Of many changes, aptly join'd, A wind to puff your idol-fires, And heap their ashes on the head; To shame the boast so often made, That we are wiser than our sires. O, yet, if Nature's evil star Drive men in manhood, as in youth, To follow flying steps of Truth Across the brazen bridge of war— If New and Old, disastrous feud, Not yet the wise of heart would cease To hold his hope thro' shame and guilt, But with his hand against the hilt, Would pace the troubled land, like Peace; Not less, tho' dogs of Faction bay, Would serve his kind in deed and word, Certain, if knowledge bring the sword, That knowledge takes the sword away— Would love the gleams of love that broke To-morrow yet would reap to-day, As we bear blossom of the dead; Earn well the thrifty months, nor wed Raw Haste, half-sister to Delay. 641 SIR GALAHAD My good blade carves the casques of men, The shattering trumpet shrilleth high, They reel, they roll in clanging lists, And when the tide of combat stands, That lightly rain from ladies' hands. How sweet are looks that ladies bend For them I battle till the end, To save from shame and thrall; My knees are bow'd in crypt and shrine; Nor maiden's hand in mine. More bounteous aspects on me beam. When down the stormy crescent goes, Then by some secret shrine I ride; Fair gleams the snowy altar-cloth, Sometimes on lonely mountain-meres I leap on board; no helmsman steers; A gentle sound, an awful light! Three angels bear the Holy Grail; My spirit beats her mortal bars, When on my goodly charger borne The cock crows ere the Christmas morn, The tempest crackles on the leads, And, ringing, springs from brand and mail; I leave the plain, I climb the height; A maiden knight—to me is given I muse on joy that will not cease, Pure spaces clothed in living beams, Pure lilies of eternal peace, Whose odors haunt my dreams; And, stricken by an angel's hand, This weight and size, this heart and eyes, The clouds are broken in the sky, Swells up and shakes and falls. By bridge and ford, by park and pale, Until I find the Holy Grail. 642 THE HIGHER PANTHEISM The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and the plains,— Are not these, O Soul, the Vision of Him, who reigns? Is not the Vision He, tho' He be not that which He seems? Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams? Earth, these solid stars, this weight of body and limb, Glory about thee, without thee; and thou fulfillest thy doom, Making Him broken gleams and a stifled splendor and gloom. Speak to Him, thou, for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet— Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet. God is law, say the wise; O Soul, and let us rejoice, For if He thunder by law the thunder is yet His voice. Law is God, say some; no God at all, says the fool, For all we have power to see is a straight staff bent in a pool; And the ear of man cannot hear, and the eye of man cannot see; But if we could see and hear, this Vision 643 644 -were it not He? FLOWER IN THE CRANNIED WALL Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies, hold you here, root and all, in my hand, WAGES Glory of warrior, glory of orator, glory of song, Paid with a voice flying by to be lost on an endless seaGlory of Virtue, to fight, to struggle, to right the wrong— Nay, but she aim'd not at glory, no lover of glory she; Give her the glory of going on, and still to be. The wages of sin is death: if the wages of Virtue be dust, Would she have heart to endure for the life of the worm and the fly? She desires no isles of the blest, no quiet seats of the just, To rest in a golden grove, or to bask in a summer sky; Give her the wages of going on, and not to die. 645 THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. |