Ouverture

Swing open wide, O Gate,
That I may enter in
And see what lies in wait
For me who have been born!
Her word I only scorn
Who spake of death and sin.

I know what is behind
Your heavy brazen bars;
I heard it of the wind
Where I dwelt yesterday:
The wind that blows alway
Among the ancient stars.

Life is the chiefest thing
The wind brought knowledge of,
As it passed, murmuring:
Life, with its infinite strength,
And undiminished length
Of years fulfilled with love.

The wind spake not of sin
That blows among the stars;
And so I enter in
(Swing open wide, O Gate!)
Fearless of what may wait
Behind your heavy bars.

Let us rise up and live! Behold, each thing
Is ready for the moulding of our hand.
Long have they all awaited our command;
None other will they ever own for king.
Until we come no bird dare try to sing,
Nor any sea its power may understand;
No buds are on the trees; in every land
Year asketh year some tidings of some Spring.
Yea, it is time,—high time we were awake!
Simple indeed shall life be unto us.
What part is ours?—To take what all things give;
To feel the whole world growing for our sake;
To have sure knowledge of the marvellous;
To laugh and love.—Let us rise up and live!

Let us rule well and long. We will build here
Our city in the pathway of the sun.
On this side shall this mighty river run;
Along its course well-laden ships shall steer.
Beyond, great mountains shall their crests uprear,
That from their sides our jewels may be won.
Let all you toil! Behold, it is well done;
Under our sway all far things fall and near!
All time is ours! Let us rule long and well!
So we have reigned for many a long, long day.
No change can come.... What hath that slave to tell,
Who dares to stop us on our royal way?
"O King, last night within thy garden fell,
From thine own tree, a rose whose leaves were gray."

Let us lie down and sleep! All things are still,
And everywhere doth rest alone seem sweet.
No more is heard the sound of hurrying feet
Athrough the land their echoes once did fill.
Even the wind knows not its ancient will,
For each ship floats with undisturbéd sheet:
Naught stirs except the Sun, who hastes to greet
His handmaiden, the utmost western hill.
Ah, there the glory is! O west of gold!
Once seemed our life to us as glad and fair;
We knew nor pain nor sorrow anywhere!
O crimson clouds! O mountains autumn-stoled!
Across even you long shadows soon must sweep.
We too have lived. Let us lie down and sleep!

Nay, let us kneel and pray! The fault was ours,
O Lord! No other ones have sinned as we.
The Spring was with us and we praised not thee;
We gave no thanks for Summer's strangest flowers.
We built us many ships, and mighty towers,
And held awhile the whole broad world in fee:
Yea, and it sometime writhed at our decree!
The stars, the winds,—all they were subject-powers.
All things we had for slave. We knew no God;
We saw no place on earth where His feet trod—
This earth, where now the Winter hath full sway,
Well shrouded under cold white snows and deep.
We rose and lived; we ruled; yet, ere we sleep,
O Unknown God,—Let us kneel down and pray!

Because I ever have gone down Thy ways
With joyous heart and undivided praise,
I pray Thee, Lord, of Thy great loving-kindness,
Thou'lt make to-day even as my yesterdays!"

(At the edge of the yellow dawn I saw them stand,
Body and Soul; and they were hand-in-hand:
The Soul looked backward where the last night's blindness
Lay still upon the unawakened land;

But the Body, in the sun's light well arrayed,
Fronted the east, grandly and unafraid:
I knew that it was one might never falter
Although the Soul seemed shaken as it prayed.)

"O Lord" (the Soul said), "I would ask one thing:
Send out Thy rapid messengers to bring
Me to the shadows which about Thine altar
Are ever born and always gathering.

"For I am weary now, and would lie dead
Where I may not behold my old days shed
Like withered leaves around me and above me;
Hear me, O Lord, and I am comforted!"

"O Lord, because I ever deemed Thee kind"
(The Body's words were borne in on the wind);
"Because I knew that Thou wouldst ever love me
Although I sin, and lead me who am blind;

Because of all these things, hear me who pray!
Lord, grant me of Thy bounty one more day
To worship Thee, and thank Thee I am living.
Yet if Thou callest now, I will obey."

(The Body's hand tightly the Soul did hold;
And over them both was shed the sun's red gold;
And though I knew this day had in its giving
Unnumbered wrongs and sorrows manifold,

I counted it a sad and bitter thing
That this weak, drifting Soul must alway cling
Unto this Body—wrought in such a fashion
It must have set the gods, even, marvelling.

And, thinking so, I heard the Soul's loud cries,
As it turned round and saw the eastern skies)
"O Lord, destroy in me this new-born passion
For this that has grown perfect in mine eyes!

"O Lord, let me not see this thing is fair,
This Body Thou hast given me to wear,—
Lest I fall out of love with death and dying,
And deem the old, strange life not hard to bear!

"Yea, now, even now, I love this Body so—
O Lord, on me Thy longest days bestow!
O Lord, forget the words I have been crying,
And lead me where Thou thinkest I should go!"

(At the edge of the open dawn I saw them stand,
Body and Soul, together, hand-in-hand,
Fulfilled, as I, with strong desire and wonder
As they beheld the glorious eastern land;

I saw them, in the strong light of the sun,
Go down into the day that had begun;
I knew, as they, that night might never sunder
This Body from the Soul that it had won.)

To-morrow, and a year is born again!
(To-day the first bud wakened 'neath the snow.)
Will it bring joys the old year did not know,
Or will it burthen us with the old pain?
Shall we seek out the Spring—to see it slain?
Summer,—and learn all flowers have ceased to grow?
Autumn,—and find it overswift to go?
(The memories of the old year yet remain.)

To-morrow, and another year is born!
(Love liveth yet, O Love, we deemed was dead!)
Let us go forth and welcome in the morn,
Following bravely on where Hope hath led.
(O Time, how great a thing thou art to scorn!)
O Love, we shall not be uncomforted!

He walked by me with open eyes,
And wondered that I loved it so;
Above us stretched the gray, gray skies;
Behind us, foot-prints on the snow.

Before us slept a dark, dark wood.
Hemlocks were there, and little pines
Also; and solemn cedars stood
In even and uneven lines.

The branches of each silent tree
Bent downward, for the snow's hard weight
Was pressing on them heavily;
They had not known the sun of late.

(Except when it was afternoon,
And then a sickly sun peered in
A little while; it vanished soon
And then they were as they had been.)

There was no sound (I thought I heard
The axe of some man far away)
There was no sound of bee, or bird,
Or chattering squirrel at its play.

And so he wondered I was glad.
—There was one thing he could not see;
Beneath the look these dead things had
I saw Spring eyes agaze at me.

The low, gray sky curveth from hill to hill,
Silent and all untenanted;
From the trees also all glad sound hath fled,
Save for the little wind that moaneth still
Because it deemeth Earth is surely dead.

For many days no woman hath gone by,
Her gold hair knowing, as of old,
The wind's caresses and the sun's kind gold;
—Perchance even she hath thought it best to die
Because all things are sad things to behold.

She cometh now, with the sun's splendid shine
On face and limbs and hair!
Ye who are watching, have ye seen so fair
A Lady ever as this one is of mine?
Have ye beheld her likeness anywhere?

See, as she cometh unrestrained and fleet
Past the thrush-haunted trees,
How glad the lilies are that touch her knees!
How glad the grasses underneath her feet!
And how even I am yet more glad than these!