WE are deceived by the shadow, we see not thesubstance of things.For the hills are less solid than thought; anddeeds are but vapors; and fleshIs a mist thrown off and resumed by the soul, asa world by a god.Back of the transient appearance dwells inineffable calmThe utter reality, ultimate truth; this seems andthat is.
I HAVE been down in a dark valley;I have been groping through a deep gorge;Far above, the lips of it were rimmed with moonlight,And here and there the light lay on the drippingrocksSo that it seemed they dripped with moonlight,not with water;So deep it was, that narrow gash among the hills,That those great pines which fringed its edgeSeemed to me no larger than upthrust fingersSilhouetted against the sky;And at its top the vale was strait,And the rays were slantAnd reached but part way down the sides;I could not see the moon itself;I walked through darkness, and the valley's edgeSeemed almost level with the stars,The stars that were like fireflies in the little trees.
It was the midnight of defeat;I felt that I had failed;I was mocked of the gods;There was no way out of that gorge;The paths led no whitherAnd I could not remember their beginnings;I was doomed to wander evermore,Thirsty, with the sound of mocking waters inmine ears,Groping, with gleams of useless lightSplashed in ironic beauty on the rocks above.And so I whined.
And then despair flashed into rage;I leapt erect, and cried:"Could I but grasp my life as sculptors grasp the clayAnd knead and thrust it into shape again!—If all the scorn of Heaven were but thrownInto the focus of some creature I could clutch!—If something tangible were but vouchsafed meBy the cold, far gods!—If they but sent a Reason for the failure of my lifeI'd answer it;If they but sent a Fiend, I'd conquer it!—
But I reach out, and grasp the air,I rage, and the brute rock echoes my words inmockery—How can one fight the sliding moonlight on the cliffs?You gods, coward gods,Come down, I challenge you!—You who set snares with roses and with passion,You who make flesh beautiful and damn men throughthe flesh,You who plump the purple grape and then put poisonin the cup,You who put serpents in your Edens,You who gave me delight of my senses and broke mefor it,You who have mingled death with beauty,You who have put into my blood the impulses forwhich you cursed me,You who permitted my brain the doubts whereforeyou damn me,Behold, I doubt you, gods, no longer, but defy!—I perish here?Then I will be slain of a god!You who have wrapped me in the scorn of your silence,The divinity in this same dust you flout
Flames through the dust,And dares,And flings you back your scorn,—Come, face to face, and slay me if you will,But not until you've felt the weightOf all betricked humanity's contemptIn one bold blow!—Speak forth a Reason, and I will answer it,Yes, to your faces I will answer it;Come garmented in flesh and I will fight with you,Yes, in your faces will I smite you, gods;Coward gods and tricksters that set trapsIn paradise!—Far gods that hedge yourselves about with silenceAnd with distance;That mock men from the unscalable escarpments ofyour Heavens."
Thus I raved, being mad.I had no sooner finished speaking than I feltThe darkness fluttered by approaching feet,And the silence was burned through by tremblingflames of sound,And I was 'ware that Something stood by me.
And with a shout I leapt and grasped that Being,And the Thing grasped me.We came to wrestling grips,And back and forth we swayed,Hand seeking throat, and crook'd knee seekingTo encrook unwary leg,And spread toes grasping the uneven ground;The strained breast muscles cracked and creaked,The sweat ran in my eyes,The plagued breath sobbed and whistled throughmy throat,I tasted blood, and strangled, but still struggledon—The stars above me danced in swarms like yellowbees,The shaken moonlight writhed upon the rocks;—But at the last I felt his breathing weaker grow,The tense limbs grow less tense,And with a bursting cry I bent his head rightback,Back, back, untilI heard his neck bones snap;His spine crunched in my grip;I flung him to the earth and knelt upon his breast
And listened till the fluttering pulse was stilled.Man, god, or devil, I had wrenched the life fromhim!
And lo!—even as he diedThe moonlight failed above the vale,—And somehow, sure, I know now how!—Between the rifted rocks the great Sun struckA finger down the cliff, and that red beamLay sharp across the face of him that I had slain;And in that light I read the answer of the silentgodsUnto my cursed-out prayer,For he that lay upon the ground was—I!I understood the lesson then;It was myself that lay there dead;Yes, I had slain my Self.
No doubt the ordered worlds speed onWith purpose in their wings;No doubt the ordered songs are sweetEach worthy angel sings;And doubtless it is wise to heedThe ordered words of Kings;
But how the heart leaps up to greetThe headlong, rebel flight,Whenas some reckless meteorBlazes across the night!Some comet—Byron—Lucifer—Has dared to Be, and fight!
No doubt but it is safe to dwellWhere ordered duties are;No doubt the cherubs earn their wageWho wind each ticking star;
No doubt the system is quite right!—Sane, ordered, regular;
But how the rebel fires the soulWho dares the strong gods' ire!Each Byron!—Shelley!—Lucifer!—And all the outcast choirThat chant when some PrometheusLeaps up to steal Jove's fire!
BETTER a pauper, penniless, asleep on the kindlysod—Better a gipsy, houseless, but near to the heartof God,
That beats for ears not dulled by the clankingwheels of care—Better starvation and freedom, hope and the goodfresh air
Than death to the Something in him that wasborn to laugh and dream,That was kin to the idle lilies and the ripples ofthe stream.
For out of the dreams of childhood, that carelesscome and go,The boy gains strength, unknowing, that the Manwill prove and know.
But these fools with their lies and their dollars,their mills and their bloody hands,Who make a god of a wheel, who worship theirwhirring bands,
They are flinging the life of a people, raw, to thebrute machines.Dull-eyed, weary, and old—old in his early teens—
Stunted and stupid and twisted, marred in themills of grief,Can your factories fashion a Man of this thing—a Man and a Chief?
Dumb is the heart of him now, at the time whenhis heart should sing—Wasters of body and brain, what race will thefuture bring?
What of the nation's nerve whenas swift crisescome?What of the brawn that should heave the guns onthe beck of the drum?
Thieves of body and soul, who can neither thinknor feel,Swine-eyed priests of little false gods of gold andsteel,
Bow to your obscene altars, worship your loudmills then!Feed to Moloch and Baal the brawn and brainsof men—
But silent and watchful and hidden forever overallThe masters brood of those Mills that "grindexceeding small."
And it needs no occult art nor magic to foreshowThat a people who sow defeat they will reap thething they sow.
CONQUERORS leonine, lordly,Princes and vaunting kings,Ye are drunk with the sound of your braggarttrumps—_But lo! ye are little things!
Earth … it is charnel with monarchs!And the puffs of dust that startWhere your war steeds stamp with their ringing hoofsWere each some warrior's heart._
Peoples imperial, mighty,Masterful, challenging fate,The tread of your cohorts shakes the hills—_But lo! ye are not great!
Nations that swarm and murmur,Ye are moths that flutter and climb—Ye are whirling gnats, ye are swirling bees,Tossed in the winds of time!_
Earth that is flushed with glory,A marvelous world ye are!_But lo! in the midst of a million starsYe are only one pale star!
A breath stirs the dark abysses….The deeps below the deepAre troubled and vexed … and a thousand worldsFall on eternal sleep!_
HATH not man at his noblestAn air of something more than man?—A hint of grace immortal,Born of his greatly daring to assist the godsIn conquering these shaggy wastes,These desert worlds,And planting life and order in these stars?—So Woman at her best:Her eyes are bright with visions and with dreamsThat triumph over time;Her plumed thought, wing for wing, is mate withhis.
The world rolls on from dream to dream,And 'neath the vast impersonal revenges of itsgoing,
Crushed fools that cried defeatLie dead amid the dust they prophesied—Ye doubters of man's larger destiny,Ye that despair,Look backward down the vistaed years,And all is battle—and all victory!Man fought, to be a man!Through painful centuries the slow beast fought,Blinded and baffled, fought to gain his soul;—Wild, hairy, shag, and feared of shadows,Yet the cloudsMade him strange signals that he puzzled o'er;—Beast, child, and ape,And yet the winds harped to him, and the seaRolled in upon his consciousnessIts tides of wonder and romance;—Uncouth and caked with mire,And yet the stars said something to him, and thesunDeclared itself a god;—The lagging cycles turned at lastThe pictures into thought,Thought flowered in soul;—But, oh, the myriad weary yearsEre Caliban was Shakespeare's selfAnd Darwin's ape had Darwin's brain!—The battling, battling, and the steep ascent,The fight to hold the little gained,The loss, the doubt, the shaken heart,The stubborn, groping slow recovery!—But looking backward toward the dim beginnings,You that despair,Hath he not climbed and conquered?Look backward and all's Victory!What coward looks forward and foresees defeat?
Who climbed beside him, and who foughtAnd suffered and was glad?Is she a lesser thing than he,Who stained the slopes with bloody feet, or stoodBeside him on some hard-won eminence of hopeExulting as the bold dawn sweptA harper hand along the ringing hills?Flesh of his flesh, and of his soul the soul,Hath she not fought, hath she not climbed?
And how is she a lesser thing?—Nay, if she ever was'Twas we that made her so, who called her queenBut kept her slave.
Had she not courage for the fight?Hath she not courage for the years to come?Hath she not courage who descends alone—(How pitifully alone, except for Love!)Where man's thought even falters that wouldfollow,Into the shadowy abyss(Through vast and murmurous caverns dark withcrowding dreadAnd terrible with hovering wings),To battle there with Death?—to battleThere with Death, and wrest from him,O Conqueror and Mother,Life!
Hath she too long dwelt dream-bound in the worldof love,
Unconscious of the sterner throes,The more austere, impersonal, wide faith,The urge that drives Christs to the crossNot for the love of one beloved,But for the love of all?If so, she wakes!Wakes and demands a share in all man's bolderdestinies,The high, audacious ventures of the soulThat thinks to scale the bastioned slopesAnd strike stark Chaos from his throne.We still stand in the dawn of time.Not meanly let us stand nor shaken with lowdoubts!For there beyond the verge and margin of gray cloudThe future thrills with promiseAnd the skies are tremulous with golden light;—She too would share those victories,Comrade, and more than comrade;—New times, new needs confront us now;We must evolve new powersTo battle with;—We must go forward now together,Or perchance we fail!
_A little while the tears and laughter,The willow and the rose—A little while, and what comes afterNo man knows.
An hour to sing, to love and linger …Then lutanist and luteWill fall on silence, song and singerBoth be mute.
Our gods from our desires we fashion….Exalt our baffled lives,And dream their vital bloom and passionStill survives;
But when we're done with mirth and weeping,With myrtle, rue, and rose,Shall Death take Life into his keeping? …No man knows._
_What heart hath not, through twilight places,Sought for its dead againTo gild with love their pallid faces? …Sought in vain! …
Still mounts the Dream on shining pinion …Still broods the dull distrust …Which shall have ultimate dominion,Dream, or dust?
A little while with grief and laughter,And then the day will close;The shadows gather … what comes afterNo man knows!_
Note: In "The Parting," page 161, line 4, I have changed "they face" to "thy face"; in "The Struggle," page 173, line 4, I have changed "l!o" to "lo!"