To-Day
Is there but emptiness from sky to sky;
A hollow where we pass,
Along the simple grass?
Stirs not some intimate foot as we draw nigh?
Or is To-Day grown but a lantern light,
That throws at the dark's edge,
Upon some village hedge,
A petty red, then dwindles into night?
The House decays, but in the April rain,
Long after, where it stood,
Betwixt the sea and wood,
Purple as yore, its violets remain.
Long after, hoarded in the ancestral town,
The new folk find it there,
In carved shelf or chair,
Or candlesticks whose gilt is turning brown.
Thus is it with our Pasts; they go; they stay;
They go, yet leave behind,
Some wealth, dear, starry, kind,
For common folk to gather day by day:
There is no moment which dies unforgot;
For when the last is flown,
The very churls do own,
More wars than Troy, more towers than Camelot.
Yet not alone the vanished years are fair;
There are two spirits keep,
Where men do work or sleep,
Down rutty lane, or in the roof-girt square;
Their looks are gentle, for they come to bless;
With brooding eyes they see,
The Best for you and me;
And one is Awe and one is Loveliness.
From wonder unto wonder do we go;
Faiths, fervors, quests, desires,
Youth's brief entrancing fires,
The deeper moods of deeper years we know;
We need but lift our bare, expectant hands;
The mists break and are gone;
Sounds, scents, visions of dawn
Surge toward us from the old, unalien lands.
The wonder of this life that hurries by! —
Loves, wrecks, deceits, and woes,
Pomps, marketings and shows,
So close to earth, yet closer to the sky.
This you and I — forgetting and forgot;
Yet shall we plan, dream, slay,
Or, sudden on a day,
Grasp at the wheeling suns and perish not.
This mystery forever at the door! —
Familiar as the air,
And sacred as a prayer,
Forever new and yet forever hoar —
This you and I — blown past the village pane,
And down to darkness thrust,
A little simple dust,
That still shall rise and serve its God again.
What go into the making of a song?
A thousand years agone,
And more that are to dawn,
And this one moment pulsing strange and strong;
And every moment, be it near or far,
Joy-lit, or drab with woe,
And every great and low,
The rose, the worm, the tempest, and the star.
The cry of Sorrow gathering her sheaves;
The laughter full and low,
Of the rude folk that sow,
A windy hour under thin country eaves;
The shout of Singers marching in their might,
To viol and to horn,
Far up the steeps of morn,
To the white levels of perpetual light.
First love, that in the young days has us thrall;
The festival; the flower;
The wet, autumnal hour;
The last fight waging by the broken wall —
These, these and more. For hark! all wrong, all right;
The fear that drove men back,
The dream along the track,
The foot that slipped, the heart that took the height!
Oh, wonder of a song! Along it pour
A thousand years to be,
The fair, the rude, the free,
Like wind adown the hollow of a shore:
Out of their hearts shall come a kindlier Plan;
Out of our fathers' creeds,
A better for our needs,
Out of the ancestral throng a nobler Man.
Oh, life! oh, song! Oh, the long awe of spring!
A little shines the light;
Then lo, to left, to right,
Across the garden flags some baffling thing! —
See the round scarlet leap from April clod:
Empty we turn away,
Dared by that bit of clay;
For tulips still are tulips, God still God.
Some ancient sense of Beauty haunts us still;
The pangs of Life and Art,
Lie sharp about the heart;
Sudden we feel the unescapable thrill:
One instant naught — the next, a pageant nigh!
Out in the naked street,
The sound of lonely feet;
In ordered splendor all our dreams march by.
A book can hold us, or a snatch of sea,
Or lilies by a wall;
A comrade at dewfall,
Can from his violin such chords set free,
To such quick, searching notes give instant tongue,
To woods, darks, sailing ships;
The sobs start to our lips —
How long, how long it is since we were young!
He plays. Under the clear and ruddy sky,
And there in the dewfall,
The oldest things of all,
Go gleaming past, and as they go, they cry —
Love, Longing, Tears, and gray Remembering;
A foot, a voice, a face! —
And there, in some dim place,
The little honey-colored flowers of spring.
To every age some mystery all its own,
That makes its dullest air,
A something hushed and fair;
Down every age some breath of Beauty blown
Each day is but a pool within the grass,
A haunted, gusty thing,
Of ancient fashioning,
Where earth and heaven do meet as in a glass.
A hollow where we pass,
Along the simple grass?
Stirs not some intimate foot as we draw nigh?
Or is To-Day grown but a lantern light,
That throws at the dark's edge,
Upon some village hedge,
A petty red, then dwindles into night?
The House decays, but in the April rain,
Long after, where it stood,
Betwixt the sea and wood,
Purple as yore, its violets remain.
Long after, hoarded in the ancestral town,
The new folk find it there,
In carved shelf or chair,
Or candlesticks whose gilt is turning brown.
Thus is it with our Pasts; they go; they stay;
They go, yet leave behind,
Some wealth, dear, starry, kind,
For common folk to gather day by day:
There is no moment which dies unforgot;
For when the last is flown,
The very churls do own,
More wars than Troy, more towers than Camelot.
Yet not alone the vanished years are fair;
There are two spirits keep,
Where men do work or sleep,
Down rutty lane, or in the roof-girt square;
Their looks are gentle, for they come to bless;
With brooding eyes they see,
The Best for you and me;
And one is Awe and one is Loveliness.
From wonder unto wonder do we go;
Faiths, fervors, quests, desires,
Youth's brief entrancing fires,
The deeper moods of deeper years we know;
We need but lift our bare, expectant hands;
The mists break and are gone;
Sounds, scents, visions of dawn
Surge toward us from the old, unalien lands.
The wonder of this life that hurries by! —
Loves, wrecks, deceits, and woes,
Pomps, marketings and shows,
So close to earth, yet closer to the sky.
This you and I — forgetting and forgot;
Yet shall we plan, dream, slay,
Or, sudden on a day,
Grasp at the wheeling suns and perish not.
This mystery forever at the door! —
Familiar as the air,
And sacred as a prayer,
Forever new and yet forever hoar —
This you and I — blown past the village pane,
And down to darkness thrust,
A little simple dust,
That still shall rise and serve its God again.
What go into the making of a song?
A thousand years agone,
And more that are to dawn,
And this one moment pulsing strange and strong;
And every moment, be it near or far,
Joy-lit, or drab with woe,
And every great and low,
The rose, the worm, the tempest, and the star.
The cry of Sorrow gathering her sheaves;
The laughter full and low,
Of the rude folk that sow,
A windy hour under thin country eaves;
The shout of Singers marching in their might,
To viol and to horn,
Far up the steeps of morn,
To the white levels of perpetual light.
First love, that in the young days has us thrall;
The festival; the flower;
The wet, autumnal hour;
The last fight waging by the broken wall —
These, these and more. For hark! all wrong, all right;
The fear that drove men back,
The dream along the track,
The foot that slipped, the heart that took the height!
Oh, wonder of a song! Along it pour
A thousand years to be,
The fair, the rude, the free,
Like wind adown the hollow of a shore:
Out of their hearts shall come a kindlier Plan;
Out of our fathers' creeds,
A better for our needs,
Out of the ancestral throng a nobler Man.
Oh, life! oh, song! Oh, the long awe of spring!
A little shines the light;
Then lo, to left, to right,
Across the garden flags some baffling thing! —
See the round scarlet leap from April clod:
Empty we turn away,
Dared by that bit of clay;
For tulips still are tulips, God still God.
Some ancient sense of Beauty haunts us still;
The pangs of Life and Art,
Lie sharp about the heart;
Sudden we feel the unescapable thrill:
One instant naught — the next, a pageant nigh!
Out in the naked street,
The sound of lonely feet;
In ordered splendor all our dreams march by.
A book can hold us, or a snatch of sea,
Or lilies by a wall;
A comrade at dewfall,
Can from his violin such chords set free,
To such quick, searching notes give instant tongue,
To woods, darks, sailing ships;
The sobs start to our lips —
How long, how long it is since we were young!
He plays. Under the clear and ruddy sky,
And there in the dewfall,
The oldest things of all,
Go gleaming past, and as they go, they cry —
Love, Longing, Tears, and gray Remembering;
A foot, a voice, a face! —
And there, in some dim place,
The little honey-colored flowers of spring.
To every age some mystery all its own,
That makes its dullest air,
A something hushed and fair;
Down every age some breath of Beauty blown
Each day is but a pool within the grass,
A haunted, gusty thing,
Of ancient fashioning,
Where earth and heaven do meet as in a glass.
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