5

Where wilt thou lead me? Speak …

We who have followed the clouds by day and by darkness
The march of the wandering fires, we who have watched
Bird signs in the sky, we who have questioned
The doubtful flares, who have seen the gestures before us
Of rain in the faint hills, who have heard the stammering
Voices of thunder cry out to us, we who have come now
A long road in the earth and the touching upon us
Of leaves like fingers on closed eyes and the taste of the
Air strange in our nostrils,
Where wilt thou lead us?
Where, at what extreme confine, wilt thou turn,

Mark me!
I will.
and speak! … and at these ears, Oh
At these mortal ear-pits speak to us?

Where wilt thou lead us? When wilt thou turn to us?
Not now? Not at this farthest verge? Not even
Here where the walls end and the ruinous tower
Leans with its uninhabitable black
Long builded stones above the ultimate sea?
We are alone now. There are none to hear.
I say we are alone upon this place.
Not even those are with us that in times
Past from the leaves of future-telling oaks,
From lowing heifers with all flowery horns,
From dolphin-ridden surf, from the deep pool
Spoke and would comfort us, the shining heel,
The seal-like swimming in the lovely air …
Where is thy tongue, great spectre? Hast thou not
Answered to others that with hearts like ours
Followed thee, poets, speakers in the earth?
Didst thou not show them? For they were as sure,
Returning, as those men whom the great sea
Chooses for danger that do no more fear
But inward certain leave the ill within
And laugh for trivial bawdy cause and watch the
New good living mellow earth and love it.
Didst thou not tell them? … and to us alone
Art always secret, always the void sign,
Always the still averted face whose unseen
Shape makes sick men of us, haunted fools,
Hag-ridden, blinking starers at the dark:
Always this blank of silence like a dial
That counts but will not keep our journey hours?
Didst thou not tell these others? And why art thou
Dumb but to us—or only mole-numb speech
That though we move from it, still under, still uneased,
Repeats the indecipherable will
And swears us to it?—though we know not what.

Where wilt thou lead us? Speak …
and suddenly the grey
Light and the wind in the branches
and the dawn
and all
Vanished, all at the scent of morning gone,
And leaves now, and the green again, and where
Our strained eyes started at the shape of fear
Only the foolish stones
and yet
to hear
The voice still under in the changing air
Cry “Swear!”—

to see the measuring shadow on the wall
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