CARRY me out Into the wind and the sunshine, Into the beautiful world.
O, the wonder, the spell of the streets! The stature and strength of the horses, The rustle and echo of footfalls, The flat roar and rattle of wheels! A swift tram floats huge on us . . . It’s a dream? The smell of the mud in my nostrils Blows brave—like a breath of the sea!
As of old, Ambulant, undulant drapery, Vaguery and strangely provocative, Fluttersd and beckons. O, yonder— Is it?—the gleam of a stocking! Sudden, a spire Wedged in the mist! O, the houses, The long lines of lofty, grey houses, Cross-hatched with shadow and light! These are the streets . . . Each is an avenue leading Whither I will!
Free . . . ! Dizzy, hysterical, faint, I sit, and the carriage rolls on with me Into the wonderful world.
DO you remember That afternoon—that Sunday afternoon!— When, as the kirks were ringing in, And the grey city teemed With Sabbath feelings and aspects, LEWIS—our LEWIS then, Now the whole world’s—and you, Young, yet in shape most like an elder, came, Laden with BALZACS (Big, yellow books, quite impudently French), The first of many times To that transformed back-kitchen where I lay So long, so many centuries— Or years is it!—ago?
Dear CHARLES, since then We have been friends, LEWIS and you and I, (How good it sounds, ‘LEWIS and you and I!’): Such friends, I like to think, That in us three, LEWIS and me and you, Is something of that gallant dream Which old DUMAS—the generous, the humane, The seven-and-seventy times to be forgiven!— Dreamed for a blessing to the race, The immortal _Musketeers_.
Our ATHOS rests—the wise, the kind, The liberal and august, his fault atoned, Rests in the crowded yard There at the west of Princes Street. We three— You, I, and LEWIS!—still afoot, Are still together, and our lives, In chime so long, may keep (God bless the thought!) Unjangled till the end.
_The Sword_ _Singing_— _The voice of the Sword from the heart of the Sword_ _Clanging imperious_ _Forth from Time’s battlements_ _His ancient and triumphing Song_.
In the beginning, Ere God inspired Himself Into the clay thing Thumbed to His image, The vacant, the naked shell Soon to be Man: Thoughtful He pondered it, Prone there and impotent, Fragile, inviting Attack and discomfiture; Then, with a smile— As He heard in the Thunder That laughed over Eden The voice of the Trumpet, The iron Beneficence, Calling his dooms To the Winds of the world— Stooping, He drew On the sand with His finger A shape for a sign Of his way to the eyes That in wonder should waken, For a proof of His will To the breaking intelligence. That was the birth of me: I am the Sword.