Classic Poem

THE Stranger .

I stand here trembling like a feeble boy,
As if the sweep of some experience,
Soul-shattering, and remoulding life in forms
That make the aspect of the universe
A face of deeper truth, had come upon me,
Had torn through all my body's space, and left
Me changed and alien to my former self.
My heart beats, and my breath comes quick and loud,
I seem to sigh, not breathe; it is all vain;
I dare not enter those forbidden haunts
Where general man builds homes, plies myriad tasks,
Plays games with vari-colored loves, seeks ends
Of transient glow, and on the fitful breaths
Of friends erects frail dwellings mutable.
I am so lightly swung on tenuous nerves,
That a faint wind that lifts no gossamer
In land of most men's lives, shakes me with shock
Of earthquake, and confuses me with fear
Lest my demesne in earth's firm-poised extent
Will fall to dust, and past the reach of things
Be cast to realm of nothingness, and fall
Within annihilation's grasp. I fear
The converse where swift wit is masterful,
I tremble when I see the gathering crowd
Prepare to darken day with their weak speech;
Not fear, lest their base acts can work me harm,
Or futile thoughts bemire my statued calm,
But natural shrinking from their lower mind,
And innate horror of the stagnant pools
Wherein they dwell of thought and slavish hope;
Wherefore I needs must pause; how if I bind
These freest limbs with hateful bondages,
Break the blue-skied and sweet-aired leisure's calm
Under whose roof I pass mild days with clouds,
Strange loves and curious hates will quickly frame —
For these two are yoke-fellows, never one
Appears unless the other walks full near.
If she would give up all her simple past.
Leave all behind that made her life before,
Wash from her memory what but brings it pain,
That on the white expanse of her large soul
I might write splendid thoughts of Heaven and God,
Bring her where shine the bright and changeless stars.
That in her lucid eyes their shapes might dwell,
That in her lucid mind the fiery spiritual sun
Of high philosophy might rise and burn.
And she would dwell in domes not built of hands,
But every stone a thought miraculous,
Each window a clear glass to deepest truth,
Each chamber some great dream of poet-sage,
Each door give access to the unsearched fields
Where bloom the eternal flowers that God still frames
Lest man his creature make an end of things,
And Niobe-wise proclaim his larger scope,
And dare rail at his power! I tread the verge;
It may not be — the outer clamor sounds —
It may not be; the brother is a storm
Whose wrath makes dark the time I dream upon,
And in the mother's eyes no doubt are tears —
It may not be; for I cannot evoke
From slumber in a mother's deepmost heart
Sorrow and longing and their myriad tribes.
Pain is but of the world; and I would not
Stain my cleansed hands with implements of woe;
Even to think thereon makes my heart beat,
And the unused tears to flow; I feel
That at this price I purchased noble peace —
The world and its most clamorous dignities,
Its golden pomps, its strong ambition's steeps,
Its whirlwinds of applause that seize the soul
And bear it to a realm of passioned joy,
Its friendships that have something sweet and good,
Its love that builds an isle of maddest bliss,
Mingling the soul and frame in keen delight
Of frozen fire, as if the summer's heat
Should mix — a miracle — with winter's chill,
And from their clasp leaped forth an ecstasy
That joined their several joys — all these — all these —
I threw away as of small price or cost
That I might have ideal calm, the peace
Which is akin to God's, wherein swift dreams
Pursue great thoughts, and I am still at one
With the deep life that is in all that is.
Nay — I give her up; to breed great woe
In a dear mother's heart, a little one
To bear from the fireside where smiles and talk
Illumine more than the quick-leaping flames,
And ere the lights are set the shadows' play
Is weird and mutable as fancy's games
In children's hearts, is too hard task for me.
I consecrate anew life's brief remains
To clearest meditation, and those thoughts
That hold the universe in scope, to hopes
That lift humanity aloft to heights
Where the faint noise of struggle, grief, and pain
Shall change to music as things over-lived;
For in the memory's twilight, one by one,
The stars of long-done deeds arise, and grief
Outworn flames with a steady silver fire,
Till the vast night of the unforgotten past
Engirds with solemn splendor. I consecrate,
I consecrate, O God, my years to thee;
She is most fair, and I would fain see glow
The fire of grandest truths in her pure eyes;
But all this may not be, and I return
To my used solitude; to silent books
Wherein I pour my soul, and recreate
The minds majestic that upbore the world,
The imperial intellects that swerved time's course,
The living wills that were the seeds of acts
That will not end save with the end of things.