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Read Ebook: The Deluge and Other Poems by Presland John
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Ebook has 337 lines and 16579 words, and 7 pages
Yet ever Fate compels This infinite desire To match with cramped and finite brain; And all of heaven earth may gain Is smoke, where should be fire.
SCENE II
THE SEEKER
The air is heavy, all the winds are still So that my own breath hangs about my head Like incense o'er an altar. Now the earth Lies in a swoon, and all the flowers droop Weighting their stems, ranged in their brazen pots Without the house: the very petals lie Like languid limbs relaxed; this crimson rose Looks as if blood-steeped, almost to my sense Smells of the same, the lilies are like death. There is a taint of sickness in the air Through all the noonday light--like fever chill In fever burning,--and the sky is brass; The very tinkle of the fountain spray Is dead and tuneless, even the fresh springs Have lost their freshness, run from off my hands In drops of lead, and all my spirit seems Weighed and confined with fetters of decay. Because I have loved beauty more than most And striven to pluck out the heart of it; Because I have such sense of lovely things That I can pour my soul in thankfulness Before a leaf God makes to grow aright, A unit of perfection; 'tis ordained Because I love most still I most must lack Love's satisfaction, quietude of soul-- Still must I find such void disparity Between the false and true, and yet they grow Together, intermingled; true is false Itself, by sometime seeming, who shall find The point where false and true are reconciled?
The very flower that we stoop to smell Grows from a dunghill, look but in its roots, And what obscene and hideous blind life Goes teeming; sickened then we shrink aback From rose's velvet petals. So the soul Holds best and meanest in a common cup. Yet must there be a law in things that are Seemingly lawless, purify the sight And truth must surely then be visible, Disparity made clear; the eye of God Sees good in everything, thereto I strive, To see with God's own vision, be more clear In speech, than God, to asking human hearts. Then is the tangle straightened, and the world Lies in perspective, as before me lie, Traced through the shimmering heat, the palaces, Towers and temples, gardens and granaries, Of this fair City, melting far away Into the sunlight-flooded hills at last.
THE CHORUS
Sleep, and forget, forget the aching toil, The disappointments, and the long delays, The watches of the night-time and the morn, The lonely hours, unrewarded days; Sleep, and forget.
In death we all are equal, great and small Brought to the common level of the dust; There is no glory that survives the years, Nay, nay, alike we shall be as we must; Sleep and forget.
In sleep we are omnipotent as gods, Beyond our furthest wish we can attain, Unfettered by the chain of circumstance; Sleep then; or waking, turn and pray again A little more to sleep and to forget.
THE MOTHER
Ah me, your fears have settled on my heart; I fear the very day, there is a strange Portentous look o'er all the earth, my hand Stretched in the sunlight seems to throw no shade As if the natural laws had all stood still-- I breathe as in a nightmare, breath oppressed; I start at every sound, but fear no sound So much as stillness, which descends on us Like a great mantle choking out our hearts.
THE WIFE
Give me your hand, what is it makes you fear And shiver like plane trees before the rain?
THE MOTHER
As I lay in the shadow of the court During the noonday fierceness, watched the rays Chequered between the lattice window work, And listened to the fountain in the grove Of orange trees go singing to itself-- Behold, all suddenly before me stood My lover-god, the angel ever dear, And radiant as that first night years ago, There stood he; where the marble touched his feet It glowed translucent like a sunlit gem, The perfume of his hair had made me swoon Had not his eyes compelled me. Grave he looked, Where gravity in such a beauteous thing Could find occasion, and his voice was low And troubled, warning me. "Let not your son Tempt God too far, He will not brook affront Though son of mine should dare it; be assured The secret of this riddle universe Shall ne'er be known on earth, man was not made For too much knowledge, mankind ceases then When man too much aspires. Speak to him Lest he should bring destruction on your head And on the world." Thus spoke he, nothing more, And ere my eyes could hold him he was gone.
THE WIFE
Ah, let us go in to my husband then And warn him quickly.
THE MOTHER
I have warned, alas! And he has heard with the unheeding smile One gives to children's prattle. "Now at last The hours bear fruit, and shall I hold my hand," He answered, "for your vision? I have waited, Now is the time when hope is justified; Truth dawns, not even God Himself can stand Between the light and me and shadow it."
THE WIFE
Ah God! ah God! to whom shall be appeal?
THE MOTHER
Look where he comes.
THE WIFE
With what an air fulfilled.
THE SEEKER
Now do I stand upon the very brink Of my desire; as a soul released And purified by passing through the rays Of white Eternity, I view the world. Now am I all at peace; the heart that yearns In bitter loneliness through midnight hours Yet cannot voice its longing, brain that weaves Its subtle web around the central thought Yet never can absorb it; and this form, The visible pride of body, all complete Are one in union; the body knows Its uses and its worths and has no fear, The heart no more is empty, I have found Eternal love to fill it, and no more Gropes the blind brain for the Great Definite. Away from me, my people, lest the sight Of loving faces blunt the senses keen, Hovering on the pain of a new birth.
THE MOTHER
My son, my son, it is not well to tempt The thunders of Jehovah; He who placed Man on this earth, and gave him such a form And such a nature never did intend The form or nature to be changed.
THE SEEKER
Enough, Is it not parcel of the nobleness Of His conception thus to place us here Low in the scale; that we, by effort's worth, May reach to Him and equal Him at last?
THE MOTHER
Oh man was born for failure, not success, To strive and strive, and evermore to fail, And failing still strive ever; therein lies The nobleness that equals him to God Though linked to insufficient means for God. Why will you hope to change appointed fate? While still in man the sad twi-nature dwells, Godhead and manhood, still as dark and light The eternal war goes on. It is our lot, Accept it, spare us last catastrophe.
THE WIFE
Alas! alas! you see he marks you not, His eyes are fixed on distance, and his lips Move to the cadence of a song or prayer, I know not which; and ever and anon, His forehead, vivid with the teeming brain, Rests in his hollow hand. He marks you not; No more than raindrops plashing on a roof, Whereto perhaps one listens for a space And says "It raineth"--then again to sleep.
THE MOTHER
Speak you to him, if he may hear his wife!
THE WIFE
Ah me, my lord, what is it I can say That will excuse the saying? Words are few When hearts are fullest. On my wedding night-- Do you remember?--you did take my hand, lay your lips on it, and all the love Your heart would fain express and tongue could not I read in eyes and kisses, being well skilled In love's translation.
THE SEEKER
Who is this that speaks? Your words come through my musing, like the call Of quails across the desert, troubling me With a strange stirring of the peaceful heart.
THE WIFE
It was my soul and not my words that called.
THE SEEKER
My hand is wet with tears.
THE WIFE
They are my prayers.
THE SEEKER
Why do you weep when all the world should be Poised on the outspread wings of happiness? Ah! just a little moment loose your hold, While strips my soul for last and fiercest struggle That gives us victory.
THE WIFE
Nay cease, ah cease. Why must you venture to the wrath of God For a mere idle fancy? Is not love, My love, and youth and joy enough for you? Roses are beautiful to bind one's brow, Why must one grasp at stars? Ah, if my tears, Barren as dew that falls upon the sand, Cannot incline you to forgetfulness Of all save love, you are inexorable, You love me not.
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