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.