"Aye, they! and these;" pointing to many wraiths That stood around--Baal, Ormuzd, Indra, all Whom frightened ignorance and sin's appall Had given birth, close-huddled in despair.
Their eyes were fixed upon a cloven slope Down whose descent still other forms a-fresh From earth were drawn, by the unceasing mesh Of Time to their irrevocable end.
"They are the gods," one said--"the gods whom men Still taunt with wails for help."--Then a deep light Upbore me from the Gulf, and thro' its might I heard the worlds cry, "God alone is God!"
The weedy fallows winter-worn, Where cattle shiver under sodden hay. The plough-lands long and lorn-- The fading day.
The sullen shudder of the brook, And winds that wring the writhen trees in vain For drearier sound or look-- The lonely rain.
The crows that train o'er desert skies In endless caravans that have no goal But flight--where darkness flies-- From Pole to Pole.
The sombre zone of hills around That shrink in misty mournfulness from sight, With sunset aureoles crowned-- Before the night.
A laughter of wind and a leaping of cloud, And April, oh, out under the blue! The brook is awake and the blackbird loud In the dew!
But how does the robin high in the beech, Beside the wood with its shake and toss, Know it--the frenzy of bluets to reach Thro' the moss!
And where did the lark ever learn his speech? Up wildly sweet he's over the mead! Is more than the rapture of earth can teach In its creed?
I never shall know--I never shall care! 'Tis, oh, enough to live and to love! To laugh and warble and dream and dare Are to prove!
The wind slipt over the hill And down the valley. He dimpled the cheek of the rill With a cooling kiss. Then hid on the bank a-glee And began to rally The rushes--Oh, I love the wind for this!
A cloud blew out of the west And spilt his shower Upon the lily-bud crest And the clematis. Then over the virgin corn Besprinkled a dower Of dew-gems--And, I love the cloud for this!
I know her not by fallen leaves Or resting heaps of hay; Or by the sheathing mists of mauve That soothe the fiery day.
I know her not by plumping nuts, By redded hips and haws, Or by the silence hanging sad Under the wind's sere pause.
But by her sighs I know her well-- They are like Sorrow's breath; And by this longing, strangely still, For something after death.