\nFor, while she prates the blessings of her Empire, contempt and studied\nindifference are her methods of administering it:\n\nAn empty House to hear the burden of the sorrows of India,\n\nAnd Irish questions treated with derision.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nO England, thou old hypocrite, thou sham, thou bully of weak nations\nwhom thou wert called to aid,\n\nThy day of ruin surely is near at hand,\n\nSave for one thing\u2014which scarcely may be hoped for\u2014\n\nSave that a heart of grace within thee rise\n\nAnd stay the greed of gold\u2014which else must slay thee.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nFor now I see thee like a great old tree,\n\nA Mother of the forest,\n\nProne on the ground and hollow to the core, with branches spread and\nstretched about the world.\n\nAnd truly these thy seedlings scattered round\n\nMay spring and prosper, and even here and there\n\nOne of thy great arms elbowed in the earth,\n\nOr severed from the trunk, may live again;\n\nBut Thou\u2014thy tale of ancient glory is told\u2014\n\nI fear thou canst but die.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n_And better so perhaps; for what is good shall live._\n\n_The brotherhood of nations and of men_\n\n_Comes on apace. New dreams of youth bestir_\n\n_The ancient heart of the earth\u2014fair dreams of love_\n\n_And equal freedom for all folk and races._\n\n_The day is past for idle talk of Empire;_\n\n_And who would glory in dominating others\u2014_\n\n_Be it man or nation\u2014he already has writ_\n\n_His condemnation clear in all men\u2019s hearts._\n\n_\u2019Tis better he should die._\n\n\n                         THE BRITISH, A.D. 1901\n\nAs the light descends to drown and redeem the world,\n\nAnd the sea quivers answering to its depths,\n\nAnd the rocks and trees stand up in the blue air like transparent\ncreatures,\n\nAnd the wheeling pigeons are a part of it all,\n\nSo is Love among the children of men\u2014\n\nWithout which they have no being.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nFor I seemed to see in vision a people that knew not Love,\n\nWith cold-mutton faces and cod-fish eyes hurrying around,\n\nIntent on endless quests, and gathering wealth in high and low places,\nand picking over the scrap-heaps of the world,\n\nAnd building up carefully their own good names and reputations,\n\nAnd following up clues of knowledge and philanthropy, and feeding\npiously and punctually the lusts of their bodies.\n\nAnd it was like half-blind folk in a dark place hurrying up and down,\n\nHurting against one another in lost and aimless confusion,\n\nWeary and senseless, stupefied and without originality,\n\nBecause indeed the one thing that might make life rational and vital was\nabsent.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd it seemed to me that the most ignorant unbred girl or boy amongst\nthem, who loved another and worshiped in mortal form a divine creature,\n\nKnew more and possessed more even than them all.\n\n\n                                PORTLAND\n\nIn the grey North-East of winter the great granite rock, see, overhung\nwith cloud!\n\nAnd from the top no portion of the mainland visible\u2014only a few war-ships\nbelow, and Chesil Bank, its far end rising into fog.\n\nBut behind, on the high plateau of the rock, among the quarries,\n\nWhere neither the sea nor the ships nor the mainland, but only the\ndreary piles of stone and drearier prison-walls, can at any time be\ndescried, and the arm\u00e9d sentinels,\n\nThere, behold! the convicts in gangs, ten or twelve to a gang\u2014and to\neach gang one or two warders, with muskets\u2014\n\nThe sullen heavy-faced convicts, and (in that place) every day more\nsullen growing\u2014hauling at trollies, or quarrying or dressing the stone:\n\nDamned,\n\nWithout interest in life.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd so onward, through more warders, some with and some without muskets,\n\nAnd through huge stone gateways and bastions, and through heavy clamped\ndoors, with endless turning of keys;\n\nTill at last amid all this absurd and lumbering display of brute force,\nas if for wild beasts\u2014behind bars thick enough to confine an elephant\u2014\n\nLo! a well-known face!\n\nA gentle unharmful face, making the whole apparatus look foolish and\nashamed of itself\u2014\n\nThe face of your friend whom you came to see\u2014\n\nSo tender and hesitating, thoughtful, and lover of children:\n\nHis face, also alas! grown monotone,\n\nAnd like a caged wild animal\u2019s indeed,\n\nWith dull and quavering eyes, that fill with tears,\n\nAnd lips whose tremulous smile belies the words\n\nThey speak so bravely.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd so more clanging of doors and turning of keys, and this one left\nbehind again, clamped down,\n\nAnd buried in stone and iron.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nDamned,\n\nWithout interest in life:\n\nNeither to speak nor to hear, to speed nor to welcome, a word of\nfellowship, a single act of kindness;\n\n[Even a warder for tucking the scanty blanket round an ailing prisoner\nwas fined;]\n\nNever to use nor exercise the sense of helpfulness\u2014the source of all\nhuman virtue;\n\nNever to feed but only starve the soul;\n\nIs this the Doom?\n\nTo hear no news from the outer world, save at unimaginable intervals a\nletter;\n\nTo read no book\u2014save some goody-goody inhuman rubbish recommended by the\nChaplain;\n\nTo nauseate, and yet to hunger ravenously for the same scant ever-same\nfood;\n\nTo sicken at and hate the same insults and loud imperatives of the\njailer, unendingly continued, unendingly borne\u2014the same idiotic vacancy\nof the cell\u2014\n\nThe three-legged stool, the can, the barred little window;\n\nThe same long hours of the night with pain at the heart, the sound of\nsilly fingers every hour at the slide of the spyhole, and the flashing\nof the night-officer\u2019s lantern in one\u2019s face;\n\nThe recurring effort of the irritated mind and starved body to compose\nthemselves to sleep;\n\nIn vain: the same same thoughts thought over and over and over and over\nagain;\n\nThe same little stock of memories and fancies brought with one into this\nwhited sepulchre\u2014getting smaller and slighter daily\u2014now like a wheel\nwith ever rapider motion going round and round,\n\nTill the brain itself is reeling.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n[And now a Fear, perhaps for the safety of some loved one outside, leaps\ninto the grinning circle and courses with it; and now another, perhaps\nfor one\u2019s own fate in the years still in front; and now\u2014worst of all\nphantoms\u2014the Dread that one\u2019s mind is giving way: till, in fact, out of\nmomentary sleep awaking to the same awful nightmare, a chill runs down\nthe back, the body breaks in sweat, forms gibber and voices jabber\u2014and\npresently the doctor is called.]\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nMind starved and body starved, and heart, too, starved\u2014\n\nIs this the Doom of Man to his outcast fellow?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nOnly for those whose minds and hearts are already stunted\u2014for the merely\nbrutish by nature\u2014the fate reserved is easier.\n\nFor them, two thoughts alone dominate\u2014Hunger, the ever-present craving\nfor food, the counting and computing of meals in prospect, sufficiently\ndegrading;\n\nAnd Sex, the everlasting curiosity and imagination (and act if\npossible);\n\nBut no word, no possibility presented to them, of Manhood; no word, no\npossibility, of Love.\n\nAnd so for those who care not that such possibilities should be\npresented,\n\nIs the easier fate reserved!\n\n\n                            CHINA, A.D. 1900\n\nFar in the interior of China,\n\nAlong low-lying plains and great river-valleys, and by lake-sides, and\nfar away up into hilly and even mountainous regions,\n\nBehold! an immense population, rooted in the land, rooted in the clan\nand the family,\n\nThe most productive and stable on the whole Earth.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nA garden one might say\u2014a land of rich and _recherch\u00e9_ crops, of rice and\ntea and silk and sugar and cotton and oranges;\n\nDo you see it?\u2014stretching away endlessly over river-lines and lakes, and\nthe gentle undulations of the lowlands, and up the escarpments of the\nhigher hills;\n\nThe innumerable patchwork of cultivation\u2014the poignant verdure of the\nyoung rice; the sombre green of orange groves; the lines of tea-shrubs,\nwell-hoed, and showing the bare earth beneath; the pollard mulberries;\nthe plots of cotton and maize and wheat and yam and clover;\n\nThe little brown and green-tiled cottages with spreading recurved eaves,\nthe clumps of feathery bamboo, or of sugar-canes;\n\nThe endless silver threads of irrigation-canals and ditches, skirting\nthe hills for scores and hundreds of miles, tier above tier, and\nserpentining down to the lower slopes and plains\u2014\n\nThe accumulated result, these, of centuries of ingenious industry, and\nof innumerable public and private benefactions, continued from age to\nage;\n\nThe grand canal of the Delta-plain extending, a thronged waterway, for\nsix hundred miles, with sails of junks and bankside villages\ninnumerable;\n\nThe chain-pumps, worked by buffaloes or men, for throwing the water up\nslopes and hillsides, from tier to tier, from channel to channel;\n\nThe endless rills and cascades flowing down again, into pockets and\nhollows of verdure, and on fields of steep and plain;\n\nThe bits of rock and wild wood left here and there, with the angles of\nBuddhist temples projecting from among the trees;\n\nThe azalea and rhododendron bushes, and the wild deer and pheasants\nunharmed;\n\nThe sounds of music and the gong\u2014the Sin-fa sung at eventide\u2014and the air\nof contentment and peace pervading;\n\nA garden you might call the land, for its wealth of crops and flowers,\n\nA town almost for its population.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nA population denser, on a large scale, than anywhere else on the earth\u2014\n\nFive or six acre holdings, elbowing each other, with lesser and larger,\ncontinuously over immense tracts, and running to plentiful\nmarket-centres;\n\nA country of few roads, but of innumerable footpaths and waterways.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHere, rooted in the land, rooted in the family,\n\nEach family clinging to its portion of ancestral earth, each offshoot of\nthe family desiring nothing so much as to secure its own patrimonial\nfield,\n\nEach member of the family answerable primarily to the family-assembly\nfor his misdeeds or defalcations,\n\nAll bound together in the common worship of ancestors, and in reverence\nfor the past and its sanctioned beliefs and accumulated prejudices and\nsuperstitions;\n\nWith many ancient wise simple customs and ordinances, coming down from\nremote centuries, and the time of Confucius,\n\nThis vast population abides\u2014the most stable and the most productive in\nthe world.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd Government touches it but lightly\u2014can touch it but lightly.\n\nWith its few officials, its scanty taxation (about half-a-crown per\nhead), and with the extensive administration of justice and affairs by\nthe clan and the family\u2014little scope is left for Government.\n\nThe great equalized mass-population pursues its even and accustomed way,\nnor pays attention to edicts and foreign treaties, unless these commend\nthemselves independently;\n\nPays readier respect, in such matters, to the edicts and utterances of\nits literary men, and the deliberations of the Academy.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd religious theorizing touches it but lightly\u2014can touch it but\nlightly.\n\nEstablished on the bedrock of actual life, and on the living unity and\ncommunity of present, past, and future generations,\n\nEach man stands bound already, and by the most powerful ties, to the\nsocial body\u2014nor needs the dreams and promises of heaven to reassure him.\n\nAnd all are bound to the Earth.\n\nRendering back to it as a sacred duty every atom that the Earth supplies\nto them (not insensately sending it in sewers to the sea),\n\nBy the way of abject common sense they have sought the gates of\nParadise\u2014and to found on human soil their City Celestial!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd this is an outline of the nation which the Western nations would\nfain remodel on their own lines\u2014\n\nThe pyramids standing on their own apexes wanting to overturn the\npyramid which rests foursquare on its base!\n\nBut China remembers too well the time when it too endured the\nabsurdities of monopolized Land and Capital, of private property in\nwater and other necessaries, of glaring wealth and poverty, and the\npractical enslavement of one man by another;\n\nIt remembers even yet the discomfort of standing on its own apex,\n\nAnd oddly enough has no intention of returning to those times.\n\n\n                        _Standing beyond Time,_\n\n_As the Earth to the bodies of all men gives footing and free passage,\nyet draws them to itself with final overmastering force, and is their\nbodies\u2014_\n\n_So I their souls._\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n_I am the ground of thy soul;_\n\n_And I am that which draws thee unbeknown\u2014veiled Eros. Visitor of thy\nlong night-time;_\n\n_And I that give thee form from ancient ages,_\n\n_Thine own\u2014yet in due time to return to Me_\n\n_Standing beyond Time._\n\n\n                     WHO BUT THE LOVER SHOULD KNOW\n\nAh! who but the lover at last should know Death is?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo give one\u2019s body to the earth;\n\nTo rise through the roots of the trees and to feel once more the\nsunshine\u2014floating as a leaf in air;\n\nTo star out months together with mosses and bog-plants on the lonely\nmountain-sides, to lurk under the speckled fungi in the woods, looking\nup at the traveller as he passes;\n\nTo be sucked in, in the mad rush of the sap through the veins of the\nchestnut in spring, and to burst in its great shining buds;\n\nTo catch at, dimly as in dreams, the wonderful thoughts that sweep\nthrough\u2014the great rushing prophetic dreams of the life-laden earth;\n\nTo feel the call of existence in new and strange fashion;\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo arise and ascend;\n\nTo mix with the animals roaming over the Earth;\n\nTo be and to include them\u2014to put on purposely the mask which they put\ninnocently on;\n\nTo be one of two swallows clinging to the southern wall, twittering,\ndiscussing sites for a nest; to be a snake basking coiled on a rock in\nthe sun;\n\nTo rejoice in my swiftness and strength, my inevitable action and\ninstinct;\n\nTo pass into the bodies of men and women, to be arrayed in their hair,\nand to look forth out of their eyes;\n\nTo be the long lines of habit in them, the food that is sweet in their\nmouths, the poison that is bitter;\n\nTo be the thoughts that they think, and the dreams that they dream; to\ncircle very close;\n\nTo circle closer than all thought; to touch and startle\u2014like the sound\nof distant music heard through the rushing of a storm;\n\nTo be the presentation of new unsuspected ideals:\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo be buried in the ground;\n\nTo be buried deep in the ground of all existence;\n\nTo lie in the soil whence all human life springs, and whither it returns\nagain;\n\nListening as in a dream of joy to the sound of innumerable voices,\n\nAnd to the sound of innumerable footsteps coming nearer through all the\nages;\n\nTo see and to be unseen; to hear and to be that which no ear hath heard;\n\nTo turn an open impartial eye without blame on every creature; to hold\nup a mirror,\n\nSo tallying nature that to it all men and things run to look upon\nthemselves and learn their parts;\n\nTo give products and receive materials;\n\nTo have the adit, to be the hidden link, the life which does not appear;\n\nTo love without sorrow; and to send love forth to bathe the world,\nhealing it from its wounds:\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAh! who at last but the lover should know what Death is?\n\n\n                          THE EVERLASTING NOW\n\nWhen all life has been rich in experience shall not\n\nDeath be rich in experience also?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHold fast to the actual, and do not go outside good sense;\n\nDo not let your mind stray into a world of negations and\nimpossibilities, or try to image some future time when it will be unable\nto image anything\u2014for there is no sense in that.\n\nDo not wander too far into time at all, lest with the everlasting\nNow\u2014the centre of all life and experience, and your own true lover\u2014\n\nYou fail to keep your first appointment.\n\n\n                        NOW IS THE ACCEPTED TIME\n\nAmid all the turmoil and the care\u2014the worry, the fever, the anxiety,\n\nThe gloomy outlook, fears, forebodings,\n\nThe effort to keep up with the rush of supposed necessities, supposed\nduties,\n\nThe effort to catch the flying point of light, to reach the haven of\nPeace\u2014always in the future\u2014\n\nAmid all, glides in the little word Now.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAs when the winds of March with their long brooms sweep the dead leaves\nfrom the surface of the ground, and the Earth in virgin beauty with the\ngrowing grass once more appears;\n\nSo when all this debris of thought from the Past, of anxiety about the\nMorrow, is at last swept away,\n\nDoes the vast ever-Present beneath reveal its perfect rondure.\n\n\n                              A SUMMER DAY\n\nSeeing once again the ethereal blue of the sky\u2014the limpid air\u2014the\nall-enfolding sunlight,\n\nHere in the great tumultuous abounding city, or again in the far woods\namong the fallen oak-boles and the fox-gloves,\n\nThe far floating ever haunting shimmer of uncaught beauty:\n\nI recognise that in all and everywhere it is the same:\n\nSomehow to hold and have this in oneself\u2014\n\nThis light and everlasting space,\n\nThis real eternal, whence the sensible light and space are born\u2014\n\nSomehow to hold from all things still a little aloof for this;\n\nNo rock that stands above the river\u2019s edge\u2014but that which illumines the\nrock;\n\nNo brown sail in the bay\u2014but the sweet undirected air that wafts it;\n\nNo pleasure, but the greater which lets the pleasure go or come;\n\nNot anything, but that which brings to all things grace and light.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nStill the far clouds just rim the Western sky\u2014domed masses clear above,\nbelow lost in the summer haze:\n\nSo vast the orb of heaven enfolds the earth\u2014the rocks and seas and\nrivers\u2014and the dream-walking millions of the earth;\n\nSo vast the soul of every man enfolds his mortal deeds and thoughts,\n\nDeeds, thoughts, desires, confused and contrary, vexing each other and\nvexed, in myriads, every shade and color, form and tongue, strange\nwanderers,\n\nDream-walking, till at length the real day may dawn.\n\n\n                            THE CENTRAL CALM\n\nDrawing back for a moment from Time, and its superficial claims and\nconclusions,\n\nRealising for a moment the artistic nature of the utterance of the\nUniverse:\n\nThat all is for expression, and that for this end commencement and\nfinale, first evolved and latest evolved, are equally important;\n\nThat Progress is a word which may be applied to any world-movement or\nindividual career in the same sense as it may be applied to the\nperformance of a musical work,\n\nWhich progresses indeed to its final chord, yet the conclusion of the\nwhole is not in the final chord, but in that which runs beneath and\ninspires the entire web\u2014in that which from first to last the whole\ncomplex succession of chords and phrases indicates:\n\nRealising this,\n\nRealising\u2014thus for a moment withdrawn\u2014that there is no need to hurry, no\nneed to dash against the bars;\n\nBut that Time itself rushing on with amazing swiftness in its vast and\nendless round, with suns and systems, ages and geologic epochs, races\nand tribes of beings, mineral, vegetable, animal, and ethereal, circle\nbeyond circle, infallibly fulfils and gives utterance to the glorious\nwhole:\n\nLike one in the calm that is the centre of a cyclone\u2014guarded by the very\ntornado around\u2014\n\nUndisturbed, yet having access equally to every side,\n\nI drink of the deep well of rest and joy,\n\nAnd sit with all the gods in Paradise.\n\n\n                            WIDENING CIRCLES\n\nThere is no gap nor any flaw.\n\nI establish my base of operations here, you establish yours in distant\ngrounds, a million years back or a million years forward:\n\nIt makes no difference,\n\nOur widening circles inevitably meet and interfuse some time.\n\n\n                      WHEN I LOOK UPON YOUR FACES\n\nChildren, dear children, when I look upon your faces,\n\nLo! all the hidden griefs, the sorrows and the vain imaginings,\n\nThe longings, and the desperate struggles and hatreds,\n\nThe jealousies, angers\u2014and the sudden joys, breaking the heart\u2019s doors\nopen\u2014\n\nPass in dumb show before me.\n\nLike figures in a dream I see them there gesticulating\u2014behind a veil, in\nsilence.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd still you move to your daily ways and works, seeming so\nunconcerned\u2014as I to mine\u2014\n\nAnd still the waves of Time wash down between us,\n\nAnd soon shall wash even you and all your dreams\n\nInto the void\u2014and mine.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut even so, dear children, I forebode\n\nDeliverance;\n\nSome better thing than all our dreams and longings:\n\nOne Life\u2014and all these images in their strange procession,\n\nIts mystic intimation.\n\n\n                            LIFE BEHIND LIFE\n\nWhat joys, what strange joys, lurk behind the actual!\n\nSee how great the pleasures of the body, of eating, drinking, resting;\nor of the mind, of knowledge, ambition, power;\n\nAnd yet behind these what strange pleasures:\n\nPleasures of fierce pain endured, pleasures of the body exposed to\nbullet-wounds, scourges, fire\u2014shattered and cast away;\n\nPleasures of pleasure refused, of simple withdrawnness and indifference,\nor of mastery and ascendancy.\n\nEver breaking out behind the actual some unknown force or being,\n\nThrowing the whilom body off like a husk, with its former capacities and\nneeds,\n\nCreating new joys, fiercer wilder than those of old.\n\n\n                          THE STUPID OLD BODY\n\nDo not pay too much attention to the stupid old Body.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen you have trained it, made it healthy, beautiful, and your willing\nservant,\n\nWhy, do not then reverse the order and become its slave and attendant.\n\n[The dog must follow its master\u2014not the master the dog.]\n\nRemember that if you walk away from it and leave it behind, it will have\nto follow you\u2014it will grow by following, by continually reaching up to\nyou.\n\nIncredibly beautiful it will become, and suffused by a kind of\nintelligence.\n\nBut if you turn and wait upon it\u2014and its mouth and its belly and its\nsex-wants and all its little ape-tricks\u2014preparing and dishing up\npleasures and satisfactions for these,\n\nWhy, then instead of the body becoming like you, you will become like\nthe body,\n\nIncredibly stupid and unformed\u2014going back in the path of evolution\u2014you\ntoo with fish-mouth and toad-belly, and imprisoned in your own members,\nas it were an Ariel in a blundering Caliban.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nTherefore quite lightly and decisively at each turning point in the path\nleave your body a little behind\u2014\n\nWith its hungers and sleeps, and funny little needs and vanities\u2014paying\nno attention to them;\n\nSlipping out at least a few steps in advance, till it catch you up\nagain,\n\nAbsolutely determined not to be finally bound or weighted down by it,\n\nOr fossilized into one set form\u2014\n\nWhich alone after all is Death.\n\n\n                       THE WANDERING LUNATIC MIND\n\nDo not pay too much attention to the wandering lunatic Mind.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen you have trained it, informed it, made it clear, decisive, and your\nflexible instrument and tool,\n\nWhy, do not then reverse the order and become the mere fatuous attendant\nand exhibitor of its acrobatic feats (like a keeper who shows off a\nmonkey).\n\nRemember that if you walk away from it, leaving it as dead, paying it no\nattention whatever\u2014it will have to follow you\u2014it will grow by following,\nby reaching up to you, from the known to the unknown, continually;\n\nIt will become at last the rainbow-tinted garment and shining\ninterpreter of Yourself, and incredibly beautiful.\n\nBut if you turn and wait always upon it, and its idiotic cares and\nanxieties, and endless dream-chains of argument and imagination\u2014\n\nFeeding them and the microbe-swarms of thought continually, wasting upon\nthem your life-force;\n\nWhy, then, instead of your Mind becoming your true companion and\ninterpreter, it will develop antics and a St. Vitus\u2019 dance of its own,\nand the form of a wandering lunatic,\n\nIncredibly tangle-haired and diseased and unclean,\n\nIn whose features you, in sadness and in vain, will search for your own\nimage\u2014terrified lest you find it not, and terrified too lest you find\nit.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nTherefore quite decisively, day by day and at every juncture, leave your\nMind for a time in silence and abeyance;\n\nWith its tyrannous thoughts and demands, and funny little fears and\nfancies\u2014the long legacy of ages of animal evolution;\n\nSlipping out and going your own way into the Unseen\u2014feeling with your\nfeet if necessary through the darkness\u2014till some day it may follow you;\n\nAbsolutely determined not to be bound by any of its conclusions; or\nfossilized in any pattern that it may invent;\n\nFor this were to give up your kingdom, and bow down your neck to Death.\n\n\n                     AS A MOULD FOR SOME FAIR FORM\n\nAs a mould for some fair form is made of plaster, and then when it is\nmade and the form is cast therein, the plaster is broken and flung\naside\u2014\n\nSo, and for a form fairer than aught thou canst imagine, thy body, thy\nintellect, thy pursuits and accomplishments, and all that thou dost now\ncall thyself,\n\nAre the mould which in time will have to be broken and flung aside.\n\nTheir outlines are the inverse of thy true form: looking on them thou\nbeholdest\u2014what thou art not.\n\n\n                         NOTHING LESS THAN ALL\n\nAll, all\u2014and nothing less than all.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nEver men say: Here lies the truth, There lies the truth\u2014Take this, cast\nthat aside\u2014Throw in thy lot with us\u2014We are the wise, the rest are fools.\n\nBut I am as one dumb\u2014I try to speak, to say what is in my mind, but\nwords fail me.\n\nI go with these wise folk a little way, and then I draw back again; I\nthrow in my lot with them, and then alas! I throw in with the fools.\n\nI stultify myself, and am like a thing of no shape.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe fault is mine, that I cannot say what I want to say\u2014I cannot for the\nlife of me answer the questions that are continually being asked.\n\nIs it for pleasure and the world and the present, or for death and\ntranslation and spirituality, that we must live? Is it for asceticism\nand control, or for ingenuity and sweet enjoyment?\n\nDoes the truth lie with the East or with the West\u2014with Buddhists and the\nfollowers of Lao Tsze, or with those who span seas and rivers by bridges\nand wing aerial flights by machinery?\n\nIs it best to be an idler or a worker, an accepted person or a criminal?\n\nShall the town be my home, with its rush of interests and sympathies,\nits fascinations and magnetisms of the crowded pavements?\n\nOr the country, with its gracious solitude and the pure breath and\nbeauty of the air and the fields?\n\nShall I give my life (how gladly!) to my one, my only lover\u2014absorbed, we\ntwo, our days, in single devotion to each other\u2014\n\nOr shall I pour it out upon a hundred and a thousand beautiful forms (so\nbeautiful) to spread from them as in an ever-widening ring to others?\n\nWhich is the most desirable or useful trade\u2014to be a musician, or a\ngeologist, or a navvy? to work laughing and joking with one\u2019s mates in a\nbig workshop, or to walk at the plough-tail all day in the quiet\nlandscape under the slow changes of the weather and the clouds?\n\nTo be a mathematician tracking in one\u2019s study the hidden properties of\ncurves and closed figures, or an astronomer noting the star-transits on\nwhich a nation\u2019s time-reckoning depends?\n\nTo be a file-forger with hooved palm sweating before one\u2019s fire in\nsummer, or a cobbler cursing the brittleness of his wax in winter?\n\nOr a potter or a moulder or a parson or a prostitute or a\ntown-councillor?\n\nIs it better to be surly and rude, or sympathetic and suave, to be\nquick-tempered or patient, hot-blooded or cold-blooded, \u2019cute or simple,\nmoral or immoral?\n\nTo join the society for the suppression of Vice, or to be one of the\npersons to be supprest? to be partial to drink, or to be a teetotaler?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nFor the life of me I cannot answer all these questions\u2014I acknowledge\nthat I am a fool.\n\nSometimes with this inability to take sides comes a strange terror of\nlosing all outline, of losing my identity, my proper consciousness,\neverything;\n\nTill I think of the Present and the work I have actually to do\u2014and then\ncomes relief;\n\nThen instantly everything is decided\u2014one\u2019s place, and the part one has\nto play\u2014nor is there any doubt whatever about the next move.\n\nFor the moment I am pledged to this or that;\n\nYet I feel that in the end I must accept all,\n\nAnd shall be content with nothing less than all.\n\n\n                        BELIEVE YOURSELF A WHOLE\n\nBelieve yourself a Whole.\n\nThese needs, these desires, these faculties\u2014\n\nThis of eating and drinking, the great pleasure of food, the need of\nsex-converse and of renewal in and from the bodies of others;\n\nThe faculty of sight, the wonderful panorama of the visible, and of\nhearing;\n\nThe inquisitive roaming brain, the love of society and good fellowship;\n\nThe joy of contest, the yearnings of Religion, the mystic impulses of\nnight, of Nature, of solitude;\n\nAll these and a thousand other impulses, capacities, determinations, are\nindeed Yourself\u2014the output and evidence and delineation of Yourself.\n\nThey cannot (in any permanent sense) be peeled off and thrown away;\n\nThey spring inevitably deep down out of yourself\u2014and will recur again\nwherever you are.\n\nThere is no creature in the whole range of Being from the highest to the\nlowest which does not exhibit these and similar capacities, or the germs\nof them, in itself.\n\nYou are that Whole which Nature also is\u2014and yet you are that Whole in\nyour own peculiar way.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWere your eyes destroyed, still the faculty of sight were not destroyed:\n\nOut of the same roots again as before would the optic apparatus spring.\n\nShould you die of starvation you would only begin immediately after\ndeath to take food in another way; and the impulse of union which is at\nthe base of sex lies so deep down that the first reawakening of\nconsciousness would restore it.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nBelieve yourself a Whole, indivisible, indefeasible,\n\nReawakening ever under these, under those, conditions,\n\nExpanding thus far, expanding less far, expanding farther;\n\nExpanding this side, expanding that side, expanding all sides;\n\nEver diverse yet the same, the same yet diverse\u2014inexhaustibly continuous\nwith the rest;\n\nAnd made for love\u2014to embrace all, to be united ultimately with all.\n\n\n                        THE BODY WITHIN THE BODY\n\nWhen life like a ghastly panorama stretches before the eye of the\nspirit\u2014\n\nA festal procession, as it were, continually gulfing itself in a\nquicksand;\n\nWhen\u2014waking as in a nightmare at dead of night\u2014\n\nOne thinks of all the disease, the weariness, the suffering of the world\nas it is:\n\nOf the cancer eating slowly onward with its roots entwined in the\nvitals\u2014the vista of agony and defeat by the curs\u00e9d thing;\n\nOf the incurable filth, the venom in the lungs, breeding slime and death\nwithin one through the interminable months;\n\nAnd these but samples of what waits, more or less, for almost all;\n\nWhen one thinks of the sudden senseless accidents which are for ever\noccurring\u2014the ship returning home, full, with brimming hearts, from the\nAntipodes, ripped on a rock and gone in a moment to the bottom;\n\nA lurch, somewhere, of the shrinking earth-strata, and a whole city\ntumbled in shrieks and ruin;\n\nThe \u2018weight\u2019 coming on in the coal-pit, the ominous fall of small stones\nfrom the roof, the awful cracking of the great oak-props, the hurried\nrush of the miners and their swifter still entombment;\n\nThe breaking of a cable, or of a driving band in machinery, a flaw in a\nwheel, a random step on a stairway\u2014and husband torn from wife, and\nmother from child, or child from mother;\n\nDeath and destruction and the messengers of death and destruction in\nmyriad forms still waiting to fulfil the inevitable doom;\n\nWhen, I say, the necessity arises to face all this\u2014and face it out\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThen somehow, underneath it all,\n\nI seem to see that the strands of affection and love, auroral, shooting\nfrom one to another\u2014so tender, so true, and life-long,\n\nAnd longer than life\u2014holding together the present and past generations;\n\nThe currents of love and thought streaming in the watches of the night\nfrom far and near, from one to another,\n\n(Streaming all the more powerfully for the very hindrances and disasters\nwhich arrive or threaten,)\n\nAnd building in the bustle of the day such likeness of their dreams as\nmay be\u2014\n\nThat these inner are after all more real in some sense than the outer\nthings\u2014that they surpass in actual vitality and significance even all\nthis artillery of horrors.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI dream that these are the fibres and nerves of a body that lies within\nthe outer body of society,\n\nA network, an innumerable vast interlocked ramification, slowly being\nbuilt up\u2014all dear lovers and friends, all families, groups, all peoples,\nnations, all times, all worlds perhaps\u2014\n\nOf which the outer similitudes and shells, like the minute cells of an\norganism, are shed and die in endless multitudes with continual decay\nand corruption;\n\nBut the real individuals persist and are members of a Body, archetypal,\neterne,\n\nGlorious, the centre and perfection of life and organisation,\n\nAnd the source of all the Light in the universe.\n\n\n                            IN AN OLD QUARRY\n\nOnce in an old quarry,\n\nIn a heathery nook among the rocks, unclothed as I reclined in the sun,\nfacing only the great hills and the sky;\n\nMillions of years floating softly down through the aerial blue,\n\nThy words\u2014millions millions of human forms\u2014\n\nI saw descending.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nTiny, into the tissue of grass and tree and herb passing\u2014into the mouths\nand bodies of men and animals\u2014and here and there a fitting home in the\nsex-cells finding,\n\nAt length, clothed mortal men and women,\n\nOut on the actual world I saw them step:\n\nThy words\u2014thy wandering words\u2014each one alone, so lost, so meaningless,\n\nEach seeking his true mates, if so to spell\n\nOne sentence of thy great world-wisdom out.\n\n\n                          THE SOUL TO THE BODY\n\nNow at last after thousands of years, dear Body, from thy prison\nemerging,\n\nThy agelong tomb and sepulchre,\n\n[Where, with what swathing-bands, like Lazarus, what mummy-cloths, what\ncerements of fashion custom ignorance, thou wast bound,]\n\nStrange chrysalis, thy dead sheath bursting!\n\nStrange glorious Lover!\n\nTo feel again thy arms enfolding, to breathe the fragrance of thy\nsun-kist skin, how sweet!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhat long estrangement, dear, what nightmare has it been, divided us?\n\nFrom far away what long slow exodus?\n\nWhy to the tomb in ages past didst thou descend\u2014of Death and dread\nCorruption?\u2014\n\nWhile I, poor ghost, went wandering belated, and homeless and forlorn\nabout the world?\n\nFor, as the delicate vein-winged gnat from its watery case, as Eve from\nAdam\u2019s side, as Psyche from the dark embrace of Eros,\n\nSo from thee gliding, far-back, long ago\u2014dimly I mind me now\u2014\n\nSlow-differenced, this wondering wandering Self was I.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Dimly I mind the agelong alienation:\n\nThou body, of thy mate bereft, and falling unclean, diseased, by devils\npossest, in mire and filth\u2014\n\nBlind Maenad by thy own senses led astray!\n\nWhile I, poor soul, half formed and maimed of half,\n\nAbstract, absurd, amazed, and crucified,\n\nTo arid and unending toils was doomed, and loneliness.]\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAfter it all to thee, dear, to return,\n\nTo feel again thy close-enfolding arms\u2014how sweet!\n\nTo know Thee now at last\u2014(long veiled and hidden)\u2014\n\nThrough Nature moving, as the Sun and Moon\n\nMove through the crystal heaven, self-sent, divine,\n\nTransparent, tameless, more than spirit or matter;\n\nDear body, brushing with thy feet the grasses, or resting outlined by\nthe rocks and sea\u2014\n\nTo rest with thee, content, in perfect union,\n\nO in such deep and fathomless joy to rest beside thee,\n\nThy mate and friend, stricken with doubts no more.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nNow once more in thy lungs the winds of heaven\u2014as out there in the\nforest-branches\u2014nestle;\n\nThe waters flowing in the brooks flow on in crimson tide through artery\nand vein; and lift the little valve-doors and pass by with whispered\nsecrets from the clouds and hills.\n\nSweet now the food-fruits pass without corruption inward and outward of\nthe body\u2019s frame;\n\nClean is the ark and holy chamber of the woman, the seed-vessel of the\nman;\n\nAnd clean the body all suffused with passion\n\nTill the right mate arrives.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nO Love, with fragrance of whose wine the world is vanquished!\n\nGreat Ocean swaying far from atom to atom! sweet aromatic transpiration\nof the clods!\n\nDiffused vast Life, now here, now there, in definite lightning-flash thy\nvisible work fulfilling!\n\nFor this, even for thy habitation, hast thou prepared these bodies.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd thou, little one, so soon to dissolve into earth and air and sea,\n\nThy form, my love, I accept\u2014and am no more divided from thee.\n\n\n                          TO BECOME A CREATOR\n\nI heard a Voice saying:\n\nSee now in the end you shall stand Lord of the World.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen those desires which are injurious to others have departed from\nyou\u2014when all desires born of hate;\n\nWhen you have become strong to conquer the world, strong to endure and\nconquer so the hatred and the injuriousness of others;\n\nWhen what you will, you will with the whole force of your nature,\nundivided,\n\nUndivided by fear, conscience, conventions, and the distinctions of self\nand not-self;\n\nThen, lo! all that you wish\u2014all that your heart forms for an image of\nits longings\u2014shall take shape before you;\n\nYou shall create the things which are the fulfilment of your needs;\n\nThere is nothing that shall not be yours.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nFor this world you see around\u2014these trees, mountains, these high city\nstreets and the myriad faces that pass among them\u2014are not all these but\nimages?\n\nImages, to the Heart of which with restless longing you have indeed so\noften sought to penetrate.\n\nSay then, if you attain to be ruler of your own thoughts, and of the\nimages which spring from your heart, is it so much that you should be\narbiter also of these others, and touch to the Heart they spring from?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nFor deep down there is, may-be, no difference\u2014\n\nAnd when the desires that are born of Hate and Fear and Distrust are\ngone, there is no difference.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd I said: Am I not my own thoughts, and when these die, shall I not\nalso die?\n\nAnd the Voice said: Look again\u2014\n\nThese thoughts, these images, that pass before you\u2014they pass before You.\n\nThen how can they be Yourself?\n\nNevertheless it is true that they proceed from you.\n\nThey proceed from the Heart, and the mind perceives them.\n\nAnd so it shall be eternally.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd all This, and all that you see, and all that you think, and all that\nyou experience, is the evidence of Yourself,\n\nYourself coming to you over the ages.\n\nTherefore go forth\u2014and be in truth thine own Creator\u2014\n\nNo longer in fear and trembling but in kingship and power meeting the\nmystery of the world;\n\nBy the pure and beautiful desires which spring within thee, like\nfountain-waters from a hillside welling (which flow and grow into an\nendless stream running ever towards the centre of the Earth)\u2014by these\nguided,\n\nTake with unerring choice, and make and mould, and carve and cut and\nforce thy way,\n\nTo the centre of all creation\u2014to the Heart indeed of all lovers.\n\n\n                           AFTER FIFTY YEARS\n\nLooking back now, after fifty years and more, when the main work of life\nis done,\n\nWhen its acquisitions, its results, its alliances, are before me, and\nbut few new elements remain to be added,\n\nI ask myself: What is the gist, what the end, what the gain of it all?\n\nWhat shall I take with me now when Death comes\u2014as one coming homeward\ntakes a flower in his hand for a token that he has strayed in gracious\nfields?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nIs it applause and fame? But this, if it came to me, were only as a\nlittle stir of wind might be, to one seeking his lover in the night: a\npleasant breeze\u2014that yet might blow his lamp out!\n\nIs it all the pleasure of life that I have had\u2014in the beautiful woods\nand on the mountains, in the sun and in the waters, in social life and\njollity, in my actual work?\n\nYea, these things were beautiful, but I have passed and left them and\ncan return no more. The fields remain, but the flowers I plucked there\nare fading already on my bosom.\n\nIs it all my acquisitions\u2014of goods, of skill, of knowledge, of\ncharacter\u2014but what are they for myself but weariness, save I can yield\nthem to the hands of one I love?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nO little heart, where my friends my dear ones live, thou alone\nremainest!\n\nWhile I live thou livest, and while thou livest they live, whose home is\nwithin thy walls.\n\nMethinks that when I die I still shall hold Thee;\n\nMethinks that when the world fades my little heart shall grow,\n\nAnd grow and grow into another World,\n\nAnd be my Paradise where I shall find\n\nMy lovers, and they me, for evermore.\n\n\n                     OUT OF THE HOUSE OF CHILDHOOD\n\nTo take by leaving, to hold by letting go.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nNow, when out of the house of your childhood you are departing,\n\nWhere you suffered, where you joyed, in the old confused childish way,\nnot certainly distinguishing things,\n\nNow suddenly, as you leave, how it all becomes clear, as in a kind of\nnew and incomparable light!\n\nThis is the corner where your little bed stood against the wall, this\nthe window where the moon peeped, and the white and ghostly dawn came;\n\nThese are the closed rooms and chests into which you were so seldom\npermitted to look; this was the daily routine of life which for some\ninscrutable reason was so rigidly adhered to;\n\nThese are the stairs where up and down moved such queer\nprocessions\u2014funerals and weddings, and bustling visitors and elderly\naunts and uncles, and the parson and the doctor in their turn;\n\nAnd you were bade stand aside since you could not understand\u2014\n\nBut now you understand it all.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nNow, leaving it all,\n\nThe window truly for you will never stand open again, nor the sweet\nnight-air through it blow\u2014never again for you on the little coverlet of\nyour bed will the moonlight fall;\n\nAnd yet mayhap for the first time will the wind really blow and the\nmoonlight fall,\n\nFor the first time shall you really see the face of your father whom you\nused to meet so often on the stairs.\n\nAll the spaces and corners of the house, and the swinging of the doors,\nand the tones and voices of those behind them, shall be full of meanings\nwhich were hidden from you while you dwelt among them.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nNor shall they ever leave you.\n\nNever so long as yourself lasts shall you forget your mother smoothing\nout the pillow under your head, last thing at night, and kissing you as\nyou slept;\n\nNay, every year so long as you live shall you understand that act\nbetter\u2014shall you come closer in reality to her whom as a child you saw\nbut through a glass darkly.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nLeaving and again leaving, and ever leaving go of the surfaces of\nobjects,\n\nSo taking the heart of them with us,\n\nThis is the law.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe beauty of a certain scene in Nature,\n\nThe beauty, the incomparable beauty of the face and presence of the\nloved one;\n\nThe sweetness of pleasure\u2014of food, of music, of exercise, or of rest and\nsleep;\n\nAll these are good to obtain and to hold;\n\nYet (when the need arises) to be able to dispense with them\u2014that is\nindeed to hold and to realise them even more deeply.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen at last Death comes, then all of Life shall be to us as the house\nof our childhood\u2014\n\nFor the first time we shall really possess it.\n\nBut who is ready to die to life now, he even now possesses it.\n\n\n                      LITTLE BROOK WITHOUT A NAME\n\nLittle brook without a name, that hast been my companion so many years;\n\nHardly more than a yard wide, yet scampering down through the fields, so\nbright so pure, from the moorland a mile away;\u2014\n\nThe willows hang over thee, and the alders and hazels; and the oak and\nthe ash dip their feet in thy waves;\n\nAnd on thy sunny banks in Spring the first primroses peep, and\ncelandines, and the wild hyacinths lavish fragrance on the breeze\u2014\n\nLittle brook, so simple so unassuming\u2014and yet how many things love thee!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHere where I have my nest,\n\n[And the white-throat through the day and through the long night sits\npatient on her brood among the grasses,]\n\nLo! Sun and Moon look down and glass themselves in thy waters,\n\n[In the faithful watchful eyes of the bird they lovingly glass\nthemselves;]\n\nAnd the wren creeps like a mouse from twig to twig, and utters her thin\nsweet note; and the willow-warbler chimes his endless cadence of\ngratitude; and the night-jar sweeps silently by in the dusk, and the\npheasant at midday comes down from the wood to drink;\n\nAnd the trout balances itself hour-long against the stream, watching for\nits prey; or retires under a stone to rest;\n\nAnd the water-rats nibble off the willow leaves and carry them below the\nwave to their nests\u2014or sit on a dry stone to trim their whiskers;\n\nAnd the little mouse, the water-shrew, walks (even like Jesus Christ)\nupon the flood, paddling quickly over the surface with its half-webbed\nfeet;\n\nAnd the may-fly practises for the millionth time the miracle of the\nresurrection, floating up an ungainly grub from the mud below, and in an\ninstant, in the twinkling of an eye (even from the jaws of the baffled\ntrout) emerging, an aerial fairy with pearl-green wings;\n\nAnd the caddis-fly from its quaint disguise likewise emerges;\n\nAnd the bee, as ever, hums, and the butterfly floats, and the little\nwinged beauty with shining mail of crimson and blue\u2014the\nruby-tail\u2014searches in and out of every crevice and chink for a suitable\nplace for her eggs;\n\nAnd the early daffodil and narcissus from the garden stray forward to\npeer into thy mirror; and the wild garlic in the shade, and in the sun\nthe king-cups, fringe thy margin;\n\nAnd the prick-eared earth-people, the rabbits, in the stillness of early\nmorning play beside thee undisturbed, while the level sunbeams yet grope\nthrough the dewy grass;\n\nAnd the land-rail cranes its neck, to peer and peep from its cover;\n\nAnd the weasel canters by on its quest, and the loose-jointed fox\nreturning from a foray;\n\nAnd the squirrel on a tree-root\u2014its tail stretched far behind\u2014leans\nforward to kiss thee,\n\nLittle brook,\n\nFor so many things love thee.\n\nSay, what indeed art Thou\u2014that hast been my companion now these twenty\nyears?\n\nThou, with thy gracious retinue of summer, and thy fringes and lace-work\nof frost in winter, and icy tassels bobbing in the stream;\n\nAnd sound of human voices from thy bosom all the day, and mystic song at\nnight beneath the stars\u2014\n\nWhat art Thou, say!\n\nWhile I have sat here, lo! thou hast scampered away, little brook, with\nall thy lace-work and tassels,\n\nThree hundred and fifty thousand miles;\n\nSo quiet, so soft\u2014and no one knew what a traveller thou wert;\n\nThree hundred and fifty thousand miles in these few years, and so thou\nhast flowed for centuries;\n\nAnd all the birds and fish and little quadrupeds have gone with thee,\nand herbs and flowers;\n\nYet I sit here and prate as though I knew all about thee;\n\nAnd the country-folk too, who reckon thou camest to turn the Mill\u2014they\nthink they know all about thee.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut now I see how, soft-footed, thou passest by on a secret quest,\n\nCantering quietly down through the grasses,\n\nAnd gatherest even from all wide earth and heaven thy waters together\u2014to\nlave these turfy banks and the roots of the primroses;\n\nI see how thou sheddest refreshment and life on thousands of\ncreatures\u2014who ask no questions;\n\nNor disdainest even to give the old millwheel a turn as thou goest, or\nbring me a tiny thought or two from thy store in cloudland,\n\nLittle brook, so strange, so mystical,\n\nThat all things love\u2014though they know not what thy Name is.\n\nI see where thou passest graciously by, and hastenest seaward,\n\nScattering once more thy waters to earth and heaven;\n\nAnd I pray thee take again these thoughts thou hast brought me,\n\nAnd bear away on thy bosom, and scatter them likewise.\n\n\n                       LO! WHAT A WORLD I CREATE\n\nLo! what a world I create for my own, my lovers.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAs the moonbeams in winter gliding along the forest-glades reveal the\nbeauty of the trees\u2014the hushed soft masses of light and darkness, the\nmysterious depths, the thousand fairy outlines\u2014all merged and blent in\none serene Presence;\n\nAs a figure dimly seen, from glade to glade, from perspective to\nperspective, through the wilderness wanders content\u2014his soul with the\nforest-soul mated;\n\nSo dear friends, dear lovers, through this world of mine that I weave\nfor you here, methinks sometimes I see you moving.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd I wait of you that in time you also spread worlds equally beautiful,\nmore beautiful, for me,\n\n[Not in written words only, but in spoken words, or the mere sound of\nthe voice or look of the face, and in beauties of body and limb and\nbrain and heart, and in beauty of deed and action, and in a thousand\nways,]\n\nForest-glades and glooms where I in turn (as indeed already) may dwell\nand dream and be content, mated to the soul thereof.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThus, dear ones, building up these spheres of ourselves continually for\nthe joyance of each other, it shall come about that at length\n\nWe shall need no other world, no other worlds.\n\n\n                                THE END\n\n\n\n\n                               A NOTE ON\n                          \u201cTOWARDS DEMOCRACY\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                     A Note on \u201cTowards Democracy\u201d\n\n           (_Reprinted from_ THE LABOUR PROPHET, _May, 1894_)\n\n\nHaving sometimes been asked questions about \u201cTowards Democracy\u201d which I\nfound it difficult to answer, I will try and shape a few thoughts about\nit here.\n\nQuite a long time ago (say when I was about 25, and living at Cambridge)\nI wanted to write some sort of a book which should address itself very\npersonally and closely to any one who cared to read it\u2014establish so to\nspeak an intimate personal relation between myself and the reader; and\nduring succeeding years I made several attempts to realise this idea\u2014of\nwhich beginnings one or two in verse may be found in a little volume\nentitled \u201cNarcissus and other Poems,\u201d now well out of print, which I\npublished in 1873. None of these attempts satisfied me however, and\nafter a time I began to think the quest was an unreasonable\none\u2014unreasonable because while it might not be difficult for any one\nwith a pliant and sympathetic disposition to touch certain chords in any\ngiven individual that he might meet, it seemed impossible to hope that a\n_book_\u2014which cannot in any way adapt itself to the idiosyncrasies of its\nreader\u2014could find the key of the personalities into whose hands it\nshould happen to come. For this it would be necessary to suppose, and to\nfind, an absolutely common ground to all individuals (all at any rate\nwho might have reached a certain stage of thought and experience)\u2014and to\nwrite the book on and from that common ground: but this seemed at that\ntime quite impracticable.\n\nYears followed, more or less eventful, with flight from Cambridge, and\nuniversity lectures carried on in the Provincial Towns, and so forth;\nbut of much dumbness as regards writing; and inwardly full of tension,\nand suffering. At last early in 1881, no doubt as the culmination and\nresult of struggles and experiences that had been going on, I became\nconscious that a mass of material was forming within me, imperatively\ndemanding expression\u2014though what exactly its expression would be I could\nnot then have told. I became for the time overwhelmingly conscious of\nthe disclosure within of a region transcending in some sense the\nordinary bounds of personality, in the light of which region my own\nidiosyncrasies of character\u2014defects, accomplishments, limitations, or\nwhat not\u2014appeared of no importance whatever\u2014an absolute Freedom from\nmortality, accompanied by an indescribable calm and joy.\n\nI also immediately saw, or rather _felt_, that this region of Self\nexisting in me existed equally (though not always equally _consciously_)\nin others. In regard to it the mere diversities of temperament which\nordinarily distinguish and divide people dropped away and became\nindifferent, and a field was opened in which all might meet, in which\nall were truly Equal. Thus I found the common ground which I wanted; and\nthe two words, Freedom and Equality came for the time being to control\nall my thought and expression.\n\nThe necessity for space and time to work this out grew so strong that in\nApril of that year I threw up my lecturing employment. Moreover another\nnecessity had come upon me which demanded the latter step\u2014the necessity\nnamely for an open air life and manual work. I could not finally argue\nwith this any more than with the other, I had to give in and obey. As it\nhappened at the time I mention I was already living in a little cottage\non a farm (at Bradway, near Sheffield) with a friend and his family, and\ndoing farm-work in the intervals of my lectures. When I threw up the\nlecturing I had everything clear before me. I knocked together a sort of\nwooden sentinel-box, in the garden, and there, or in the fields and the\nwoods, all that spring and summer, and on through the winter, by day and\nsometimes by night, in sunlight or in rain, by frost and snow and all\nsorts of grey and dull weather, I wrote \u201cTowards Democracy\u201d\u2014or at any\nrate the first and longer poem that goes by that name.\n\nBy the end of 1881 this was finished\u2014though it was worked over and\npatched a little in the early part of 1882; and I remember feeling then\nthat, defective and halting and incoherent in expression as it was,\nstill if it succeeded in rendering even a half the splendour which\ninspired it, it would be good, and _I need not trouble to write anything\nmore_ (which, with due allowance for the said \u201cif,\u201d I even now feel was\na true and friendly intimation)!\n\nThe writing of this and its publication (in 1883) got a load off my mind\nwhich had been weighing on it for years\u2014a sense of oppression and\nanxiety which I had constantly suffered from before\u2014and which I believe,\nin its different forms, is a common experience in the early part of\nlife.\n\nIn this first poem were embodied with considerable alterations and\nadaptations a good number of casual pieces, which I had written (merely\nunder stress of feeling and without any particular sense of proportion)\nduring several preceding years. They now found their interpretation\nunder the steady and clear light of a new mood or state of feeling which\npreviously had only visited me fitfully and with clouded beams. The\nwhole of \u201cTowards Democracy\u201d\u2014I may say, speaking broadly and including\nthe later pieces\u2014has been written under the domination of this mood. I\nhave tested and measured everything by it; it has been the sun to which\nall the images and conceptions and thoughts used have been as material\nobjects reflecting its light. And perhaps this connects itself with the\nfact that it has been so necessary to write in the open air. The more\nuniversal feeling which I sought to convey refused itself from me within\ndoors; nor could I at any time or by any means persuade the rhythm or\nstyle of expression to render itself up within a room\u2014tending there\nalways to break back into distinct metrical forms; which, however much I\nadmire them in certain authors, and think them myself suitable for\ncertain kinds of work, were not what I wanted, and did _not_ express for\nme the feeling which I sought to express. This fact (of the necessity of\nthe open air) is very curious, and I cannot really explain it. I only\nknow that it is so, quite indubitable and insurmountable. I can feel it\nat once, the difference, in merely passing through a doorway\u2014but I\ncannot explain it. Always especially the _sky_ seemed to contain for me\nthe key, the inspiration; the sight of it more than anything gave what I\nwanted (sometimes like a veritable lightning-flash coming down from it\nonto my paper\u2014I a mere witness, but agitated with strange transports).\n\nBut if I should be asked\u2014as I have sometimes been asked\u2014What is the\nexact nature of this mood, of this illuminant splendour, of which you\nspeak? I should have to reply that I can give no very concise and\nclearcut answer. The whole of \u201cTowards Democracy\u201d is an endeavour to\ngive it utterance; any mere single sentence, or direct definition, would\nbe of no use\u2014rather indeed would tend to obscure by limiting. All I can\nsay is that there seems to be a vision possible to man, as from some\nmore universal stand-point, free from the obscurity and localism which\nespecially connect themselves with the passing clouds of desire, fear,\nand all ordinary thought and emotion; in that sense another and separate\nfaculty; and as vision always means a sense of light, so here is a sense\nof inward light, unconnected of course with the mortal eye, but bringing\nto the eye of the mind the impression that it _sees_, and by means of a\nmedium which washes as it were the _interior_ surfaces of all objects\nand things and persons\u2014how can I express it?\u2014and yet this is most\ndefective, for the sense is a sense that one _is_ those objects and\nthings and persons that one perceives, (and even that one is the whole\nuniverse,)\u2014a sense in which sight and touch and hearing are all fused in\nidentity. Nor can the matter be understood without realising that the\nwhole faculty is deeply and intimately rooted on the far side of the\nmoral and emotional nature, and beyond the thought-region of the\nbrain.[1]\n\nFootnote 1:\n\n  I do not know any description in its way better that one attributed to\n  Tennyson:\u2014\u201cAll at once, as it were, out of the intensity of the\n  consciousness of individuality, the individuality itself seemed to\n  dissolve and fade away into boundless being, and this not a confused\n  state, but the clearest of the clearest, the surest of the surest,\n  utterly beyond words, where death was an almost laughable\n  impossibility, the loss of personality\u2014if so it were\u2014seeming no\n  extinction but the only true life. I am ashamed of my feeble\n  description. Have I not said the state is utterly beyond words?\u201d\n  Compare also his poem, \u201cThe Ancient Sage.\u201d\n\nAnd now with regard to the \u201cI\u201d which occurs so freely in this book. In\nthis and in other such cases the author is naturally liable to a charge\nof egotism\u2014and I personally do not feel disposed to combat any such\ncharge that may be made. That there are mere egotisms and vanities\nembodied in these pages I do not for a moment doubt; and that so far as\nthey exist they mar the expression and purpose of the book I also do not\ndoubt. But the existence of these things does not affect the real\nquestion: What or Who in the main is the \u201cI\u201d spoken of?\n\nTo this question I must also frankly own that I can give no answer. I do\nnot know. That the word is not used in the dramatic sense is all I can\nsay. The \u201cI\u201d is myself\u2014as well as I could find words to express myself:\nbut what that Self is, and what its limits may be; and therefore what\nthe self of any other person is and what _its_ limits may be\u2014I cannot\ntell. I have sometimes thought that perhaps the best work one could\ndo\u2014if one felt at any time enlargements and extensions of one\u2019s\n_ego_\u2014was to simply record these, as faithfully as might be; leaving\nothers, the science-man and the philosopher, to explain\u2014and feeling\nconfident that what really existed in oneself would be found to exist\neither consciously or in a latent form in other people. And I will say\nthat I have in these records above all endeavored to be genuine. If I\nhave said \u201cI, Nature\u201d it was because at the time, at any rate, I felt\n\u201cI, Nature\u201d; if I have said \u201cI am equal with the lowest,\u201d it was because\nI could not express what I felt more directly than by those words. The\nvalue of such statements can only appear by time; if they are\ncorroborated by others then they help to form a body of record which may\nwell be worth investigation, analysis and explanation. If they are not\nso corroborated, then they naturally and properly fall away as mere\nvagaries of self-deception. I have not the least doubt that anything\nwhich is really genuine will be corroborated.\n\nIt seems to me more and more clear that the word \u201cI\u201d has a practically\ninfinite range of meaning\u2014that the _ego_ covers far more ground than we\nusually suppose. At some points we are intensely individual, at others\nintensely sympathetic; some of our impressions (as the tickling of a\nhair) are of the most local and momentary character, others (as the\nsense of identity) involve long periods of time. Sometimes we are aware\nof almost a fusion between our own identity and that of another person.\nWhat does all this mean? Are we really separate individuals, or is\nindividuality an illusion, or again is it only a part of the _ego_ or\nsoul that is individual, and not the whole? Is the _ego_ absolutely one\nwith the body, or is it only a small part of the body, or again is the\nbody but a part of the self\u2014one of its organs so to speak, and not the\nwhole man? Or lastly is it perhaps not possible to express the truth by\nany direct use of these or other terms of ordinary language? Anyhow,\nwhat am I?\n\nThese are questions which come all down Time, demanding solution\u2014which\nhumanity is constantly endeavoring to find an answer to. I do not\npretend to answer them. On the contrary I am sure that _not one_ of the\npieces in \u201cTowards Democracy\u201d has been written with the deliberate view\nof providing an answer. They have simply been written to express\nfeelings which insisted on being expressed. Nevertheless it is possible\nthat some of them\u2014by giving the experiences and affirmations even of one\nperson\u2014may contribute material towards that answer to these and the like\nquestions which in some region must assuredly be given.\n\nThat there is a region of consciousness removed beyond what we usually\ncall mortality, into which we humans can yet pass, I practically do not\ndoubt; but granting that this is a fact, its explanation still remains\nfor investigation.\n\nI have said in this brief note on \u201cTowards Democracy\u201d nothing about the\ninfluence of Whitman\u2014for the same reason that I have said nothing about\nthe influence of the sun or the winds. These influences lie too far back\nand ramify too complexly to be traced. I met with William Rossetti\u2019s\nlittle selection from \u201cLeaves of Grass\u201d in 1868 or 1869, and read that\nand the original editions continuously for ten years. I never met with\nany other book (with the exception perhaps of Beethoven\u2019s sonatas) which\nI could read and re-read as I could this one. I find it difficult to\nimagine what my life would have been without it. \u201cLeaves of Grass\u201d\n\u201cfiltered and fibred\u201d my blood: but I do not think I ever tried to\nimitate it or its style. Against the inevitable drift out of the more\nclassic forms of verse into a looser and freer rhythm I fairly fought,\ncontesting the ground (\u201ckicking against the pricks\u201d) inch by inch during\na period of seven years in numerous abortive and mongrel creations\u2014till\nin 1881 I was finally compelled into the form (if such it can be called)\nof \u201cTowards Democracy.\u201d I did not adopt it _because_ it was an\napproximation to the form of \u201cLeaves of Grass.\u201d Whatever resemblance\nthere may be between the rhythm, style, thoughts, constructions, etc.,\nof the two books, must I think be set down to a deeper similarity of\nemotional atmosphere and intension in the two authors\u2014even though that\nsimilarity may have sprung and no doubt largely did spring out of the\npersonal influence of one upon the other. Anyhow our temperaments,\nstandpoints, antecedents, etc., are so entirely diverse and opposite\nthat, except for a few points, I can hardly imagine that there is much\nreal resemblance to be traced. Whitman\u2019s full-blooded, copious, rank,\nmasculine style must always make him one of the world\u2019s great\noriginals\u2014a perennial fountain of health and strength, moral as well as\nphysical. He has the amplitude of the Earth itself, and can no more be\n_thought away_ than a mountain can. He often indeed reminds one of a\ngreat quarry on a mountain side\u2014the great shafts of sunlight and the\nshadows, the primitive face of the rock itself, the power and the daring\nof the men at work upon it, the tumbled blocks and masses, materials for\nendless buildings, and the beautiful tufts of weed or flower on\ninaccessible ledges\u2014a picture most artistic in its very incoherence and\nformlessness.\n\n\u201cTowards Democracy\u201d has a milder radiance, as of the moon compared with\nthe sun\u2014allowing you to glimpse the stars behind. Tender and meditative,\nless resolute and altogether less massive, it has the quality of the\nfluid and yielding air rather than of the solid and uncompromising\nearth.\n\n\n                     _Printed by_ S. CLARKE LIMITED\n                     _41, Granby Row, Manchester_.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                      _Works by Edward Carpenter_:\n\n\n (Published by GEORGE ALLEN & COMPANY LTD. Those marked * published also\n                   by S. CLARKE LIMITED, Manchester.)\n\n\n  *TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: Complete poems in four parts. Library Edition,\n    with two portraits, one vol., large crown 8vo, pp. 520, cloth gilt.\n    4/6 net.\n\n  *The same. Pocket Edition, without portraits, one vol., India paper,\n    limp binding, gilt edge. 3/6 net.\n\n  ENGLAND\u2019S IDEAL, and other Papers on Social Subjects. Eleventh\n    Thousand, pp. 176. Cloth, 2/6; paper, 1/-\n\n  CIVILISATION: ITS CAUSE AND CURE. Essays on Modern Science, etc.\n    Eleventh Thousand, pp. 176. Cloth, 2/6; paper, 1/-\n\n  *LOVE\u2019S COMING-OF-AGE: a Series of Papers on the Relations of the\n    Sexes. Eighth Thousand, pp. 190. Cloth gilt, 3/6 net.\n\n  *THE INTERMEDIATE SEX: a Study of some Transitional Types of Men and\n    Women. Third Edition. Cloth gilt, pp. 176. 3/6 net.\n\n  ANGELS\u2019 WINGS: Essays on Art and Life, with nine full-page plates.\n    Third Edition. Cloth gilt, pp. 248. 4/6 net.\n\n  ADAM\u2019S PEAK TO ELEPHANTA: Sketches in Ceylon and India. Copiously\n    illustrated, and containing four chapters on \u201cA visit to a G\u00f1ani.\u201d\n    Third Edition. Cloth gilt, 4/6.\n\n  A VISIT TO A G\u00d1ANI, or Wise Man of the East: extracted from the above\n    work, with portraits. 1/6 net.\n\n  *IOL\u00c4US: An Anthology of Friendship. Printed in Old Face Caslon type,\n    with ornamental initials and side notes. New and Enlarged Edition.\n    Cloth gilt, 2/6 net.\n\n\n               (Published by GEORGE ALLEN & COMPANY LTD.)\n\n  CHANTS OF LABOUR: a Song-book for the People, edited by EDWARD\n    CARPENTER. With frontispiece and cover by WALTER CRANE. Paper, 1/-\n    Seventh Thousand.\n\n  THE ART OF CREATION: Essays on the Self and its Powers. Second\n    Edition, enlarged. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, pp. 266, 3/6 net.\n\n  DAYS WITH WALT WHITMAN, with some Notes on his Life and Work, and\n    three portraits. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt. 3/6 net.\n\n  SKETCHES FROM LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY, with some verses and a\n    portrait of the author. Cloth gilt, pp. 270, 3/6 net.\n\n\n                       (Published, March, 1912.)\n\n  THE DRAMA OF LOVE AND DEATH: a Study of Human Evolution and\n    Transfiguration. Cloth gilt, pp. 300. 5/- net.\n\n\n         (Published by A. C. FIFIELD, 13, Clifford\u2019s Inn, E.C.)\n\n  PRISONS, POLICE AND PUNISHMENT: An Inquiry into the Causes and\n    Treatment of Crime and Criminals. Crown 8vo, cloth. 2/- net. Paper,\n    1/- net.\n\n  BRITISH ARISTOCRACY AND THE HOUSE OF LORDS. Pamphlet. Price, 6d. net.\n\n  EDWARD CARPENTER; THE MAN AND HIS MESSAGE. Pamphlet by TOM SWAN, with\n    two portraits and copious extracts from the above works. Price 6d.\n    net.\n\n  PHOTOGRAVURE PORTRAIT OF E. C., by MATTISON, 1905. Size 8 \u00d7 5\u00bd, on\n    Mount 12 \u00d7 10. Price 2/- net, by post, 2/3.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                          TRANSCRIBER\u2019S NOTES\n\n\n Page           Changed from                      Changed to\n\n  340 How long will you build you      How long will you build your\n      houses to hide yourselves        houses to hide yourselves\n\n \u25cf Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.\n \u25cf Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.","title":"Towards democracy","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":110052}