Toward the Gulf Part 31

And how the spirit of life, though turned or driven This way or that beyond a course begun, Cannot be stayed or quenched, but moves, conforms To soil and sun, makes roots, or thickens leaves, Or thins or re-adjusts them on the stem To fashion forth itself, produce its kind.

Nor dies not, rests not, nor surrenders not, Is only changed or buried, re-appears As other forms of life.

We had walked through A forest of sequoias, beeches, pines, And ancient oaks where I could see the trace Of willows, alders, ruined or devoured By the great t.i.tans.

At last We reached my hill and sat and overlooked The garden at our feet, even to the place Of tiger lilies and of asphodel, By now beneath the self-same moon, grown denser: As where the wounded surface of the sh.e.l.l Thickens its shimmering stuff in spiral coigns Of the sh.e.l.l, so was the moon above the seat Beside the Eros and the Aphrodite Sunk amid yellow daisies and deep gra.s.s.

And here we sat and looked. And here my vision Was over all we saw, but not a part Of what we saw, for all we saw stood forth As foreign to myself as something touched To learn the thing it is.

I might have asked Who owns this garden, for the thought arose With my surprise, who owns this garden, who Planted this garden, why and to what end, And why this fight for place, for soil and sun Water and air, and why this enmity Between the things here planted, and between Flying or crawling life and plants, and whence The power that falls in one place but arises Some other place; and why the unceasing growth Of all these forms that only come to seed, Then disappear to enrich the insatiate soil Where the new seed falls? But silence kept me there For wonder of the beauty which I saw, Even while the faculty of external vision Kept clear the garden separate from me, Envisioned, seen as gra.s.ses, sedges, alders, As forestry, as fields of wheat and corn, As the vast theatre of unceasing life, Moving to life and blind to all but life; As places used, tried out, as if the gardener, For his delight or use, or for an end Of good or beauty made experiments With seed or soils or crossings of the seed.

Even as peoples, epochs, did the garden Lie to my vision, or as races crowding, Absorbing, dispossessing, killing races, Not only for a place to grow, but under A stimulus of doctrine: as Mahomet, Or Jesus, like a vital change of air, Or artifice of culture, made the garden, Which mortals call the world, grow in a way, And overgrow the world as neither dreamed.

Who is the Gardener then? Or is there one Beside the life within the plant, within The python climbers, wandering sedges, root stalks, Thorn bushes, night-shade, deadly saprophytes, Goths, Vandals, Tartars, striving for more life, And praying to the urge within as G.o.d, The Gardener who lays out the garden, sprays For insects which devour, keeps rich the soil For those who pray and know the Gardener As One who is without and over-sees? ...

But while in contemplation of the garden, Whether from failing day or from departure Of my own vision in the things it saw, Bereft of penetrating thought I sank, Became a part of what I saw and lost The great solution.

As we sat in silence, And coming night, what seemed the sinking moon, Amid the yellow sedges by the lake Began to twinkle, as a fire were blown-- And it was fire, the garden was afire, As it were all the world had flamed with war.

And a wind came out of the bright heaven And blew the flames, first through the ruined garden, Then through the wood, the fields of wheat, at last Nothing was left but waste and wreaths of smoke Twisting toward the stars. And there he sat Nor uttered aught, save when I sighed he said "If it be comforting I promise you Another spring shall come."

"And after that?"

"Another spring--that's all I know myself, There shall be springs and springs!"