LIBER PRIMUS VEL CARMINUM
155
Long called to in the forest, on the mountain,
Reached after in the fountain,
Grasped in the slumberous sea,
And yet, ever, aye, ever! escaping me!
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But here where the wise pen
And silver cadences outrunning song,
And clear sweet clean-chiselled English, sharp
and strong,
Of the one man! among the latter men
Who lived with Nature, saw her face to face,
And died not : here in this consummate place,
Immortal now, though the Antarctic sent
Its mightiest coldest wave and rose and rent
The coral and annihilated land,
Or though the swarthy hand
Or foot misshapen of the Hephaestian,
(Hating the air-breathing man,
In such sweet love as dwells, above all other
places
Ilere, in our hearts and faces,
Nature’s and man’s) if his coarse hand or
foot,
The implacable forceful brute,
Shifted towards the bellows, and one blast
Blew through all the air aghast
And in one vast ‘Vitanic war,
Almighty avenging roar,
Oahu flung skywards blown in dust—and
was no more—
Even then immortal stands
This loveliest of all lands,
Lovelier even than they
Know in Elysian paths, heroic bands
Treading dim gardens brighter than the day,
Even in his voice who is passed, and shall no
pass away !
Here therefore I know Nature ; I am filled
With dew not earth-distilled
As I have prayed in vain, not vainly willed.
Now all the earth is stilled ;
But ever the monotonous sea
Keeps solemn symphony,
Tuning my lyre to her own melody,
Not understandable in colder lands
Where no man understands
1 R, L. Stevenson.
More than the mart ; the raucous ironshod
Feet, smashing verses ; the hard heavy hands
Of time: the hateful laugh where whoredom
trod ;
The savage snarl of man against his friend :—
Howshould he (such an one) perceive the end,
Or listen to the voice of Nature, know it for
the voice of God ?
EPODE.
NATURE.
Lo ! in the interstellar space of night,
Clothed with deep darkness, the majestic
spaces
Abide the dawn of deity and light,
Vibrate before the passionless pale faces
Shrined in exceeding glory, eremite.
The tortoise skies in sombre carapaces
Await the expression and the hour of birth
In silence through the adamantine girth.
I rose in glory, gathered of the foam.
The sea's flower folded, charioting me risen
Where dawn’s rose stole from its pearl-
glimmering home,
And heaven laughed, and earth: and mine
old prison,
The seas that lay beneath the mighty dome,
Shone with my splendour. Light did first
bedizen
Earth with its clusters of fiery dew and spray,
When I looked forth and cried ‘‘ It is the
day !”
The stars are dewdrops on my bosom’s space ;
The sun and moon are glances through my
lashes,
Long, tender, rays of night; my subtle face
Burns through the sky-dusk, lightens, fills,
and flashes
With solemn joy and laughter of love; the
grace
Of all my body swaying stoops and dashes
Swift to the daisy’s dawn of love: and
swiftest,
O spirit of man, when unto me thou liftest !