Poems & Ballads Volume I Part 9

Fate is a sea without sh.o.r.e, and the soul is a rock that abides; But her ears are vexed with the roar and her face with the foam of the tides.

O lips that the live blood faints in, the leavings of racks and rods!

O ghastly glories of saints, dead limbs of gibbeted G.o.ds!

Though all men abase them before you in spirit, and all knees bend, I kneel not neither adore you, but standing, look to the end.

All delicate days and pleasant, all spirits and sorrows are cast Far out with the foam of the present that sweeps to the surf of the past: Where beyond the extreme sea-wall, and between the remote sea-gates, Waste water washes, and tall ships founder, and deep death waits: Where, mighty with deepening sides, clad about with the seas as with wings, And impelled of invisible tides, and fulfilled of unspeakable things, White-eyed and poisonous-finned, shark-toothed and serpentine-curled, Rolls, under the whitening wind of the future, the wave of the world.

The depths stand naked in sunder behind it, the storms flee away; In the hollow before it the thunder is taken and snared as a prey; In its sides is the north-wind bound; and its salt is of all men's tears; With light of ruin, and sound of changes, and pulse of years: With travail of day after day, and with trouble of hour upon hour; And bitter as blood is the spray; and the crests are as fangs that devour: And its vapour and storm of its steam as the sighing of spirits to be; And its noise as the noise in a dream; and its depth as the roots of the sea: And the height of its heads as the height of the utmost stars of the air: And the ends of the earth at the might thereof tremble, and time is made bare.

Will ye bridle the deep sea with reins, will ye chasten the high sea with rods?

Will ye take her to chain her with chains, who is older than all ye G.o.ds?

All ye as a wind shall go by, as a fire shall ye pa.s.s and be past; Ye are G.o.ds, and behold, ye shall die, and the waves be upon you at last.

In the darkness of time, in the deeps of the years, in the changes of things, Ye shall sleep as a slain man sleeps, and the world shall forget you for kings.

Though the feet of thine high priests tread where thy lords and our forefathers trod, Though these that were G.o.ds are dead, and thou being dead art a G.o.d, Though before thee the throned Cytherean be fallen, and hidden her head, Yet thy kingdom shall pa.s.s, Galilean, thy dead shall go down to thee dead.

Of the maiden thy mother men sing as a G.o.ddess with grace clad around; Thou art throned where another was king; where another was queen she is crowned.

Yea, once we had sight of another: but now she is queen, say these.

Not as thine, not as thine was our mother, a blossom of flowering seas, Clothed round with the world's desire as with raiment, and fair as the foam, And fleeter than kindled fire, and a G.o.ddess, and mother of Rome.

For thine came pale and a maiden, and sister to sorrow; but ours, Her deep hair heavily laden with odour and colour of flowers, White rose of the rose-white water, a silver splendour, a flame, Bent down unto us that besought her, and earth grew sweet with her name.

For thine came weeping, a slave among slaves, and rejected; but she Came flushed from the full-flushed wave, and imperial, her foot on the sea.

And the wonderful waters knew her, the winds and the viewless ways, And the roses grew rosier, and bluer the sea-blue stream of the bays.

Ye are fallen, our lords, by what token? we wist that ye should not fall.

Ye were all so fair that are broken; and one more fair than ye all.

But I turn to her still, having seen she shall surely abide in the end; G.o.ddess and maiden and queen, be near me now and befriend.

O daughter of earth, of my mother, her crown and blossom of birth, I am also, I also, thy brother; I go as I came unto earth.

In the night where thine eyes are as moons are in heaven, the night where thou art, Where the silence is more than all tunes, where sleep overflows from the heart, Where the poppies are sweet as the rose in our world, and the red rose is white, And the wind falls faint as it blows with the fume of the flowers of the night, And the murmur of spirits that sleep in the shadow of G.o.ds from afar Grows dim in thine ears and deep as the deep dim soul of a star, In the sweet low light of thy face, under heavens untrod by the sun, Let my soul with their souls find place, and forget what is done and undone.

Thou art more than the G.o.ds who number the days of our temporal breath: For these give labour and slumber; but thou, Proserpina, death.

Therefore now at thy feet I abide for a season in silence. I know I shall die as my fathers died, and sleep as they sleep; even so.

For the gla.s.s of the years is brittle wherein we gaze for a span; A little soul for a little bears up this corpse which is man.[2]

So long I endure, no longer; and laugh not again, neither weep.

For there is no G.o.d found stronger than death; and death is a sleep.

[2] [Greek: psycharion ei bastazon nekron].

EPICTETUS.

ILICET

There is an end of joy and sorrow; Peace all day long, all night, all morrow, But never a time to laugh or weep.

The end is come of pleasant places, The end of tender words and faces, The end of all, the poppied sleep.

No place for sound within their hearing, No room to hope, no time for fearing, No lips to laugh, no lids for tears.

The old years have run out all their measure; No chance of pain, no chance of pleasure, No fragment of the broken years.

Outside of all the worlds and ages, There where the fool is as the sage is, There where the slayer is clean of blood, No end, no pa.s.sage, no beginning, There where the sinner leaves off sinning, There where the good man is not good.

There is not one thing with another, But Evil saith to Good: My brother, My brother, I am one with thee: They shall not strive nor cry for ever: No man shall choose between them: never Shall this thing end and that thing be.

Wind wherein seas and stars are shaken Shall shake them, and they shall not waken; None that has lain down shall arise; The stones are sealed across their places; One shadow is shed on all their faces, One blindness cast on all their eyes.

Sleep, is it sleep perchance that covers Each face, as each face were his lover's?

Farewell; as men that sleep fare well.

The grave's mouth laughs unto derision Desire and dread and dream and vision, Delight of heaven and sorrow of h.e.l.l.

No soul shall tell nor lip shall number The names and tribes of you that slumber; No memory, no memorial.

"Thou knowest"--who shall say thou knowest?

There is none highest and none lowest: An end, an end, an end of all.

Good night, good sleep, good rest from sorrow To these that shall not have good morrow; The G.o.ds be gentle to all these.

Nay, if death be not, how shall they be?

Nay, is there help in heaven? it may be All things and lords of things shall cease.

The stooped urn, filling, dips and flashes; The bronzd brims are deep in ashes; The pale old lips of death are fed.

Shall this dust gather flesh hereafter?

Shall one shed tears or fall to laughter, At sight of all these poor old dead?

Nay, as thou wilt; these know not of it; Thine eyes' strong weeping shall not profit, Thy laughter shall not give thee ease; Cry aloud, spare not, cease not crying, Sigh, till thou cleave thy sides with sighing, Thou shalt not raise up one of these.

Burnt spices flash, and burnt wine hisses, The breathing flame's mouth curls and kisses The small dried rows of frankincense; All round the sad red blossoms smoulder, Flowers coloured like the fire, but colder, In sign of sweet things taken hence;

Yea, for their sake and in death's favour Things of sweet shape and of sweet savour We yield them, spice and flower and wine; Yea, costlier things than wine or spices, Whereof none knoweth how great the price is, And fruit that comes not of the vine.

From boy's pierced throat and girl's pierced bosom Drips, reddening round the blood-red blossom, The slow delicious bright soft blood, Bathing the spices and the pyre, Bathing the flowers and fallen fire, Bathing the blossom by the bud.

Roses whose lips the flame has deadened Drink till the lapping leaves are reddened And warm wet inner petals weep; The flower whereof sick sleep gets leisure, Barren of balm and purple pleasure, Fumes with no native steam of sleep.

Why will ye weep? what do ye weeping?

For waking folk and people sleeping, And sands that fill and sands that fall, The days rose-red, the poppied hours, Blood, wine, and spice and fire and flowers, There is one end of one and all.

Shall such an one lend love or borrow?

Shall these be sorry for thy sorrow?

Shall these give thanks for words or breath?

Their hate is as their loving-kindness; The frontlet of their brows is blindness, The armlet of their arms is death.

Lo, for no noise or light of thunder Shall these grave-clothes be rent in sunder; He that hath taken, shall he give?

He hath rent them: shall he bind together?

He hath bound them: shall he break the tether?

He hath slain them: shall he bid them live?

A little sorrow, a little pleasure, Fate metes us from the dusty measure That holds the date of all of us; We are born with travail and strong crying, And from the birth-day to the dying The likeness of our life is thus.

One girds himself to serve another, Whose father was the dust, whose mother The little dead red worm therein; They find no fruit of things they cherish; The goodness of a man shall perish, It shall be one thing with his sin.

In deep wet ways by grey old gardens Fed with sharp spring the sweet fruit hardens; They know not what fruits wane or grow; Red summer burns to the utmost ember; They know not, neither can remember, The old years and flowers they used to know.

Ah, for their sakes, so trapped and taken, For theirs, forgotten and forsaken, Watch, sleep not, gird thyself with prayer.

Nay, where the heart of wrath is broken, Where long love ends as a thing spoken, How shall thy crying enter there?

Though the iron sides of the old world falter, The likeness of them shall not alter For all the rumour of periods, The stars and seasons that come after, The tears of latter men, the laughter Of the old unalterable G.o.ds.

Far up above the years and nations, The high G.o.ds, clothed and crowned with patience, Endure through days of deathlike date; They bear the witness of things hidden; Before their eyes all life stands chidden, As they before the eyes of Fate.