Renascence: A Book of Verse — The Sirens Three XLI - LX

XLI

“Pillared and roofed it is with nights and days, And windows gemmed in gold, or azure space, Its table spread, with earth’s, for fast or feast, Between Birth’s gate and Death’s where all find place.

XLII

“Close curtained both with mystery and pain, O’erwrought with costly tears, and heart-hued stain, And Love the windows dim hath painted o’er With dreams of dear delight, that wax and wane XLIII

“From morn to eve, as through the glowing glass His vital sun transfigures, as they pass, Those visionary joys, and hopes, and fears That mask Life’s face—a dream itself, alas!

” XLIV

But ere they ceased a fairer one forth came, With cup of welcome and with torch aflame, In floating raiment soft, and radiant hair, And thus she sang, each captive sense to claim:— XLV

“Dream on, O soul, or sleep and take thy rest, The feast is spread however late the guest;

Let passion drug the cup with secret fire, Till torturing thought be slain on pleasure’s breast.

XLVI

“Where all are masked thy mask shall be thy face, Call for the best life gives, and take thy place At Time’s long hostel board; cast off thy care, And rest you merry in dame Fortune’s grace.

XLVII

“Vex not thy soul until the reckoning day, Though life be but the least thou hast to pay;

Stand not too late on pleasure’s foaming brink, Nor yet, with sightless eld, outsit the play.

XLVIII

“Time is thine host, and, ere the day grows old, To thee his story strange he shall unfold, Writ in a half-obliterated scroll, But pictured fair, and graven deep—behold!

” * * * * * XLIX

As though a new Pandora raised the lid, And let life’s mystery escape unbid, Broke sudden on my sight a wonder show, As through the portal dark I gazed, close hid: L

E’en like as one who sits expectant, dumb, At gaze before some world’s proscenium, When rolls the curtain from the painted stage, To see life’s play,—Past, Present, and To Come;

LI

The drama of the earth before me rolled, The war of good and evil, new and old, The fight for very life, for space, for air, The sum and cost of Being, still untold.

LII

Since when Time’s brooding bird did patient sit Upon her spherèd egg—the world, to wit, Potent with life, in ocean, earth, and air, Ere ever faun or flower did people it: LIII

Since when from countless germs life’s tree did grow From writhing worms about its roots below, From dragon-shapes that clasp its fossil stem, To bear love’s fruit, and human flowers arow.

LIV

Where Thought’s winged kind among its branches dwell, Still fertilized by Beauty’s potent spell;

Cast and re-cast in Nature’s supple mould, Through death and change, and birth’s transforming cell.

LV

’Twas pictured here—with boughs outspread thro’ space, Blossomed with stars upon the sky’s swart face, With globing worlds for fruit, that cool or glow As night and day, like leaves their shadows chase.

LVI

Out of the dream of ages, sleeping fast, Out of the dim and unrecorded past, Out of the caverns of uncounted time, In life’s dark house Man saw the sun at last.

LVII

Inhuman Man, late come unto the birth, Wrapped in the swathing bands of mother Earth, Long his descent, his pedigree obscure, To his inheritance of strife and dearth.

LVIII

As from the ground the earth worm crawls to light, Speechless and blind, from antenatal night Man rose on earth, the bitter strife began— Man rose on earth, and craft did conquer might: LIX

Since cruel Nature, careless of her child, Left him an outcast on the worldly wild, Cradled in space, and serpent-swathed in time, And rocked to sleep by death, or dream-beguiled.

LX

I saw him in his cradle at the first, With beasts and savage passions, rudely nursed, To snatch uncertain life from Nature’s hand, Niggard or prodigal, through best and worst;