I—THE BOOK OF EARTH

Let the stars fade. Open the Book of Earth.Out of the Painted Desert, in broad noon,Walking through pine-clad bluffs, in an air like wine,I came to the dreadful brink.I saw, with a swimming brain, the solid earthSplitting apart, into two hemispheres,Cleft, as though by the axe of an angry god.On the brink of the Grand Canyon,Over that reeling gulf of amethyst shadows,From the edge of one sundered hemisphere I looked down,Down from abyss to abyss,Into the dreadful heart of the old earth dreamingLike a slaked furnace of her far beginnings,The inhuman ages, alien as the moon,Æons unborn, and the unimagined end.There, on the terrible brink, against the sky,I saw a black speck on a boulder juttingOver a hundred forests that dropped and droppedDown to a tangle of red precipitous gorgesThat dropped again and dropped, endlessly down.A mile away, or ten, on its jutting rock,The black speck moved. In that dry diamond lightIt seemed so near me that my hand could touch it.It stirred like a midge, cleaning its wings in the sun.All measure was lost. It broke—into five black dots.I looked, through the glass, and saw that these were men.Beyond them, round them, under them, swam the abyssEndlessly on.Far down, as a cloud sailed over,A sun-shaft struck, between forests and sandstone cliffs,Down, endlessly down, to the naked and dusky granite,Crystalline granite that still seemed to glowWith smouldering colours of those buried firesWhich formed it, long ago, in earth’s deep womb.And there, so far below that not a sound,Even in that desert air, rose from its bed,I saw the thin green thread of the Colorado,The dragon of rivers, dwarfed to a vein of jade,The Colorado that, out of the Rocky Mountains,For fifteen hundred miles of glory and thunder,Rolls to the broad Pacific.From Flaming Gorge,Through the Grand Canyon with its monstrous chainOf subject canyons, the green river flows,Linking them all together in one vast gulch,But christening it, at each earth-cleaving turn,With names like pictures, for six hundred miles:Black Canyon, where it rushes in opal foam;Red Canyon, where it sleeks to jade againAnd slides through quartz, three thousand feet below;Split-Mountain Canyon, with its cottonwood trees;And, opening out of this,Whirlpool Ravine,Where the wild rapids wash the gleaming wallsWith rainbows, for nine miles of mist and fire;Kingfisher Canyon, gorgeous as the plumesOf its wingèd denizens, glistening with all hues;Glen Canyon, where the Cave of Music rangLong since, with the discoverers’ desert-song;Vermilion Cliffs, like sunset clouds congealedTo solid crags; theValley of SurpriseWhere blind walls open, into a Titan pass;Labyrinth Canyon, and theValley of Echoes;Cataract Canyon, rolling boulders downIn floods of emerald thunder;Gunnison’s ValleyCrossed, once, by the forgotten Spanish Trail;Then, for a hundred miles,Desolation Canyon,Savagely pinnacled, strange as the lost roadOf Death, cleaving a long deserted world;Gray Canyonnext; thenMarble Canyon, stainedWith iron-rust above, but brightly veinedAs Parian, where the wave had sculptured it;Then deepStill-water.And all these conjunctIn one huge chasm, were but the towering gatesAnd dim approaches to the august abyssThat opened here,—one sempiternal pageBaring those awful hieroglyphs of stone,Seven systems, and seven ages, darkly scrolledIn the deep Book of Earth.Across the gulfI looked to that vast coast opposed, whose crestsOf raw rough amethyst, over the Canyon, flamed,A league away, or ten. No eye could tell.All measure was lost. The tallest pine was a featherUnder my feet, in that ocean of violet gloom.Then, with a dizzying brain, I saw below me,A little way out, a tiny shape, like a gnatFlying and spinning,—now like a gilded grainOf dust in a shaft of light, now sharp and blackOver a blood-red sandstone precipice.“Look!”The Indian guide thrust out a lean dark handThat hid a hundred forests, and pointed to it,Muttering low, “Big Eagle!”All that day,Riding along the brink, we found no end.Still, on the right, the pageant of the AbyssUnfolded. There gigantic walls of rock,Sheer as the world’s end, seemed to float in airOver the hollow of space, and change their formsLike soft blue wood-smoke, with each change of light.Here massed red boulders, over the Angel TrailDarkened to thunder, or like a sunset burned.Here, while the mind reeled from the imagined plunge,Tall amethystine towers, dark Matterhorns,Rose out of shadowy nothingness to crownTheir mighty heads with morning.Here, wild cragsBlack and abrupt, over the swimming dimnessOf coloured mist, and under the moving clouds,Themselves appeared to move, stately and slowAs the moon moves, with an invisible pace,Or darkling planets, quietly onward stealThrough their immense dominion.There, far down,A phantom sword, a search-beam of the sun,Glanced upon purple pyramids, and setOne facet aflame in each, the rest in gloom;While from their own deep chasms of shadow, that seemedSmall inch-wide rings of darkness round them, roseTabular foothills, mesas, hard and bright,Bevelled and flat, like gems; or, softly bloomedLike alabaster, stained with lucid wine;Then slowly changed, under the changing clouds,Where the light sharpened, into monstrous tombsOf trap-rock, hornblende, greenstone and basalt.There,—under isles of pine, washed round with mist,Dark isles that seemed to sail through heaven, and cliffsThat towered like Teneriffe,—far, far below,Striving to link those huge dissolving steeps,Gigantic causeways drowned or swam in vain,Column on column, arch on broken arch,Groping and winding, like the foundered spansOf lost Atlantis, under the weltering deep.For, over them, the abysmal tides of air,Inconstant as the colours of the sea,From amethyst into wreathing opal flowed,Ebbed into rose through grey, then melted allIn universal amethyst again.There, wild cathedrals, with light-splintering spires,Shone like a dream in the Eternal mindAnd changed as earth and sea and heaven must change.Over them soared a promontory, blackAs night, but in the deepening gulf beyond,Far down in that vast hollow of violet air,Winding between the huge Plutonian walls,The semblance of a ruined city lay.Dungeons flung wide, and palaces brought low,Altars and temples, wrecked and overthrown,Gigantic stairs that climbed into the lightAnd found no hope, and ended in the void:It burned and darkened, a city of porphyry,Paved with obsidian, walled with serpentine,Beautiful, desolate, stricken as by strange godsWho, long ago, from cloudy summits, flungBoulder on mountainous boulder of blood-red marlInto a gulf so deep that, when they fell,The soft wine-tinted mists closed over themLike ocean, and the Indian heard no sound.

Let the stars fade. Open the Book of Earth.

Out of the Painted Desert, in broad noon,Walking through pine-clad bluffs, in an air like wine,I came to the dreadful brink.

Out of the Painted Desert, in broad noon,

Walking through pine-clad bluffs, in an air like wine,

I came to the dreadful brink.

I saw, with a swimming brain, the solid earthSplitting apart, into two hemispheres,Cleft, as though by the axe of an angry god.On the brink of the Grand Canyon,Over that reeling gulf of amethyst shadows,From the edge of one sundered hemisphere I looked down,Down from abyss to abyss,Into the dreadful heart of the old earth dreamingLike a slaked furnace of her far beginnings,The inhuman ages, alien as the moon,Æons unborn, and the unimagined end.There, on the terrible brink, against the sky,I saw a black speck on a boulder juttingOver a hundred forests that dropped and droppedDown to a tangle of red precipitous gorgesThat dropped again and dropped, endlessly down.

I saw, with a swimming brain, the solid earth

Splitting apart, into two hemispheres,

Cleft, as though by the axe of an angry god.

On the brink of the Grand Canyon,

Over that reeling gulf of amethyst shadows,

From the edge of one sundered hemisphere I looked down,

Down from abyss to abyss,

Into the dreadful heart of the old earth dreaming

Like a slaked furnace of her far beginnings,

The inhuman ages, alien as the moon,

Æons unborn, and the unimagined end.

There, on the terrible brink, against the sky,

I saw a black speck on a boulder jutting

Over a hundred forests that dropped and dropped

Down to a tangle of red precipitous gorges

That dropped again and dropped, endlessly down.

A mile away, or ten, on its jutting rock,The black speck moved. In that dry diamond lightIt seemed so near me that my hand could touch it.It stirred like a midge, cleaning its wings in the sun.All measure was lost. It broke—into five black dots.I looked, through the glass, and saw that these were men.Beyond them, round them, under them, swam the abyssEndlessly on.Far down, as a cloud sailed over,A sun-shaft struck, between forests and sandstone cliffs,Down, endlessly down, to the naked and dusky granite,Crystalline granite that still seemed to glowWith smouldering colours of those buried firesWhich formed it, long ago, in earth’s deep womb.And there, so far below that not a sound,Even in that desert air, rose from its bed,I saw the thin green thread of the Colorado,The dragon of rivers, dwarfed to a vein of jade,The Colorado that, out of the Rocky Mountains,For fifteen hundred miles of glory and thunder,Rolls to the broad Pacific.From Flaming Gorge,Through the Grand Canyon with its monstrous chainOf subject canyons, the green river flows,Linking them all together in one vast gulch,But christening it, at each earth-cleaving turn,With names like pictures, for six hundred miles:Black Canyon, where it rushes in opal foam;Red Canyon, where it sleeks to jade againAnd slides through quartz, three thousand feet below;Split-Mountain Canyon, with its cottonwood trees;And, opening out of this,Whirlpool Ravine,Where the wild rapids wash the gleaming wallsWith rainbows, for nine miles of mist and fire;Kingfisher Canyon, gorgeous as the plumesOf its wingèd denizens, glistening with all hues;Glen Canyon, where the Cave of Music rangLong since, with the discoverers’ desert-song;Vermilion Cliffs, like sunset clouds congealedTo solid crags; theValley of SurpriseWhere blind walls open, into a Titan pass;Labyrinth Canyon, and theValley of Echoes;Cataract Canyon, rolling boulders downIn floods of emerald thunder;Gunnison’s ValleyCrossed, once, by the forgotten Spanish Trail;Then, for a hundred miles,Desolation Canyon,Savagely pinnacled, strange as the lost roadOf Death, cleaving a long deserted world;Gray Canyonnext; thenMarble Canyon, stainedWith iron-rust above, but brightly veinedAs Parian, where the wave had sculptured it;Then deepStill-water.And all these conjunctIn one huge chasm, were but the towering gatesAnd dim approaches to the august abyssThat opened here,—one sempiternal pageBaring those awful hieroglyphs of stone,Seven systems, and seven ages, darkly scrolledIn the deep Book of Earth.Across the gulfI looked to that vast coast opposed, whose crestsOf raw rough amethyst, over the Canyon, flamed,A league away, or ten. No eye could tell.All measure was lost. The tallest pine was a featherUnder my feet, in that ocean of violet gloom.Then, with a dizzying brain, I saw below me,A little way out, a tiny shape, like a gnatFlying and spinning,—now like a gilded grainOf dust in a shaft of light, now sharp and blackOver a blood-red sandstone precipice.“Look!”The Indian guide thrust out a lean dark handThat hid a hundred forests, and pointed to it,Muttering low, “Big Eagle!”All that day,Riding along the brink, we found no end.Still, on the right, the pageant of the AbyssUnfolded. There gigantic walls of rock,Sheer as the world’s end, seemed to float in airOver the hollow of space, and change their formsLike soft blue wood-smoke, with each change of light.Here massed red boulders, over the Angel TrailDarkened to thunder, or like a sunset burned.Here, while the mind reeled from the imagined plunge,Tall amethystine towers, dark Matterhorns,Rose out of shadowy nothingness to crownTheir mighty heads with morning.Here, wild cragsBlack and abrupt, over the swimming dimnessOf coloured mist, and under the moving clouds,Themselves appeared to move, stately and slowAs the moon moves, with an invisible pace,Or darkling planets, quietly onward stealThrough their immense dominion.There, far down,A phantom sword, a search-beam of the sun,Glanced upon purple pyramids, and setOne facet aflame in each, the rest in gloom;While from their own deep chasms of shadow, that seemedSmall inch-wide rings of darkness round them, roseTabular foothills, mesas, hard and bright,Bevelled and flat, like gems; or, softly bloomedLike alabaster, stained with lucid wine;Then slowly changed, under the changing clouds,Where the light sharpened, into monstrous tombsOf trap-rock, hornblende, greenstone and basalt.

A mile away, or ten, on its jutting rock,

The black speck moved. In that dry diamond light

It seemed so near me that my hand could touch it.

It stirred like a midge, cleaning its wings in the sun.

All measure was lost. It broke—into five black dots.

I looked, through the glass, and saw that these were men.

Beyond them, round them, under them, swam the abyss

Endlessly on.

Far down, as a cloud sailed over,

A sun-shaft struck, between forests and sandstone cliffs,

Down, endlessly down, to the naked and dusky granite,

Crystalline granite that still seemed to glow

With smouldering colours of those buried fires

Which formed it, long ago, in earth’s deep womb.

And there, so far below that not a sound,

Even in that desert air, rose from its bed,

I saw the thin green thread of the Colorado,

The dragon of rivers, dwarfed to a vein of jade,

The Colorado that, out of the Rocky Mountains,

For fifteen hundred miles of glory and thunder,

Rolls to the broad Pacific.

From Flaming Gorge,

Through the Grand Canyon with its monstrous chain

Of subject canyons, the green river flows,

Linking them all together in one vast gulch,

But christening it, at each earth-cleaving turn,

With names like pictures, for six hundred miles:

Black Canyon, where it rushes in opal foam;

Red Canyon, where it sleeks to jade again

And slides through quartz, three thousand feet below;

Split-Mountain Canyon, with its cottonwood trees;

And, opening out of this,Whirlpool Ravine,

Where the wild rapids wash the gleaming walls

With rainbows, for nine miles of mist and fire;

Kingfisher Canyon, gorgeous as the plumes

Of its wingèd denizens, glistening with all hues;

Glen Canyon, where the Cave of Music rang

Long since, with the discoverers’ desert-song;

Vermilion Cliffs, like sunset clouds congealed

To solid crags; theValley of Surprise

Where blind walls open, into a Titan pass;

Labyrinth Canyon, and theValley of Echoes;

Cataract Canyon, rolling boulders down

In floods of emerald thunder;Gunnison’s Valley

Crossed, once, by the forgotten Spanish Trail;

Then, for a hundred miles,Desolation Canyon,

Savagely pinnacled, strange as the lost road

Of Death, cleaving a long deserted world;

Gray Canyonnext; thenMarble Canyon, stained

With iron-rust above, but brightly veined

As Parian, where the wave had sculptured it;

Then deepStill-water.

And all these conjunct

In one huge chasm, were but the towering gates

And dim approaches to the august abyss

That opened here,—one sempiternal page

Baring those awful hieroglyphs of stone,

Seven systems, and seven ages, darkly scrolled

In the deep Book of Earth.

Across the gulf

I looked to that vast coast opposed, whose crests

Of raw rough amethyst, over the Canyon, flamed,

A league away, or ten. No eye could tell.

All measure was lost. The tallest pine was a feather

Under my feet, in that ocean of violet gloom.

Then, with a dizzying brain, I saw below me,

A little way out, a tiny shape, like a gnat

Flying and spinning,—now like a gilded grain

Of dust in a shaft of light, now sharp and black

Over a blood-red sandstone precipice.

“Look!”

The Indian guide thrust out a lean dark hand

That hid a hundred forests, and pointed to it,

Muttering low, “Big Eagle!”

All that day,

Riding along the brink, we found no end.

Still, on the right, the pageant of the Abyss

Unfolded. There gigantic walls of rock,

Sheer as the world’s end, seemed to float in air

Over the hollow of space, and change their forms

Like soft blue wood-smoke, with each change of light.

Here massed red boulders, over the Angel Trail

Darkened to thunder, or like a sunset burned.

Here, while the mind reeled from the imagined plunge,

Tall amethystine towers, dark Matterhorns,

Rose out of shadowy nothingness to crown

Their mighty heads with morning.

Here, wild crags

Black and abrupt, over the swimming dimness

Of coloured mist, and under the moving clouds,

Themselves appeared to move, stately and slow

As the moon moves, with an invisible pace,

Or darkling planets, quietly onward steal

Through their immense dominion.

There, far down,

A phantom sword, a search-beam of the sun,

Glanced upon purple pyramids, and set

One facet aflame in each, the rest in gloom;

While from their own deep chasms of shadow, that seemed

Small inch-wide rings of darkness round them, rose

Tabular foothills, mesas, hard and bright,

Bevelled and flat, like gems; or, softly bloomed

Like alabaster, stained with lucid wine;

Then slowly changed, under the changing clouds,

Where the light sharpened, into monstrous tombs

Of trap-rock, hornblende, greenstone and basalt.

There,—under isles of pine, washed round with mist,Dark isles that seemed to sail through heaven, and cliffsThat towered like Teneriffe,—far, far below,Striving to link those huge dissolving steeps,Gigantic causeways drowned or swam in vain,Column on column, arch on broken arch,Groping and winding, like the foundered spansOf lost Atlantis, under the weltering deep.For, over them, the abysmal tides of air,Inconstant as the colours of the sea,From amethyst into wreathing opal flowed,Ebbed into rose through grey, then melted allIn universal amethyst again.There, wild cathedrals, with light-splintering spires,Shone like a dream in the Eternal mindAnd changed as earth and sea and heaven must change.Over them soared a promontory, blackAs night, but in the deepening gulf beyond,Far down in that vast hollow of violet air,Winding between the huge Plutonian walls,The semblance of a ruined city lay.Dungeons flung wide, and palaces brought low,Altars and temples, wrecked and overthrown,Gigantic stairs that climbed into the lightAnd found no hope, and ended in the void:It burned and darkened, a city of porphyry,Paved with obsidian, walled with serpentine,Beautiful, desolate, stricken as by strange godsWho, long ago, from cloudy summits, flungBoulder on mountainous boulder of blood-red marlInto a gulf so deep that, when they fell,The soft wine-tinted mists closed over themLike ocean, and the Indian heard no sound.

There,—under isles of pine, washed round with mist,

Dark isles that seemed to sail through heaven, and cliffs

That towered like Teneriffe,—far, far below,

Striving to link those huge dissolving steeps,

Gigantic causeways drowned or swam in vain,

Column on column, arch on broken arch,

Groping and winding, like the foundered spans

Of lost Atlantis, under the weltering deep.

For, over them, the abysmal tides of air,

Inconstant as the colours of the sea,

From amethyst into wreathing opal flowed,

Ebbed into rose through grey, then melted all

In universal amethyst again.

There, wild cathedrals, with light-splintering spires,

Shone like a dream in the Eternal mind

And changed as earth and sea and heaven must change.

Over them soared a promontory, black

As night, but in the deepening gulf beyond,

Far down in that vast hollow of violet air,

Winding between the huge Plutonian walls,

The semblance of a ruined city lay.

Dungeons flung wide, and palaces brought low,

Altars and temples, wrecked and overthrown,

Gigantic stairs that climbed into the light

And found no hope, and ended in the void:

It burned and darkened, a city of porphyry,

Paved with obsidian, walled with serpentine,

Beautiful, desolate, stricken as by strange gods

Who, long ago, from cloudy summits, flung

Boulder on mountainous boulder of blood-red marl

Into a gulf so deep that, when they fell,

The soft wine-tinted mists closed over them

Like ocean, and the Indian heard no sound.

A lonely cabin, like an eagle’s nest,Lodged us that night upon the monstrous brink,And roofed us from the burning desert stars;But, on my couch of hemlock as I lay,The Book of Earth still opened in my dreams.Below me, only guessed by the slow soundOf forests, through unfathomable gulfsOf midnight, vaster, more mysterious now,Breathed that invisible Presence of deep awe.Through the wide open window, once, a mothBeat its dark wings, and flew—out—over that,Brave little fluttering atheist, unawareOf aught beyond the reach of his antennæ,Thinking his light quick thoughts; while, under him,God opened His immeasurable Abyss.All night I heard the insistent whisper rise:One page of Earth’s abysmal Book lies bare.Read—in its awful hieroglyphs of stone—His own deep scripture. Is its music sealed?Or is the inscrutable secret growing clearer?Then, like the night-wind, soughing through the pines,Another voice replied, cold with despair:It opens, and it opens. By what Power?A silent river, hastening to the sea,Age after age, through crumbling desert rocksClove the dread chasm. Wild snows that had their birthIn Ocean-mists, and folded their white wingsAmong far mountains, fed that sharp-edged stream.Ask Ocean whence it came. Ask Earth. Ask Heaven.I see the manifold instruments as they move,Remote or near, with intricate inter-play;But that which moves them, and determines allRemains in darkness. Man must bow his headBefore the Inscrutable.Then, far off, I heard,As from a deeper gulf, the antiphonal voice:It opens, and it opens, and it opens,—The abyss of Heaven, the rock-leaved Book of Earth,And that Abyss as dreadful and profoundLocked in each atom.Under the high stars,Man creeps, too infinitesimal to be scanned;And, over all the worlds that dwindle awayBeyond the uttermost microscopic sight,He towers—a god.Midway, between the heightThat crushes, and the depth that flatters him,He stands within the little ring of lightHe calls his knowledge. Its horizon-line,The frontier of the dark, was narrow, once;And he could bear it. But the light is growing;The ring is widening; and, with each increase,The frontiers of the night are widening, too.They grow and grow. The very blaze of truthThat drives them back, enlarges the grim coastsOf utter darkness.Man must bow his headBefore the Inscrutable.Then, from far within,The insistent whisper rose:Man is himselfThe key to all he seeks.He is not exiled from this majesty,But is himself a part of it. To knowHimself, and read this Book of Earth aright;Flooding it as his ancient poets, once,Illumed old legends with their inborn fire,Were to discover music that out-soarsHis plodding thought, and all his fables, too;A song of truth that deepens, not destroysThe ethereal realm of wonder; and still luresThe spirit of man on more adventurous questsInto the wildest mystery of all,The miracle of reality, which he shares.But O, what art could guide me through that maze?What kingly shade unlock the music sealedIn that dread volume?Sons of an earlier age,Poet and painter stretched no guiding hand.Even the gaunt spirit, whom the Mantuan ledThrough the dark chasms and fiery clefts of pain,Could set a bound to his own realms of night,Enwall then round, build his own stairs to heaven,And slept now, prisoned, in his own coiling towers....Leonardo—found a shell among the hills,A sea-shell, turned to stone, as at the gazeOf his own cold Medusa. His dark eyes,Hawk-swift to hunt the subtle lines of lawThrough all the forms of beauty, on that wild heightSaw how the waves of a forgotten worldHad washed and sculptured every soaring crag,Ere Italy was born. He stood alone,—His rose-red cloak out-rippling on the breeze,—A wondering sun-god. Through the mountain-peaks,The rumour of a phantom ocean rolled.It tossed a flying rainbow at his feetAnd vanished....Milton—walked in Paradise.He saw the golden compasses of GodTurning through darkness to create the world.He saw the creatures of a thousand æonsRise, in six days, out of the mire and clay,Pawing for freedom. With the great blind powerOf his own song, he riveted one more clasp,Though wrought of fabulous gold, on that dark Book,Not to be loosed for centuries.Nearer yet,Goethe, the torch of science in his own hand,Poet and seeker, pressed into the dark,Caught one mysterious gleam from flower and leaf,And one from man’s own frame, of that which bindsAll forms of life together. He turned asideAnd lost it, saying, “I wait for light, more light.”And these all towered among celestial glories,And wore their legends like prophetic robes;But who should teach me, in this deeper night,The tale of this despised and wandering house,Our lodge among the stars; the song of Earth;Her birth in a mist of fire,—a ball of flame,Slowly contracting, crusting, cracking and foldingInto deep valleys and mountains that still changedAnd slowly rose and sank like age-long wavesOn the dark ocean of ever-dissolving forms;Earth, a magical globe, an elfin sphere,Quietly turning through boundlessness,Budding with miracles, burgeoning into life;A murmuring forest of ferns, where the misty sunSaw wingèd monsters fighting to bring forth men;Earth, and her savage youth, her monstrous lusts,Mastered and curbed, till these, too, pulsed into music,And became for man the fountain of his own power;Earth, on her shining way,Coloured and warmed by the sun, and quietly spinningHer towns and seas to shadow and light in turn;Earth, by what brooding PowerEndowed at birth with those dread potenciesWhich out of her teeming womb at last brought forthCreatures that loved and sinned, laughed, wept and prayed,Died, and returned to the unknown Power that made them;Earth, and that tale of men, the kings of thought,Who strove to read her secret in the rocks,And turned, amid wild calumny and wrong,The lucid sword-like search-beams of the mindOn the dark passion that through uncounted æonsCrept, fought, and climbed to the celestial gates,Three gates in one, one heavenly gate in three,Whose golden names are Beauty, Goodness, Truth.Then, without sound, like an unspoken prayer,The voice I heard upon the mountain height,Out of a deeper gulf of midnight rose,Within me, or without, invoking OneTo whom this dust, not of itself, would pray:Muse of the World, O terrible, beautiful Spirit,Throned in pure light, since all the worlds obeyThy golden law which, even here on earth,Though followed blindly, leads to thy pure realm,Couldst thou deliver me from this night at last,Teach me the burning syllables of thy tongueThat I, even I, out of the mire and clay,With face uplifted, and with arms upstretchedTo the Eternal Sun of Truth, might raiseMy song of adoration, not in vain.Throned above Time, thou sawest when earth was bornIn darkness, though none else was there to see;For there was fury in the dark, and fire,And power, and that creative pulse of thine,The throb of music, the deep rhythmic throesOf That which made and binds all worlds in one....In the beginning, God made heaven and earth.One sentence burned upon the formless dark—One sentence, and no more, from that high realm.The long-sought consummation of all law,Through all this manifold universe, might shine clearIn those eight words one day; not yet; not yet!They would be larger, then;Not the glib prelude to a lifeless creed,But wide as the unbounded realms of thought,The last great simplification of them all,The single formula, like an infinite sphereEnfolding Space and Time, atoms and suns,With all the wild fantastic hosts of lifeAnd all their generations, through all worlds,In one pure phrase of music, like a starSeen in a distant sky.I could not reach it.All night I waited for the word in vain.

A lonely cabin, like an eagle’s nest,

Lodged us that night upon the monstrous brink,

And roofed us from the burning desert stars;

But, on my couch of hemlock as I lay,

The Book of Earth still opened in my dreams.

Below me, only guessed by the slow sound

Of forests, through unfathomable gulfs

Of midnight, vaster, more mysterious now,

Breathed that invisible Presence of deep awe.

Through the wide open window, once, a moth

Beat its dark wings, and flew—out—over that,

Brave little fluttering atheist, unaware

Of aught beyond the reach of his antennæ,

Thinking his light quick thoughts; while, under him,

God opened His immeasurable Abyss.

All night I heard the insistent whisper rise:

One page of Earth’s abysmal Book lies bare.

Read—in its awful hieroglyphs of stone—

His own deep scripture. Is its music sealed?

Or is the inscrutable secret growing clearer?

Then, like the night-wind, soughing through the pines,

Another voice replied, cold with despair:

It opens, and it opens. By what Power?

A silent river, hastening to the sea,

Age after age, through crumbling desert rocks

Clove the dread chasm. Wild snows that had their birth

In Ocean-mists, and folded their white wings

Among far mountains, fed that sharp-edged stream.

Ask Ocean whence it came. Ask Earth. Ask Heaven.

I see the manifold instruments as they move,

Remote or near, with intricate inter-play;

But that which moves them, and determines all

Remains in darkness. Man must bow his head

Before the Inscrutable.

Then, far off, I heard,

As from a deeper gulf, the antiphonal voice:

It opens, and it opens, and it opens,—

The abyss of Heaven, the rock-leaved Book of Earth,

And that Abyss as dreadful and profound

Locked in each atom.

Under the high stars,

Man creeps, too infinitesimal to be scanned;

And, over all the worlds that dwindle away

Beyond the uttermost microscopic sight,

He towers—a god.

Midway, between the height

That crushes, and the depth that flatters him,

He stands within the little ring of light

He calls his knowledge. Its horizon-line,

The frontier of the dark, was narrow, once;

And he could bear it. But the light is growing;

The ring is widening; and, with each increase,

The frontiers of the night are widening, too.

They grow and grow. The very blaze of truth

That drives them back, enlarges the grim coasts

Of utter darkness.

Man must bow his head

Before the Inscrutable.

Then, from far within,

The insistent whisper rose:

Man is himself

The key to all he seeks.

He is not exiled from this majesty,

But is himself a part of it. To know

Himself, and read this Book of Earth aright;

Flooding it as his ancient poets, once,

Illumed old legends with their inborn fire,

Were to discover music that out-soars

His plodding thought, and all his fables, too;

A song of truth that deepens, not destroys

The ethereal realm of wonder; and still lures

The spirit of man on more adventurous quests

Into the wildest mystery of all,

The miracle of reality, which he shares.

But O, what art could guide me through that maze?What kingly shade unlock the music sealedIn that dread volume?Sons of an earlier age,Poet and painter stretched no guiding hand.

But O, what art could guide me through that maze?

What kingly shade unlock the music sealed

In that dread volume?

Sons of an earlier age,

Poet and painter stretched no guiding hand.

Even the gaunt spirit, whom the Mantuan ledThrough the dark chasms and fiery clefts of pain,Could set a bound to his own realms of night,Enwall then round, build his own stairs to heaven,And slept now, prisoned, in his own coiling towers....

Even the gaunt spirit, whom the Mantuan led

Through the dark chasms and fiery clefts of pain,

Could set a bound to his own realms of night,

Enwall then round, build his own stairs to heaven,

And slept now, prisoned, in his own coiling towers....

Leonardo—found a shell among the hills,A sea-shell, turned to stone, as at the gazeOf his own cold Medusa. His dark eyes,Hawk-swift to hunt the subtle lines of lawThrough all the forms of beauty, on that wild heightSaw how the waves of a forgotten worldHad washed and sculptured every soaring crag,Ere Italy was born. He stood alone,—His rose-red cloak out-rippling on the breeze,—A wondering sun-god. Through the mountain-peaks,The rumour of a phantom ocean rolled.It tossed a flying rainbow at his feetAnd vanished....Milton—walked in Paradise.He saw the golden compasses of GodTurning through darkness to create the world.He saw the creatures of a thousand æonsRise, in six days, out of the mire and clay,Pawing for freedom. With the great blind powerOf his own song, he riveted one more clasp,Though wrought of fabulous gold, on that dark Book,Not to be loosed for centuries.Nearer yet,Goethe, the torch of science in his own hand,Poet and seeker, pressed into the dark,Caught one mysterious gleam from flower and leaf,And one from man’s own frame, of that which bindsAll forms of life together. He turned asideAnd lost it, saying, “I wait for light, more light.”

Leonardo—found a shell among the hills,

A sea-shell, turned to stone, as at the gaze

Of his own cold Medusa. His dark eyes,

Hawk-swift to hunt the subtle lines of law

Through all the forms of beauty, on that wild height

Saw how the waves of a forgotten world

Had washed and sculptured every soaring crag,

Ere Italy was born. He stood alone,—

His rose-red cloak out-rippling on the breeze,—

A wondering sun-god. Through the mountain-peaks,

The rumour of a phantom ocean rolled.

It tossed a flying rainbow at his feet

And vanished....

Milton—walked in Paradise.

He saw the golden compasses of God

Turning through darkness to create the world.

He saw the creatures of a thousand æons

Rise, in six days, out of the mire and clay,

Pawing for freedom. With the great blind power

Of his own song, he riveted one more clasp,

Though wrought of fabulous gold, on that dark Book,

Not to be loosed for centuries.

Nearer yet,

Goethe, the torch of science in his own hand,

Poet and seeker, pressed into the dark,

Caught one mysterious gleam from flower and leaf,

And one from man’s own frame, of that which binds

All forms of life together. He turned aside

And lost it, saying, “I wait for light, more light.”

And these all towered among celestial glories,And wore their legends like prophetic robes;But who should teach me, in this deeper night,The tale of this despised and wandering house,Our lodge among the stars; the song of Earth;Her birth in a mist of fire,—a ball of flame,Slowly contracting, crusting, cracking and foldingInto deep valleys and mountains that still changedAnd slowly rose and sank like age-long wavesOn the dark ocean of ever-dissolving forms;Earth, a magical globe, an elfin sphere,Quietly turning through boundlessness,Budding with miracles, burgeoning into life;A murmuring forest of ferns, where the misty sunSaw wingèd monsters fighting to bring forth men;Earth, and her savage youth, her monstrous lusts,Mastered and curbed, till these, too, pulsed into music,And became for man the fountain of his own power;Earth, on her shining way,Coloured and warmed by the sun, and quietly spinningHer towns and seas to shadow and light in turn;Earth, by what brooding PowerEndowed at birth with those dread potenciesWhich out of her teeming womb at last brought forthCreatures that loved and sinned, laughed, wept and prayed,Died, and returned to the unknown Power that made them;Earth, and that tale of men, the kings of thought,Who strove to read her secret in the rocks,And turned, amid wild calumny and wrong,The lucid sword-like search-beams of the mindOn the dark passion that through uncounted æonsCrept, fought, and climbed to the celestial gates,Three gates in one, one heavenly gate in three,Whose golden names are Beauty, Goodness, Truth.

And these all towered among celestial glories,

And wore their legends like prophetic robes;

But who should teach me, in this deeper night,

The tale of this despised and wandering house,

Our lodge among the stars; the song of Earth;

Her birth in a mist of fire,—a ball of flame,

Slowly contracting, crusting, cracking and folding

Into deep valleys and mountains that still changed

And slowly rose and sank like age-long waves

On the dark ocean of ever-dissolving forms;

Earth, a magical globe, an elfin sphere,

Quietly turning through boundlessness,

Budding with miracles, burgeoning into life;

A murmuring forest of ferns, where the misty sun

Saw wingèd monsters fighting to bring forth men;

Earth, and her savage youth, her monstrous lusts,

Mastered and curbed, till these, too, pulsed into music,

And became for man the fountain of his own power;

Earth, on her shining way,

Coloured and warmed by the sun, and quietly spinning

Her towns and seas to shadow and light in turn;

Earth, by what brooding Power

Endowed at birth with those dread potencies

Which out of her teeming womb at last brought forth

Creatures that loved and sinned, laughed, wept and prayed,

Died, and returned to the unknown Power that made them;

Earth, and that tale of men, the kings of thought,

Who strove to read her secret in the rocks,

And turned, amid wild calumny and wrong,

The lucid sword-like search-beams of the mind

On the dark passion that through uncounted æons

Crept, fought, and climbed to the celestial gates,

Three gates in one, one heavenly gate in three,

Whose golden names are Beauty, Goodness, Truth.

Then, without sound, like an unspoken prayer,The voice I heard upon the mountain height,Out of a deeper gulf of midnight rose,Within me, or without, invoking OneTo whom this dust, not of itself, would pray:

Then, without sound, like an unspoken prayer,

The voice I heard upon the mountain height,

Out of a deeper gulf of midnight rose,

Within me, or without, invoking One

To whom this dust, not of itself, would pray:

Muse of the World, O terrible, beautiful Spirit,Throned in pure light, since all the worlds obeyThy golden law which, even here on earth,Though followed blindly, leads to thy pure realm,Couldst thou deliver me from this night at last,Teach me the burning syllables of thy tongueThat I, even I, out of the mire and clay,With face uplifted, and with arms upstretchedTo the Eternal Sun of Truth, might raiseMy song of adoration, not in vain.Throned above Time, thou sawest when earth was bornIn darkness, though none else was there to see;For there was fury in the dark, and fire,And power, and that creative pulse of thine,The throb of music, the deep rhythmic throesOf That which made and binds all worlds in one.

Muse of the World, O terrible, beautiful Spirit,

Throned in pure light, since all the worlds obey

Thy golden law which, even here on earth,

Though followed blindly, leads to thy pure realm,

Couldst thou deliver me from this night at last,

Teach me the burning syllables of thy tongue

That I, even I, out of the mire and clay,

With face uplifted, and with arms upstretched

To the Eternal Sun of Truth, might raise

My song of adoration, not in vain.

Throned above Time, thou sawest when earth was born

In darkness, though none else was there to see;

For there was fury in the dark, and fire,

And power, and that creative pulse of thine,

The throb of music, the deep rhythmic throes

Of That which made and binds all worlds in one.

...

In the beginning, God made heaven and earth.One sentence burned upon the formless dark—One sentence, and no more, from that high realm.

In the beginning, God made heaven and earth.

One sentence burned upon the formless dark—

One sentence, and no more, from that high realm.

The long-sought consummation of all law,Through all this manifold universe, might shine clearIn those eight words one day; not yet; not yet!They would be larger, then;Not the glib prelude to a lifeless creed,But wide as the unbounded realms of thought,The last great simplification of them all,The single formula, like an infinite sphereEnfolding Space and Time, atoms and suns,With all the wild fantastic hosts of lifeAnd all their generations, through all worlds,In one pure phrase of music, like a starSeen in a distant sky.I could not reach it.All night I waited for the word in vain.

The long-sought consummation of all law,

Through all this manifold universe, might shine clear

In those eight words one day; not yet; not yet!

They would be larger, then;

Not the glib prelude to a lifeless creed,

But wide as the unbounded realms of thought,

The last great simplification of them all,

The single formula, like an infinite sphere

Enfolding Space and Time, atoms and suns,

With all the wild fantastic hosts of life

And all their generations, through all worlds,

In one pure phrase of music, like a star

Seen in a distant sky.

I could not reach it.

All night I waited for the word in vain.

Night greyed, and up the immeasurable abyss,Brimmed with a blacker night than ocean knew,The dawn-wind, like a host of spirits, flowed,Chanting those airy melodies which, long since,The same wild breath, obeying the same law,Taught the first pine-woods in the primal world.We are the voices.Could man onlySpell our tongue,He might learnThe inscrutable secretAnd grow young.Young as we areWho, on shoresUnknown to man,Long, long since,In waves and woodsOur song began.Ere his footstepsPrinted earth,Wild ferns and grassBreathed it. No manHeard that whisperingSpirit pass.Not one mortalLay and listened.There was noneEven to hearThe sea-wave crumblingIn the sun.None to hearOur choral pine-woodsChanting deep,Even as nowOur solemn cadenceHaunts your sleep.Ear was noneTo heed or hearWhen earth was young.Even nowMan understands notOur strange tongue.There came a clearer rustle of nearer boughs.A bird cried, once, a sharp ecstatic cryAs if it saw an angel.He stood thereAgainst the window’s dusky square of sky,Carrying the long curled crosier of a fern,My singer of the woods, my Shadow-of-a-Leaf,The invisible friend with whom I used to talkIn childhood, and that none but I could see,—Shadow-of-a-Leaf, shy whisperer of the songsThat none could capture, and so few could hear;A creature of the misty hills of home,Quick as the thought that hides in the deep heartWhen the loud world goes by; vivid to meAs flesh and blood, yet with an elfin strainThat set him free of earth, free to run wildThrough all the ethereal kingdoms of the mind,His dark eyes fey with wonder at the world,And that profoundest mystery of all,The miracle of reality; clear, strange eyes,Deep-sighted, joyous, touched with hidden tears.Often he left me when I was not worthy;And many a time I locked my heart against him,Only to find him creeping in againLike memory, or a wild vine through a windowWhen I most needed that still voice of hisWhich never yet spoke louder than the breathOf conscience in my soul. He would returnQuietly as the rustling of a boughAfter the bird has flown; and, through a riftOf evening sky, the shining eyes of a child,The cold clear ripple of thrushes after rain,The sound of a mountain-brook, or a breaking waveWould teach my slumbering soul the ways of love.He looked at me, more gently than of late,And spoke (O, if this world had ears to hearThe sound of falling dew, the power that wroteThe Paradiso might recall that voice!)It is near daybreak. I am faithful still;And I am here to answer all your need.The hills are old, but not so old as I;The blackbird’s eyes are young, but not so youngAs mine that know the wonder of their sight.Eagles have wings. Mine are too swift to see;For while I stand and whisper at your side,Time dwindles to a shadow....Like a mistThe world dissolved around us as he spoke.I saw him standing dark against the sky.I heard him, murmuring like a spirit in trance,—Dawn on Crotona, dawn without a cloud....Then, slowly emerging from that mist of dreams,As at an incantation, a lost worldArose, and shone before me in the dawn.

Night greyed, and up the immeasurable abyss,

Brimmed with a blacker night than ocean knew,

The dawn-wind, like a host of spirits, flowed,

Chanting those airy melodies which, long since,

The same wild breath, obeying the same law,

Taught the first pine-woods in the primal world.

We are the voices.Could man onlySpell our tongue,He might learnThe inscrutable secretAnd grow young.

We are the voices.

Could man only

Spell our tongue,

He might learn

The inscrutable secret

And grow young.

Young as we areWho, on shoresUnknown to man,Long, long since,In waves and woodsOur song began.

Young as we are

Who, on shores

Unknown to man,

Long, long since,

In waves and woods

Our song began.

Ere his footstepsPrinted earth,Wild ferns and grassBreathed it. No manHeard that whisperingSpirit pass.

Ere his footsteps

Printed earth,

Wild ferns and grass

Breathed it. No man

Heard that whispering

Spirit pass.

Not one mortalLay and listened.There was noneEven to hearThe sea-wave crumblingIn the sun.

Not one mortal

Lay and listened.

There was none

Even to hear

The sea-wave crumbling

In the sun.

None to hearOur choral pine-woodsChanting deep,Even as nowOur solemn cadenceHaunts your sleep.

None to hear

Our choral pine-woods

Chanting deep,

Even as now

Our solemn cadence

Haunts your sleep.

Ear was noneTo heed or hearWhen earth was young.Even nowMan understands notOur strange tongue.

Ear was none

To heed or hear

When earth was young.

Even now

Man understands not

Our strange tongue.

There came a clearer rustle of nearer boughs.A bird cried, once, a sharp ecstatic cryAs if it saw an angel.He stood thereAgainst the window’s dusky square of sky,Carrying the long curled crosier of a fern,My singer of the woods, my Shadow-of-a-Leaf,The invisible friend with whom I used to talkIn childhood, and that none but I could see,—Shadow-of-a-Leaf, shy whisperer of the songsThat none could capture, and so few could hear;A creature of the misty hills of home,Quick as the thought that hides in the deep heartWhen the loud world goes by; vivid to meAs flesh and blood, yet with an elfin strainThat set him free of earth, free to run wildThrough all the ethereal kingdoms of the mind,His dark eyes fey with wonder at the world,And that profoundest mystery of all,The miracle of reality; clear, strange eyes,Deep-sighted, joyous, touched with hidden tears.Often he left me when I was not worthy;And many a time I locked my heart against him,Only to find him creeping in againLike memory, or a wild vine through a windowWhen I most needed that still voice of hisWhich never yet spoke louder than the breathOf conscience in my soul. He would returnQuietly as the rustling of a boughAfter the bird has flown; and, through a riftOf evening sky, the shining eyes of a child,The cold clear ripple of thrushes after rain,The sound of a mountain-brook, or a breaking waveWould teach my slumbering soul the ways of love.He looked at me, more gently than of late,And spoke (O, if this world had ears to hearThe sound of falling dew, the power that wroteThe Paradiso might recall that voice!)It is near daybreak. I am faithful still;And I am here to answer all your need.The hills are old, but not so old as I;The blackbird’s eyes are young, but not so youngAs mine that know the wonder of their sight.Eagles have wings. Mine are too swift to see;For while I stand and whisper at your side,Time dwindles to a shadow....Like a mistThe world dissolved around us as he spoke.I saw him standing dark against the sky.I heard him, murmuring like a spirit in trance,—Dawn on Crotona, dawn without a cloud....

There came a clearer rustle of nearer boughs.

A bird cried, once, a sharp ecstatic cry

As if it saw an angel.

He stood there

Against the window’s dusky square of sky,

Carrying the long curled crosier of a fern,

My singer of the woods, my Shadow-of-a-Leaf,

The invisible friend with whom I used to talk

In childhood, and that none but I could see,—

Shadow-of-a-Leaf, shy whisperer of the songs

That none could capture, and so few could hear;

A creature of the misty hills of home,

Quick as the thought that hides in the deep heart

When the loud world goes by; vivid to me

As flesh and blood, yet with an elfin strain

That set him free of earth, free to run wild

Through all the ethereal kingdoms of the mind,

His dark eyes fey with wonder at the world,

And that profoundest mystery of all,

The miracle of reality; clear, strange eyes,

Deep-sighted, joyous, touched with hidden tears.

Often he left me when I was not worthy;

And many a time I locked my heart against him,

Only to find him creeping in again

Like memory, or a wild vine through a window

When I most needed that still voice of his

Which never yet spoke louder than the breath

Of conscience in my soul. He would return

Quietly as the rustling of a bough

After the bird has flown; and, through a rift

Of evening sky, the shining eyes of a child,

The cold clear ripple of thrushes after rain,

The sound of a mountain-brook, or a breaking wave

Would teach my slumbering soul the ways of love.

He looked at me, more gently than of late,

And spoke (O, if this world had ears to hear

The sound of falling dew, the power that wrote

The Paradiso might recall that voice!)

It is near daybreak. I am faithful still;

And I am here to answer all your need.

The hills are old, but not so old as I;

The blackbird’s eyes are young, but not so young

As mine that know the wonder of their sight.

Eagles have wings. Mine are too swift to see;

For while I stand and whisper at your side,

Time dwindles to a shadow....

Like a mist

The world dissolved around us as he spoke.

I saw him standing dark against the sky.

I heard him, murmuring like a spirit in trance,—

Dawn on Crotona, dawn without a cloud....

Then, slowly emerging from that mist of dreams,As at an incantation, a lost worldArose, and shone before me in the dawn.

Then, slowly emerging from that mist of dreams,

As at an incantation, a lost world

Arose, and shone before me in the dawn.

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