The Poems of Henry Van Dyke Part 11

II

What rapture of new life Must come to one for whom a silent world Is suddenly made vocal, and whose heart By the same magic is awaked at once, Without the learner's toil and long delay, Out of a night of dumbly moving dreams, Into a day that overflows with music!

This joy was Vera's; and to her it seemed As if a new creative morn had risen Upon the earth, and after the full week When living things unfolded silently, And after the long, quiet Sabbath day, When all was still, another day had dawned, And through the calm expectancy of heaven A secret voice had said, "Let all things speak."

The world responded with an instant joy; And all the unseen avenues of sound Were thronged with varying forms of viewless life.

To every living thing a voice was given Distinct and personal. The forest trees Were not more varied in their shades of green Than in their tones of speech; and every bird That nested in their branches had a song Unknown to other birds and all his own.

The waters spoke a hundred dialects Of one great language; now with pattering fall Of raindrops on the glistening leaves, and now With steady roar of rivers rushing down To meet the sea, and now with rhythmic throb And measured tumult of tempestuous waves, And now with lingering lisp of creeping tides,-- The manifold discourse of many waters.

But most of all the human voice was full Of infinite variety, and ranged Along the scale of life's experience With changing tones, and notes both sweet and sad, All fitted to express some unseen thought, Some vital motion of the hidden heart.

So Vera listened with her new-born sense To all the messengers that pa.s.sed the gates, In measureless delight and utter trust, Believing that they brought a true report From every living thing of its true life, And hoping that at last they would make clear The mystery and the meaning of the world.

But soon there came a trouble in her joy, A note discordant that dissolved the chord And broke the bliss of hearing into pain.

Not from the harsher sounds and voices wild Of anger and of anguish, that reveal The secret strife in nature, and confess The touch of sorrow on the heart of life,-- From these her trouble came not. For in these, However sad, she felt the note of truth, And truth, though sad, is always musical.

The raging of the tempest-ridden sea, The crash of thunder, and the hollow moan Of winds complaining round the mountain-crags, The shrill and quavering cry of birds of prey, The fiercer roar of conflict-loving beasts,-- All these wild sounds are potent in their place Within life's mighty symphony; the charm Of truth attunes them, and the hearing ear Finds pleasure in their rude sincerity.

Even the broken and tumultuous noise That rises from great cities, where the heart Of human toil is beating heavily With ceaseless murmurs of the labouring pulse, Is not a discord; for it speaks to life Of life unfeigned, and full of hopes and fears, And touched through all the trouble of its notes With something real and therefore glorious.

One voice alone of all that sound on earth, Is hateful to the soul, and full of pain,-- The voice of falsehood. So when Vera heard This mocking voice, and knew that it was false; When first she learned that human lips can speak The thing that is not, and betray the ear Of simple trust with treachery of words; The joy of hearing withered in her heart.

For now she felt that faithless messengers Could pa.s.s the open and unguarded gates Of sound, and bring a message all untrue, Or half a truth that makes the deadliest lie, Or idle babble, neither false nor true, But hollow to the heart, and meaningless.

She heard the flattering voices of deceit, That mask the hidden purposes of men With fair attire of favourable words, And hide the evil in the guise of good: The voices vain and decorous and smooth, That fill the world with empty-hearted talk; The foolish voices, wandering and confused, That never clearly speak the thing they would, But ramble blindly round their true intent And tangle sense in hopeless coils of sound,-- All these she heard, and with a deep mistrust Began to doubt the value of her gift.

It seemed as if the world, the living world, Sincere, and vast, and real, were still concealed, And she, within the prison of her soul, Still waiting silently to hear the voice Of perfect knowledge and of perfect peace.

So with the burden of her discontent She turned to seek the Master once again, And found him sitting in the market-place, Half-hidden in the shadow of a porch, Alone among the careless crowd.

She spoke: "Thy gift was great, dear Master, and my heart Has thanked thee many times because I hear But I have learned that hearing is not all; For underneath the speech of men, there flows Another current of their hidden thoughts; Behind the mask of language I perceive The eyes of things unsaid.

Touch me again, O Master, with thy liberating hand, And free me from the bondage of deceit.

Open another gate, and let me hear The secret thoughts and purposes of men; For only thus my heart will be at rest, And only thus, at last, I shall perceive The mystery and the meaning of the world."

The Master's face was turned aside from her; His eyes looked far away, as if he saw Something beyond her sight; and yet she knew That he was listening; for her pleading voice No sooner ceased than he put forth his hand To touch her brow, and very gently spoke: "Thou seekest for thyself a wondrous gift,-- The opening of the second gate, a gift That many wise men have desired in vain: But some have found it,--whether well or ill For their own peace, they have attained the power To hear unspoken thoughts of other men.

And thou hast begged this gift? Thou shalt receive,-- Not knowing what thou seekest,--it is thine: The second gate is open! Thou shalt hear All that men think and feel within their hearts: Thy prayer is granted, daughter, go thy way!

But if thou findest sorrow on this path, Come back again,--there is a path to peace."

III

Beyond our power of vision, poets say, There is another world of forms unseen, Yet visible to purer eyes than ours.

And if the crystal of our sight were clear, We should behold the mountain-slopes of cloud, The moving meadows of the untilled sea, The groves of twilight and the dales of dawn, And every wide and lonely field of air, More populous than cities, crowded close With living creatures of all shapes and hues.

But if that sight were ours, the things that now Engage our eyes would seem but dull and dim Beside the wonders of our new-found world, And we should be amazed and overwhelmed Not knowing how to use the plenitude Of vision.

So in Vera's soul, at first, The opening of the second gate of sound Let in confusion like a whirling flood.

The murmur of a myriad-throated mob; The trampling of an army through a place Where echoes hide; the sudden, whistling flight Of an innumerable flock of birds Along the highway of the midnight sky; The many-whispered rustling of the reeds Beneath the pa.s.sing feet of all the winds; The long-drawn, inarticulate, wailing cry Of million-pebbled beaches when the lash Of stormy waves is drawn across their back,-- All these were less bewildering than to hear What now she heard at once: the tangled sound Of all that moves within the minds of men.

For now there was no measured flow of words To mark the time; nor any interval Of silence to repose the listening ear.

But through the dead of night, and through the calm Of weary noon-tide, through the solemn hush That fills the temple in the pause of praise, And through the breathless awe in rooms of death, She heard the ceaseless motion and the stir Of never-silent hearts, that fill the world With interwoven thoughts of good and ill, With mingled music of delight and grief, With songs of love, and bitter cries of hate, With hymns of faith, and dirges of despair, And murmurs deeper and more vague than all,-- Thoughts that are born and die without a name, Or rather, never die, but haunt the soul, With sad persistence, till a name is given.

These Vera heard, at first with mind perplexed And half-benumbed by the disordered sound.

But soon a clearer sense began to pierce The cloudy turmoil with discerning power.

She learned to know the tones of human thought As plainly as she knew the tones of speech.

She could divide the evil from the good, Interpreting the language of the mind, And tracing every feeling like a thread Within the mystic web the pa.s.sions weave From heart to heart around the living world.

But when at last the Master's second gift Was perfected within her, and she heard And understood the secret thoughts of men, A sadness fell upon her, and the load Of insupportable knowledge pressed her down With weary wishes to know more, or less.

For all she knew was like a broken word Inscribed upon the fragment of a ring; And all she heard was like a broken strain Preluding music that is never played.

Then she remembered in her sad unrest The Master's parting word,--"a path to peace,"-- And turned again to seek him with her grief.

She found him in a hollow of the hills, Beside a little spring that issued forth Beneath the rocks and filled a mossy cup With never-failing water. There he sat, With waiting looks that welcomed her afar.

"I know that thou hast heard, my child," he said, "For all the wonder of the world of sound Is written in thy face. But hast thou heard, Among the many voices, one of peace?

And is thy heart that hears the secret thoughts, The hidden wishes and desires of men, Content with hearing? Art thou satisfied?"

"Nay, Master," she replied, "thou knowest well That I am not at rest, nor have I heard The voice of perfect peace; but what I hear Brings me disquiet and a troubled mind.

The evil voices in the souls of men, Voices of rage and cruelty and fear Have not dismayed me; for I have believed The voices of the good, the kind, the true, Are more in number and excel in strength.

There is more love than hate, more hope than fear, In the deep throbbing of the human heart.

But while I listen to the troubled sound, One thing torments me, and destroys my rest And presses me with dull, unceasing pain.

For out of all the minds of all mankind, There rises evermore a questioning voice That asks the meaning of this mighty world And finds no answer,--asks, and asks again, With patient pleading or with wild complaint, But wakens no response, except the sound Of other questions, wandering to and fro, From other souls in doubt. And so this voice Persists above all others that I hear, And binds them up together into one, Until the mingled murmur of the world Sounds through the inner temple of my heart Like an eternal question, vainly asked By every human soul that thinks and feels.

This is the heaviness that weighs me down, And this the pain that will not let me rest.

Therefore, dear Master, shut the gates again, And let me live in silence as before!

Or else,--and if there is indeed a gate Unopened yet, through which I might receive An answer in the voice of perfect peace--"

She ceased; and in her upward faltering tone The question echoed.

Then the Master said: "There is another gate, not yet unclosed.

For through the outer portal of the ear Only the outer voice of things may pa.s.s; And through the middle doorway of the mind Only the half-formed voice of human thoughts, Uncertain and perplexed with endless doubt; But through the inmost gate the spirit hears The voice of that great Spirit who is Life.

Beneath the tones of living things He breathes A deeper tone than ever ear hath heard; And underneath the troubled thoughts of men He thinks forever, and His thought is peace.

Behold, I touch thee once again, my child: The third and last of those three hidden gates That closed around thy soul and shut thee in, Is open now, and thou shalt truly hear."

Then Vera heard. The spiritual gate Was opened softly as a full-blown flower Unfolds its heart to welcome in the dawn, And on her listening face there shone a light Of still amazement and completed joy In the full gift of hearing.

What she heard I cannot tell; nor could she ever tell In words; because all human words are vain.

There is no speech nor language, to express The secret messages of G.o.d, that make Perpetual music in the hearing heart.

Below the voice of waters, and above The wandering voice of winds, and underneath The song of birds, and all the varying tones Of living things that fill the world with sound, G.o.d spoke to her, and what she heard was peace.

So when the Master questioned, "Dost thou hear?"

She answered, "Yea, at last I hear." And then He asked her once again, "What hearest thou?

What means the voice of Life?" She answered, "Love!

For love is life, and they who do not love Are not alive. But every soul that loves, Lives in the heart of G.o.d and hears Him speak."

1898.

ANOTHER CHANCE

A DRAMATIC LYRIC

Come, give me back my life again, you heavy-handed Death!

Uncrook your fingers from my throat, and let me draw my breath.

You do me wrong to take me now--too soon for me to die-- Ah, loose me from this clutching pain, and hear the reason why.

I know I've had my forty years, and wasted every one; And yet, I tell you honestly, my life is just begun; I've walked the world like one asleep, a dreamer in a trance; But now you've gripped me wide awake--I want another chance.

My dreams were always beautiful, my thoughts were high and fine; No life was ever lived on earth to match those dreams of mine.

And would you wreck them unfulfilled? What folly, nay, what crime!

You rob the world, you waste a soul; give me a little time.

You'll hear me? Yes, I'm sure you will, my hope is not in vain: I feel the even pulse of peace, the sweet relief from pain; The black fog rolls away from me; I'm free once more to plan: Another chance is all I need to prove myself a man!