Cry down the past, not only we, that prate And loathed to see them overtaxed; but she She sought her lord, and found him, where he strode About the hall, among his dogs, alone, His beard a foot before him, and his hair Whereat he stared, replying, half-amazed, He laughed, and swore by Peter and by Paul: And I repeal it;" and nodding, as in scorn, No eye look down, she passing; but that all Should keep within, door shut, and window barred. Then fled she to her inmost bower, and there And showered the rippled ringlets to her knee; Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity: Light horrors through her pulses: the blind walls Were full of chinks and holes; and overhead Then she rode back, clothed on with chas tity: And one low churl, compact of thankless earth, Were shrivelled into darkness in his head, On noble deeds, cancelled a sense misused; And she, that knew not, passed: and all at once, With twelve great shocks of sound, the shameless noon Was clashed and hammered from a hundred towers, One after one: but even then she gained To meet her lord, she took the tax away, THE TWO VOICES. A STILL Small voice spake unto me: "Thou art so full of misery, Were it not better not to be?" Then to the still small voice I said: "Let me not cast in endless shade What is so wonderfully made." To which the voice would urge reply: "To-day I saw the dragon-fly Come from the wells where he did lie. "An inner impulse rent the veil Came out clear plates of sapphire mail. "He dried his wings; like gauze they grew: Through crofts and pastures wet with dew A living flash of light he flew." I said: "When first the world began, "She gave him mind, the lordliest Proportion, and above the rest, Dominion in the head and breast." Thereto the silent voice replied: "This truth within thy mind rehearse, "Think you this mould of hopes and fears Could find no statelier than his peers In yonder hundred million spheres ? " It spake, moreover, in my mind: "Though thou wert scattered to the wind, Yet is there plenty of the kind." THE TWO VOICES. Then did my response clearer fall: "No compound of this earthly ball Is like another, all in all.” To which he answered scoffingly: "Good soul! suppose I grant it thee, Who'll weep for thy deficiency? "Or will one beam be less intense, When thy peculiar difference Is cancelled in the world of sense?" I would have said, "Thou canst not know," Again the voice spake unto me: "Thine anguish will not let thee sleep, Nor any train of reason keep: Thou canst not think, but thou wilt weep." I said: "The years with change advance; "Some turn this sickness yet might take, Even yet." But he: "What drug can make A withered palsy cease to shake?" I wept: "Though I should die, I know "And men, through novel spheres of thought "Yet," said the secret voice, some time, "Not less swift souls that yearn for light, Would sweep the tracts of day and night. 323 "At least not rotting like a weed, But, having sown some generous seed, Fruitful of further thought and deed, "To pass, when Life her light withdraws, Not void of righteous self-applause, Nor in a merely selfish cause "In some good cause, not in mine own, To perish, wept for, honored, known, And like a warrior overthrown; "Whose eyes are dim with glorious tears, When, soiled with noble dust, he hears His country's war-song thrill his ears: "Then dying of a mortal stroke, What time the foeman's line is broke, And all the war is rolled in smoke." "Yes!" said the voice, "thy dream was good, While thou abodest in the bud. It was the stirring of the blood. "If Nature put not forth her power About the opening of the flower, Who is it that could live an hour? "Then comes the check, the change, the fall. Pain rises up, old pleasures pall. There is one remedy for all. "Yet hadst thou, through enduring pain, Linked month to mouth with such a chain Of knitted purport, all were vain. "Thou hadst not between death and birth Dissolved the riddle of the earth. So were thy labor little-worth. "That men with knowledge merely played, I told thee-hardly nigher made, Though scaling slow from grade to grade; "Much less this dreamer, deaf and blind, Named man, may hope some truth to find, That bears relation to the mind. "For every worm beneath the moon Draws different threads, and late and soon Spins, toiling out his own cocoon. "Cry, faint not: either Truth is born "Cry, faint not, climb: the summits slope Beyond the farthest flights of hope, Wrapped in dense cloud from base to cope. "Sometimes a little corner shines, As over rainy mist inclines A gleaming crag with belts of pines. "I will go forward, sayest thou, I shall not fail to find her now. Look up, the fold is on her brow. "If straight thy track, or if oblique, Thou know'st not. Shadows thou dost strike, Embracing cloud, Ixion-like; "And owning but a little more "Than angels. Cease to wail and brawl! Why inch by inch to darkness crawl? There is one remedy for all." O dull, one-sided voice," said I, "Wilt thou make everything a lie, To flatter me that I may die? "I know that age to age succeeds, Blowing a noise of tongues and deeds, A dust of systems and of creeds. "I cannot hide that some have striven, Achieving calm, to whom was given The joy that mixes man with heaven: "Who, rowing hard against the stream, Saw distant gates of Eden gleam, And did not dream it was a dream; THE TWO VOICES. "His palms are folded on his breast: There is no other thing expressed But long disquiet merged in rest. "His lips are very mild and meek: Though one should smite him on the cheek, And on the mouth, he will not speak. "His little daughter, whose sweet face He kissed, taking his last embrace, Becomes dishonor to her race "His sons grow up that bear his name, Some grow to honor, some to shameBut he is chill to praise or blame. "He will not hear the north-wind rave, Nor, moaning, household shelter crave From winter rains that beat his grave. "High up the vapors fold and swim; About him broods the twilight dim: The place he knew forgetteth him." "If all be dark, vague voice," I said, "He knows a baseness in his blood At such strange war with something good, He may not do the thing he would. "Heaven openes inward, chasms yawn, Vast images in glimmering dawn, Half-shown, are broken and withdrawn. "Ah! sure within him and without, Could his dark wisdom find it out, There must be answer to his doubt. "But thou canst answer not again. With thine own weapon art thou slain, Or thou wilt answer but in vain. "The doubt would rest, I dare not solve. In the same circle we revolve. Assurance only breeds resolve." As when a billow, blown against, Falls back, the voice with which I fenced A little ceased, but recommenced: "Where wert thou when thy father played "These things are wrapped in doubt and dread, In his free field and pastime made, Nor canst thou show the dead are dead. "The sap dries up: the plant declines. A deeper tale my heart divines. Know I not Death? the outward signs? "I found him when my years were few; A shadow on the graves I knew, And darkness in the village yew. "From grave to grave the shadow crept: In her still place the morning wept: Touched by his feet the daisy slept. "The simple senses crowned his head: 'Omega! thou art Lord,' they said, 'We find no motion in the dead.' “Why, if man rot in dreamless ease, Should that plain fact, as taught by these, Not make him sure that he shall cease? "Who forged that other influence, That heat of inward evidence, By which he doubts against the sense? "He owns the fatal gift of eyes, "Here sits he shaping wings to fly: "That type of perfect in his mind "He seems to hear a heavenly Friend, And through thick veils to apprehend A labor working to an end. "The end and the beginning vex His reason: many things perplex, With motions, checks, and counter-checks. A merry boy in sun and shade? "A merry boy they called him then, Their course, till thou wert also man: "Who took a wife, who reared his race, Whose wrinkles gathered on his face, Whose troubles number with his days: "A life of nothings, nothing-worth, From that first nothing ere his birth To that last nothing under earth!" "These words," I said, "are like the rest, No certain clearness, but at best A vague suspicion of the breast: "But if I grant, thou might'st defend The thesis which thy words intendThat to begin implies to end; "Yet how should I for certain hold, Because my memory is so cold, That I first was in human mould? "I cannot make this matter plain, But I would shoot, howe'er in vain, A random arrow from the brain. "It may be that no life is found, Which only to one engine bound Falls off, but cycles always round. "As old mythologies relate, Some draught of Lethe might await The slipping through from state to state. "As here we find in trances, men Forget the dream that happens then, Until they fall in trance again. 325 On to God's house the people pressed: Passing the place where each must rest, Each entered like a welcome guest. One walked between his wife and child, The prudent partner of his blood These three made unity so sweet, I blessed them, and they wandered on: |