Classic Poem

THE Stranger .

It cannot be; I dare not mar with change
The calm seclusion of my life, — the still
Unbroken sweep of waters guarding it.
My life has all the magical repose
Of some sweet island in a pale lagoon;
The ripples break upon the clear green waters,
The mainland lies afar enwrapped in mists,
The air is of a soft, mixed hue, not bright
As where the beast conglomerate, mankind,
The many-headed life that is but one,
Each puddled with the soul of each, doth dwell;
Even the sun veils here his rigorous splendors,
And paces with slower step the blue-stretched heavens;
The woods are peopled but with cool-eyed blooms
And slender well-poised ferns; and here and there
The white fire of the sudden springs, and birds
Whose voices are the sounds interfluous thoughts
Subtly project when several merge in one,
Conjoining rays in concord of one flame,
And the long grasses swaying in the wind.
Here all is peace and intellectual calm;
A mild self-centred spot which needs no commerce
With outward and debasing elements
To make its joyance; here I make my home
And meditate the boundless universe.
I see unfold the endless leaves of thought,
The petals rather of the great world-rose,
Until the inmost heart lies bare; I see
Within the multitudinous blood-red folds
The pygmy tribes of men; and History
Is as a silly tale told by the fireside
When the late night flares in last burst of gladness,
And soon deep rest shall hold the house; I see
The currents of the sap pass down and up,
The ceaseless potence of ideas great
That build and break, and at the hidden root
Great God himself, from whom all comes, who is
And is not the vast flower, and I am He
And All, when I ascend these easy heights.
But nothing foreign may intrude; disturb
The ambient atmosphere with sullen clouds
Born of the breath of unrespective soul,
And the high bliss is dead; disturb with check
Of contradiction Thought's unswerving flow,
And the bemired brown flood reflects no more
The picture of the sky. Here is my fear;
Into pure Contemplation's mystic round
I may not introduce the passions' whirl,
And that strange sentiment the fool man calls
Love; different by a world's wide interspace
From Love as known in Thought's dear Heaven. I pause;
Yet Beauty is this still realm's proper garb,
The robe external that expresses it,
And, while concealing, bares its secret heart;
And she — the lovely child — would be fit sign
Of its unbroken rest and splendid joy.
I cannot tell how she possesses me,
How my conception spheres her changing form,
As the round sky the centred earth; she flits
Into my every thought; her sweet smiles light
My deepest plunge of search; and science stern
Grows easy, and with prodigal outpour
Endows me with its secrets for her sake.
It cannot be that in my life's clear song
Her footsteps should make discord, or her voice
Not emphasize the surely-uttered words
That are the very truth of truth in forms
That are itself externalized. And yet —
Ah me — I fear lest I, precipitate
And led by sudden veer of impulse, throw
A hasty stone into my placid life,
And harm my safe release from human cares
With rippled thrills of feeling whose far end
Mine eyes discern not nor my thought. I pause;
When first I saw the grave small face, the eyes
Quite sad, but clear with some internal flame,
The lips closed in an ecstasy of dream,
I felt her as a sure inhabitant
Of those ideal plains where is Thought's home,
Or those miraculous vales high Fancy holds,
The varying image of the things that are.
Nay, I will not give way to fear; I dare
This deed, and quail not at the consequence.
She shall go with me; I will bear her home,
Engird her with most subtle influences,
And she will grow the white rose of the world,
The fairest lady in the worshipping lands,
A priestess in the virgin fane of Thought,
Iphigenia of these latter times,
The marvel of the ages, womanhood's queen,
Untouched of love or aught that can defile,
The lyre tuned to the planet's revolutions,
Star-taught to music, played upon by winds,
And voicing ocean's ancient mysteries.
Yea, I will go, and ask her of her friends, —
They dare not say me nay, I am sure fate, —
And if I must, my wealth will make me way,
For in the world of men I needs must use
Men's implements, although my heart abhors
Contact with these most foul necessities.
Yea, she will be to me my shaped expectance,
My life made clear to sight, thought clothed in form,
The apex of the pyramidal loveliness,
Like flame upclimbing skywards, which is my life.
I dare the high attempt, and build the realm
Which circles me, past outer might to break,
Wherein I breathe, clasped hand in hand with God!