I will go with the first air of morning
To the land of Palestine.
Once, far from oasis,
Where dates grow costly and fine,
Men gathered the shining shoals,
That rippled up the road to the moon
The road of the moonshine.
Lovely the mercury, the flutter of the sea,
And the squares of the quicksilver nets,
And the drops of the sea divine,
As the fishes took the road to death;
Little waifs, little souls,
Lovely in their living and dying ever,
For luminous are their fins as feathers in the sun,
Sunny their scales as the sheen of the jay,
— When, silly tomboy, in sunshine he screams —
For inwardly lit are they;
Inwardly lit of their own light it seems,
Knowing a clarity ungiven to the day,
As on their branching reefs undersea they alight and sway
To the swell like swarming starlings in a windy tree.
Yet intimate with shadows that in air cannot be,
Dark are they, brooding, knowing, yet gay,
Shaft of sunlight theirs, deeps the lark never knows,
No, nor even the nightingale crucified
On the spine of the rose!
Beautiful their world, having no purpose, being for ever unseen.
None know that beauty for beauty's sake made,
Alone, content in the depth for ever it dwells;
Unstable as beech-leaves in May that eternal green,
The shifting, tremulous purple and brown of the rock-shade,
The frail light on the shallows,
And the young travelling shells
Like angels gently moving their wings
Over the dappled wells,
Rising and dipping as they swim in the sunlight;
And the waving, wooing anemones like hedgerow mallows,
And the Horned Iridescent whose life and death is a sleep.
Let me learn the wonder
Of those then who dwelt in the deep,
When Jesus went fishing.
When they by Jesus were lifted from the sea;
From the fast-flowing moonlight with His hands hauled He,
Singing a sailor's tune;
A tune men forgot, having short memory,
Or tired of knowing too well all the handcraft songs:
Potter's plaint or huckster's croon.
But a lilt that He knew
When making cork floats at Madonna's knee,
And singing now where sagged the barque side,
Tumbling black oval in the spate of the moon;
With Matthew, Mark, Luke, and the little John behind Him,
While gaped the rest of the crew;
While broke in hissing bubbles the eternal road of fire,
So the eyes were dazzled looking overside,
From His fingers fled the phosphorus away,
To the road no man may pursue.
For up that road went the feet of the Messiah,
Out of the horizon walked He,
Slim between the fishing smacks glancing not aside,
Gentle in His going, borne slightly on the tide,
Preaching gravely as He went to the groups of gaping fishes,
In the waters of Galilee.
To the land of Palestine.
Once, far from oasis,
Where dates grow costly and fine,
Men gathered the shining shoals,
That rippled up the road to the moon
The road of the moonshine.
Lovely the mercury, the flutter of the sea,
And the squares of the quicksilver nets,
And the drops of the sea divine,
As the fishes took the road to death;
Little waifs, little souls,
Lovely in their living and dying ever,
For luminous are their fins as feathers in the sun,
Sunny their scales as the sheen of the jay,
— When, silly tomboy, in sunshine he screams —
For inwardly lit are they;
Inwardly lit of their own light it seems,
Knowing a clarity ungiven to the day,
As on their branching reefs undersea they alight and sway
To the swell like swarming starlings in a windy tree.
Yet intimate with shadows that in air cannot be,
Dark are they, brooding, knowing, yet gay,
Shaft of sunlight theirs, deeps the lark never knows,
No, nor even the nightingale crucified
On the spine of the rose!
Beautiful their world, having no purpose, being for ever unseen.
None know that beauty for beauty's sake made,
Alone, content in the depth for ever it dwells;
Unstable as beech-leaves in May that eternal green,
The shifting, tremulous purple and brown of the rock-shade,
The frail light on the shallows,
And the young travelling shells
Like angels gently moving their wings
Over the dappled wells,
Rising and dipping as they swim in the sunlight;
And the waving, wooing anemones like hedgerow mallows,
And the Horned Iridescent whose life and death is a sleep.
Let me learn the wonder
Of those then who dwelt in the deep,
When Jesus went fishing.
When they by Jesus were lifted from the sea;
From the fast-flowing moonlight with His hands hauled He,
Singing a sailor's tune;
A tune men forgot, having short memory,
Or tired of knowing too well all the handcraft songs:
Potter's plaint or huckster's croon.
But a lilt that He knew
When making cork floats at Madonna's knee,
And singing now where sagged the barque side,
Tumbling black oval in the spate of the moon;
With Matthew, Mark, Luke, and the little John behind Him,
While gaped the rest of the crew;
While broke in hissing bubbles the eternal road of fire,
So the eyes were dazzled looking overside,
From His fingers fled the phosphorus away,
To the road no man may pursue.
For up that road went the feet of the Messiah,
Out of the horizon walked He,
Slim between the fishing smacks glancing not aside,
Gentle in His going, borne slightly on the tide,
Preaching gravely as He went to the groups of gaping fishes,
In the waters of Galilee.