Poems — The Great Minimum

But on this, God's harp supernal, stretched but to be stricken once.

Hoary Time is a beginner, Life a bungler, Death a dunce.

But I will not fear to match them--no, by God, I will not fear, I will learn you, I will play you and the stars stand still to hear.

THE GREAT MINIMUM

It is something to have wept as we have wept, It is something to have done as we have done, It is something to have watched when all men slept, And seen the stars which never see the sun.

It is something to have smelt the mystic rose, Although it break and leave the thorny rods, It is something to have hungered once as those Must hunger who have ate the bread of gods.

To have seen you and your unforgotten face, Brave as a blast of trumpets for the fray.

Pure as white lilies in a watery space, It were something, though you went from me to-day.

To have known the things that from the weak are furled, Perilous ancient passions, strange and high;

It is something to be wiser than the world, It is something to be older than the sky.

In a time of sceptic moths and cynic rusts, And fatted lives that of their sweetness tire, In a world of flying loves and fading lusts, It is something to be sure of a desire.