Classic Poem

I.

Thou canst not rest;
All day thou sittest
In a toil most blest;
All the day long thou weavest
Sweet dreams in which thou believest;
All the day long thou sittest,
And into the dream thou fittest
Soft color and passionate splendor,
All things most fierce and tender,
All hopes, all faiths, all visions,
The soul's superb derisions
Of futile wrong's misprisions,
Life's uttermost swift pleasures,
And whatso of pure treasures
Is kept for rarest trances,
And fugitive glad glances,
When the mystery unfolds,
And Heaven no farther fastness holds.

II.

Subtle weaver!
Fearest thou no deceiver?
Dost hold for true
All thy quick hands may do?
What if thou wake from dreaming,
And find mere shadowy seeming
Thy webs of joy and beauty,
Thy miracles of duty,
Thy mystical clear Heaven,
Thine attendant spirits seven,
Thy God, in whom thou believest,
Who weaves in all thou weavest —
What if a dream
These but seem,
And thou more frail than air,
With thy bliss and despair,
Passest as the night
Flees the light!

III.

Yea, thou weavest on
Till the daylight be gone,
Till the sea have an end,
And the Heavens shall bend,
The bright stars fall
From the blue sky's hall,
Till the winds shall come together
In one burst of mixed weather,
And fleet away
From the realm of day,
Till the passage of the year
Will no more appear,
The vast web of things
Assume broad wings,
And God and the world
In one ruin be hurled.

IV.

Weave, weave!
Thee no destiny can deceive!
For the King of weavers sits
At the world-loom, and he fits
All thy threads in pattern fine
That can join his wide design.
Weave, weave!
Thee no destiny can deceive!
Thou art but the serving-man,
Doing what thy strong hands can;
But the Master works and dwells
In thy labor, and he tells
Into thine attentive ear
Tales that rid thee of all fear;
The grace of flowers
In the summer's bowers,
The voices that spill
Sweet songs on meadow and hill,
The dance of the moon,
To an unheard tune,
Through the lustrous crowds
Of maiden clouds, —
Still the season will return
Having these within her urn;
The truth of sages,
And the poet's miraculous pages,
All deeds of good
That resound through the solitude
Of the buried past,
All these are thine:
These will last,
And these will shine;
For the Supreme Weaver sits
At the world-loom, and he fits
These into his wide design.
Lo! thy weaving is but his
Love of thy deep ecstasies;
Wherefore fear not, day or night,
Sleep of sleep or sight of sight,
And of all thou dost or art
He is the inner, better part,
Soul of soul, and breath of breath,
And, at last, thy death of death!