Collected Works (Vol. I)

ASTRAY IN HER PATHS 119g Battle and strive and climb in the teeth of the glad wild weather, Flash on the slopes of ice, dance on the spires of rock, Run like a glad young panther over the stony high-lands, Shout with the joy of living, race to the rugged cairn, Feel the breath of your freedom burn in my veins, and I'reedom ! Freedom! echoes adown cliff and_pre- cipitous ghyll. Down by the cold gray lake the sun descends from his hunting, Shadow and silence steals over the frozen fells. Qh, to be there, my heart ! bells awaken ; Colleges call their children; Lakeland fades from the sight. Only the sad slow Cam like a sire with age grown heavy Wearily moves to the sea, to quicken to life at last. And tne vesper Blithelier I depart, to a sea of sunnier kind- Ness $ Hours of waiting are past ; I re-quicken to love. ASTRAY IN HER PATHS.! COPENHAGEN, January, '97. I FEEL thee shudder, clinging to my arm, Before the battlements of the salt sea, Black billows tipped with phosphorescent light, Towering from where we stand to yonder shore That is no earthly shore, but guards the coast Of that which is from that which is to be ; Wherefore it kindles no evasive fire Nor blazes through the night, but lies for- gotten Gray in the twilight ; never a star is out 1 This satirical title is from Proverbs vii. 25. A poet's nature is to refine to purest gold even the sordidest of dross. To light the broad horizon ; only here Behind us cluster lamps, and busy sounds Of men proclaim a city; but to us They are not here; for we, bccause we love, Are not of earth, but, as the immortals, stand With eyes immutable; our souls are fed On a strange new nepenthe from the cup Of the vast firmament. Nor do we dream, Nor think we aught of the transient world, But are absorbed in our own deity : And our clear eyes reflect—(who dares to gaze Shall see and die !)—the changeless empyréan Eternity, the concentrated void Of space, for being the centre of all things, Time is to us the Now, and Space the Here ; From us all Matter radiates, is a part Of our own thoughts and souls ; because we love. Thou shudderest, clinging to me; though the night Jewels her empire with the frosty crown Of thousand-twinkling stars, whose hoary crests Burn where light touches them, with diamond points Of infinite far fire, save where the sea Is ebony with sleep, and though the wind Pierces the marrow, since it is the word Of the Almighty, and cuts through the air That may not stay its fury, with a cold Nipping and chill, it is not in the wind ; Nor though the thunder broke, or flashed the fire From all the circle of eternity, Were that the reason ; for thou shudderest To hear the Voice of Love; it is no voice That men may hear, but an intensest rich Silence, that silence when man waits to hear Some faint vibration in the smitten air, And, if he hear not, die; but we who love Are beyond death, and therefore may commune In that still tongue ; it is the only speech And song of stars and sun; nor is it marred By one dissentient tremor of the air That girds the earth, but in lone ether spreads