THE SPIRITS OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS
Ere the birth of Death and of Time,
Ere the birth of Hell and its torments,
Ere the orbs of heat and of rime
And the winds to the heavens were as garments,
Worm-like in the womb of Space,
Worm-like from her monster womb,
We sprung, a myriad race
Of thunder and tempest and gloom.
As from the evil good
Springs like a fire,
As bland beatitude
Wells from the dire,
So was the Chaos brood
Of us the sire.
We had lain for gaunt ages asleep
'Neath her breast in a bulk of torpor,
When down through the vasts of the deep
Clove a sound like the notes of a harper;
Clove a sound, and the horrors grew
Tumultuous with turbulent night,
With whirlwinds of blackness that blew,
And storm that was godly in might.
And the walls of our prison were shattered
Like the crust of a fire-wrecked world;
Like torrents of clouds that are scattered
On the face of the Night we are hurled.
Us, in unholy thought
Patiently lying,
Eons of violence wrought,
Violence defying.
When on a mighty wind, —
Born of a godly mind
Large with a motive kind, —
Girdled with wonder,
Flame and a strength of song
Rushed in a voice along,
Burst and, lo! we were strong —
Strong as the thunder.
We lurk in the upper spaces,
Where the oceans of tempest are born,
Where the scowls of our shadowy faces
Are safe from the splendors of morn.
Our homes are wrecked worlds and each planet
Whose sun is a light that is sped;
Bleak moons whose cold bodies of granite
Are hollow and flameless and dead.
We in the living sun
Live like a passion;
Ere all his stars begun
We and the sun were one,
As God did fashion.
Lo! from our burning hands,
Flung like inspired brands,
Hurled we the stars, like sands
Whirled in the ocean;
And all our breath was life,
Life to those worlds and rife
With ever-moving strife,
Passion for motion.
Our beds are the tombs of the mortals;
We feed on their crimes and the thought
That falters and halts at the portals
Of actions, intentions unwrought.
We cover the face of to-morrow;
We frown in the hours that be;
We breathe in the presence of sorrow,
And death and destruction are we.
We are the hope and ease,
Joy and the pleasure,
Authors of love and peace,
Love that shall never cease,
Free as the azure.
Birth of our eyes – the might,
Power and strength of light,
Victor o'er death and night,
Flesh and its yearnings:
And from our utt'rance streams
Beauty with burnings
After completer dreams,
Fuller discernings.
Morning and birth are ours,
Dew that is blown
From our light lips like flowers;
Clouds and the beating showers,
Stars that are sown;
Song and the bursting buds,
Life of the many floods,
Winds that are strown.
Ye in your darkness are
Dark and infernal;
Subject to death and mar!
But in the spaces far,
Like our effulgent star,
We are eternal!
TO SORROW
O tear-eyed goddess of the marble brow,
Who showerest snows of tresses on the night
Of anguished temples! lonely watcher, thou
Who bendest o'er the couch of life's dead light!
Who in the hollow hours of night's noon
Rockest the cradle of the child,
Whose fever-blooded eyeballs seek the moon
To cool their pulses wild.
Thou who dost stoop to kiss a sister's cheek,
Which rules the alabastar death with youth;
Thou who art mad and strangely meek, —
Empress of passions, couth, uncouth,
We kneel to thee!
O Sorrow, when the sapless world grows white,
And singing gathers on her springtide robes,
On some bleak steep which takes the ruby light
Of day, braid in thy locks the spirit globes
Of cool, weak snowdrops dashed with frozen dew,
And hasten to the leas below
Where Spring may wandered be from the rich blue
Which rims yon clouds of snow.
From the pied crocus and the violet's hues,
Think then how thou didst rake the bosoming snow,
To show some mother the soft blues
Of baby eyes, the sparkling glow
Of dimple-dotted cheeks.
On some hoar upland, hoar with clustered thorns,
Hard by a river's wind-blown lisp of waves,
Sit with young white-skinned