Collected Works (Vol. III)

14 THE STAR AND THE GARTER My gaze be steadfast on the star And never to the garter glide, And I on rapture’s nenuphar’ Sit Buddha-like above the tide. XXX. O BLUEBELL of the inmost wood, Before whose beauty I abase My head, and bind my burning blood, And hide within the moss my face, I would not so—or not for that Would so: the gods knew well to save The mountain summit from the flat, Youth’s laughter from its earlier grave. It is a better love, exists Only because of these below it: Mountains loom grander in the mists: The lover’s foolish to the poet. I know. Far better strive and earn The rest you give me than remain Ever upon the heights that burn Sunward, and quite forget the plain. Beauteous and bodiless we are; __ Rapture is our inheritance ; You shine, an everlasting star, I, the rough nebula: but whence, Whither, we know not. But we know That if our joy were always so We might not know it. Strange indeed This earth where all is paradox, Pushed to the truth : what lies succeed When every truth essential mocks Its truth in figure of a phrase? How should I care for this, and tire Body by will to sing thy praise, Who take this lute, throw down the lyre | As I have done to-day, to win No guerdon differing from the toil, Were that accomplished: pain and sin Are needed for the counterfoil Of joy and love: if only so All men had these in keen excess Those were forgotten : indigo Is amber’s shadow, but—confess For all men but ourselves the tint | ay! Of all the earth is dull and black ! Only some glints of love bestow The knowledge of what meteor wrack Trails pestilence across the sky. But we are other—you and I! So shall we live in deep content, Unchanging bliss, despise them still Groping on isle and continent Wreathed in the mesh of woe and ill? Ah! Zeus! we will not: be the law Of uttermost compassion ours ! Our snows it shall not come to thaw, Nor burn the roses from our bowers. XXXI, There’s a law! For this recede, Hide with me in the deepest caves Of some volcanic island; bleed Our hearts out by the ambient waves Of Coromandel ; live alone, Hermits of love and pity, far Where tumbled banks of ice are thrown, Watched by yon solitary star, Sirius ; there to work together In sorrow and in joy but one, In black inhospitable weather, Or fronting the Numidian sun, Equally minded ; till the hour Strike of release, and we obtain The passionless and holy power, Making us masters over pain, And lords of peace : the rays of light We fling to the awakening globe ; The cavern of the eremite Shall glow with inmost fire, a robe Of diamond energy, shall flash Even to the confines of wide space; Comets their tails in fury lash To look on our irradiate face. And we will heal them. Dragon men And serpent women, worm and clod, Shall rise and look upon us then, And know us to be very God, Finding a saviour in the sight Of power attaining unto peace, And meditation’s virgin might Pregnant with twins—love and release.