Not loftiest bard, of mightiest mind,
Shall ever chant a note so pure,
Till he can cast this earth behind
And breathe in heaven secure.
We sing of Life, with stormy breath
That shakes the lute's distempered string:
We sing of Love, and loveless Death
Takes up the song we sing.
And born in toils of Fate's control,
Insurgent from the womb, we strive
With proud unmanumitted soul
To burst the golden gyve.
Thy spirit knows nor bounds nor bars;
On thee no shreds of thraldom hang:
Not more enlarged, the morning stars
Their great Te Deum sang.
But I am fettered to the sod,
And but forget my bonds an hour;
In amplitude of dreams a god,
A slave in dearth of power.
And fruitless knowledge clouds my soul, And fretful ignorance irks it more. Thou sing'st as if thou knew'st the whole, And lightly held'st thy lore!
Somewhat as thou, Man once could sing,
In porches of the lucent morn,
Ere he had felt his lack of wing,
Or cursed his iron bourn.
The springtime bubbled in his throat,
The sweet sky seemed not far above,
And young and lovesome came the note;-
Ah, thine is Youth and Love!
Thou sing'st of what he knew of old,
And dreamlike from afar recalls;
In flashes of forgotten gold
An orient glory falls.
And as he listens, one by one
Life's utmost splendours blaze more nigh;
Less inaccessible the sun,
Less alien grows the sky.
For thou art native to the spheres,
And of the courts of heaven art free,
And carriest to his temporal ears
News from eternity;
And lead'st him to the dizzy verge,
And lur'st him o'er the dazzling line,
Where mortal and immortal merge,
And human dies divine.
the thought of death to dread;
Asking no heaven, we fear no fabled hell:
Life is a feast, and we have banqueted
Shall not the worms as well?
*From The Poems of William Watson. Copyright, 1905, by the John Lane Company.
"The after-silence, when the feast is o'er,
And void the places where the minstrels stood, Differs in nought from what hath been before, And is nor ill nor good."
Ah, but the Apparition-the dumb sign-
The beckoning finger bidding me forego
The fellowship, the converse, and the wine,
The songs, the festal glow!
And ah, to know not, while with friends I sit,
And while the purple joy is passed about,
Whether 'tis ampler day divinelier lit
Or homeless night without;
And whether, stepping forth, my soul shall see
New prospects, or fall sheer—a blinded thing!
There is, O grave, thy hourly victory,
And there, O death, thy sting.
I think the immortal servants of mankind,
Who, from their graves, watch by how slow degrees
The World-Soul greatens with the centuries,
Mourn most Man's barren levity of mind,
The ear to no grave harmonies inclined,
The witless thirst for false wit's worthless lees,
The laugh mistimed in tragic presences,
The eye to all majestic meanings blind.
O prophets, martyrs, saviours, ye were great,
All truth being great to you: ye deemed Man more
Than a dull jest, God's ennui to amuse:
The world, for you, held purport: Life ye wore
Proudly, as Kings their solemn robes of state;
And humbly, as the mightiest monarchs use.
From The Poems of William Watson. Copyright, 1905, by the John
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
Where forlorn sunsets flare and fade
On desolate sea and lonely sand,
Out of the silence and the shade
What is the voice of strange command
Calling you still, as friend calls friend
With love that cannot brook delay, To rise and follow the ways that wend Over the hills and far away?
Hark in the city, street on street
A roaring reach of death and life,
Of vortices that clash and fleet
And ruin in appointed strife,
Hark to it calling, calling clear,
Calling until you cannot stay
From dearer things than your own most dear
Over the hills and far away.
Out of the sound of the ebb-and-flow,
Out of the sight of lamp and star,
It calls you where the good winds blow,
And the unchanging meadows are:
From faded hopes and hopes agleam,
It calls you, calls you night and day
Beyond the dark into the dream
Over the hills and far away.
Your heart has trembled to my tongue,
Your hands in mine have lain,
Your thought to me has leaned and clung,
Again and yet again,
Now die the dream, or come the wife,
The past is not in vain,
For wholly as it was your life
Can never be again,
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