Collected Works (Vol. III)

LIBER PRIMUS VEL CARMINUM Fivefold: the year that is in darkness hidden, Being beginning: then the moving year, All change and tumult; then the quiet un- chidden Of deep reflection; then the gladdening tear Or saddening smile, the laughter not for- bidden And love enfolding the green-woven sphere: Lastly, the burning year of flame and fume That burns men up in fire’s sepulchral womb. Fivefold: the child, the frail, the delicate: Then the strong lauzhing mischief: then the proud Fight toward manhood and the sense elate, Creative power and passion: then the loud Assertion of young will, the quickening rate And strength in blood, in youth with life endowed, And firmness fastening ; the last lustre’s span Consolidates and shows the perfect man. Fivefold : the humour changes as his child Calls him first father” ; sense of strength divine Fills him; then man’s work in the world, and wild Efforts to fame: then steadier in the shrine Burns the full flame: then, turning, the years piled Seem suddenly a burden ; then the fine Flavour of full maturity is tasted : The man looks back, and asks if life be wasted. Fivefold : delight in woman altering To joy of sunlight only: love of life Changing to fear of death: the golden spring Trembles; he hates the cold, the winter strife, Laughs not with lust of combat : feebly cling His old hands: he has sepultured his wife : Last, palsied, shaking, drawing tremorous breath, He gasps and stumbles in the pit of death. Of worlds—I invoke ye! ORPHEUS. O girded and spanned By the deeds of time, Rocks shattered and planned In your depth: where climb The race and the Jand, And the growth sublime centuries! Come to the rhyme! THE CENTURIES. How hardly a man Come forth, ye Though his strength were as spring’s Shall stretch out his span To the width of my wings ! The years are enfolden In my bosom golden, My periods Are the hours of the Gods. They have their plan In my seasons; all things Are woven in the span Of the spread of my wings. My brazen gates cleft By shafts shed of time, Are ruined and left As the Gods sing their rhyme. Buttress and joist are Effaced of the cloister. Fane after fane We lift us again To the hoarier transept Where ages climb, And ruin is left Where the Gods said their rhyme. The deity-year (WhereofI am an hour) Shall be born and appear As the birth ofa flower, Shall fade as they faded, The flower wreaths braided In maiden’s hair. The Gods shall fare