The Fires Of God

I     Time gathers to my name;     Along the ways wheredown my feet have passed     I see the years with little triumph crowned,     Exulting not for perils dared, downcast     And weary-eyed and desolate for shame     Of having been unstirred of all the sound     Of the deep music of the men that move     Through the world's days in suffering and love.     Poor barren years that brooded over-much     On your own burden, pale and stricken years,     Go down to your oblivion, we part     With no reproach or ceremonial tears.     Henceforth my hands are lifted to the touch     Of hands that labour with me, and my heart     Hereafter to the world's heart shall be set     And its own pain forget.     Time gathers to my name,     Days dead are dark; the days to be, a flame     Of wonder and of promise, and great cries     Of travelling people reach me, I must rise.     II     Was I not man? Could I not rise alone     Above the shifting of the things that be,     Rise to the crest of all the stars and see     The ways of all the world as from a throne?     Was I not man, with proud imperial will     To cancel all the secrets of high heaven?     Should not my sole unbridled purpose fill     All hidden paths with light when once was riven     God's veil by my indomitable will?     So dreamt I, little man of little vision,     Great only in unconsecrated pride;     Man's pity grew from pity to derision,     And still I thought, 'Albeit they deride,     Yet is it mine uncharted ways to dare     Unknown to these,     And they shall stumble darkly, unaware     Of solemn mysteries     Whereof the key is mine alone to bear.'     So I forgot my God, and I forgot     The holy sweet communion of men,     And moved in desolate places, where are not     Meek hands held out with patient healing when     The hours are heavy with uncharitable pain;     No company but vain     And arrogant thoughts were with me at my side.     And ever to myself I lied,     Saying 'Apart from all men thus I go     To know the things that they may never know.'     III     Then a great change befell:     Long time I stood     In witless hardihood     With eyes on one sole changeless vision set,     The deep disturbed fret     Of men who made brief tarrying in hell     On their earth-travelling.     It was as though the lives of men should be     Set circle-wise, whereof one little span     Through which all passed was blackened with the wing     Of perilous evil, bateless misery.     But all beyond, making the whole complete     O'er which the travelling feet     Of every man     Made way or ever he might come to death,     Was odorous with the breath     Of honey-laden flowers, and alive     With sacrificial ministrations sweet     Of man to man, and swift and holy loves,     And large heroic hopes, whereby should thrive     Man's spirit as he moves     From dawn of life to the great dawn of death.     It was as though mine eyes were set alone     Upon that woeful passage of despair,     Until I held that life had never known     Dominion but in this most troubled place     Where many a ruined grace     And many a friendless care     Ran to and fro in sorrowful unrest.     Still in my hand I pressed     Hope's fragile chalice, whence I drew deep draughts     Shaping belief that even yet should grow     Out of this dread confusion, as of broken crafts     Driven along ungovernable seas,     Some threads of order, and that I should know     After long vigil all the mysteries     Of human wonder and of human fate.     O fool, O only great     In pride unhallowed, O most blind of heart!     Confusion but more dark confusion bred,     Grief nurtured grief, I cried aloud and said,     'Through trackless ways the soul of man is hurled,     No sign upon the forehead of the skies,     No beacon, and no chart     Are given to him, and the inscrutable world     But mocks his scars and fills his mouth with dust.'      'And lies bore lies      And lust bore lust,      And the world was heavy with flowerless rods,      And pride outran      The strength of a man      Who had set himself in the place of gods'.     IV     Soon was I then to gather bitter shame     Of spirit, I had been most wildly proud,     Yet in my pride had been     Some little courage, formless as a cloud,     Unpiloted save by the vagrant wind,     But still an earnest of the bonds that tame     The legionary hates, of sacred loves that lean     From the high soul of man towards his kind.     And all my grief     Had been for those I watched go to and fro     In uncompassioned woe     Along that little span my unbelief     Had fashioned in my vision as all life.     Now even this so little virtue waned,     For I became caught up into the strife     That I had pitied, and my soul was stained     At last by that most venomous despair,     Self-pity.                 I no longer was aware     Of any will to heal the world's unrest,     I suffered as it suffered, and I grew     Troubled in all my daily trafficking,     Not with the large heroic trouble known     By proud adventurous men who would atone     With their own passionate pity for the sting     And anguish of a world of peril and snares;     It was the trouble of a soul in thrall     To mean despairs,     Driven about a waste where neither fall     Of words from lips of love, nor consolation     Of grave eyes comforting, nor ministration     Of hand or heart could pierce the deadly wall     Of self, of self,, I was a living shame,     A broken purpose. I had stood apart     With pride rebellious and defiant heart,     And now my pride had perished in the flame.     I cried for succour as a little child     Might supplicate whose days are undefiled,     For tutored pride and innocence are one.      'To the gloom has won      A gleam of the sun      And into the barren desolate ways      A scent is blown      As of meadows mown      By cooling rivers in clover days'.     V     I turned me from that place in humble wise,     And fingers soft were laid upon mine eyes,     And I beheld the fruitful earth, with store     Of odorous treasure, full and golden grain,     Ripe orchard bounty, slender stalks that bore     Their flowered beauty with a meek content,     The prosperous leaves that loved the sun and rain,     Shy creatures unreproved that came and went     In garrulous joy among the fostering green.     And, over all, the changes of the day     And ordered year their mutable glory laid,     Expectant winter soberly arrayed,     The prudent diligent spring whose eyes have seen     The beauty of the roses uncreate,     Imperial June, magnificent, elate     Beholding all the ripening loves that stray     Among her blossoms, and the golden time     Of the full ear and bounty of the boughs,,     And the great hills and solemn chanting seas     And prodigal meadows, answering to the chime     Of God's good year, and bearing on their brows     The glory of processional mysteries     From dawn to dawn, the woven shadow and shine     Of the high moon, the twilight secrecies,     And the inscrutable wonder of the stars     Flung out along the reaches of the night.      'And, the ancient might      Of the binding bars      Waned, as I woke to a new desire      For the choric song      Of exultant, strong      Earth-passionate men with souls of fire'.     VI     'Twas given me to hear. As I beheld,     With a new wisdom, tranquil, asking not     For mystic revelation, this glory long forgot,     This re-discovered triumph of the earth     In high creative will and beauty's pride     Established beyond the assaulting years,     It came to me, a music that compelled     Surrender of all tributary fears,     Full-throated, fierce and rhythmic with the wide     Beat of the pilgrim winds and labouring seas,     Sent up from all the harbouring ways of earth     Wherein the travelling feet of men have trod,     Mounting the firmamental silences     And challenging the golden gates of God.      'We bear the burden of the years      Clean-limbed, clear-hearted, open-browed;      Albeit sacramental tears      Have dimmed our eyes, we know the proud      Content of men who sweep unbowed      Before the legionary fears;      In sorrow we have grown to be      The masters of adversity.      Long ere from immanent silence leapt      Obedient hands and fashioning will,      The giant god within us slept,      And dreamt of seasons to fulfil      The shaping of our souls that still      Expectant earthward vigil kept;      Our wisdom grew from secrets drawn      From that far-off dim-memoried dawn.      Wise of the storied ages we,      Of perils dared and crosses borne,      Of heroes bound by no decree      Of laws defiled or faiths outworn,      Of poets who have held in scorn      All mean and tyrannous things that be;      We prophesy with lips that sped      The songs of the prophetic dead.      Wise of the brief beloved span      Of this our glad earth-travelling,      Of beauty's bloom and ordered plan,      Of love and love's compassioning,      Of all the dear delights that spring      From man's communion with man;      We cherish every hour that strays      Adown the cataract of the days.'         'We see the dear untroubled skies,         We see the glory of the rose,         And, laugh, nor grieve that clouds will rise         And wax with every wind that blows,         Nor that the blossoming time will close,         For beauty seen of humble eyes         Immortal habitation has         Though beauty's form may pale and pass.         Wise of the great unshapen age,         To which we move with measured tread         All girt with passionate truth to wage         High battle for the word unsaid,         The song unsung, the cause unled,         The freedom that no hope can gauge;         Strong-armed, sure-footed, iron-willed         We sift and weave, we break and build.         Into one hour we gather all         The years gone down, the years unwrought,         Upon our ears brave measures fall         Across uncharted spaces brought,         Upon our lips the words are caught         Wherewith the dead the unborn call;         From love to love, from height to height         We press and none may curb our might.'     VII     O blessed voices, O compassionate hands,     Calling and healing, O great-hearted brothers!     I come to you. Ring out across the lands     Your benediction, and I too will sing     With you, and haply kindle in another's     Dark desolate hour the flame you stirred in me.     O bountiful earth, in adoration meet     I bow to you; O glory of years to be,     I too will labour to your fashioning.     Go down, go down, unweariable feet,     Together we will march towards the ways     Wherein the marshalled hosts of morning wait     In sleepless watch, with banners wide unfurled     Across the skies in ceremonial state,     To greet the men who lived triumphant days,     And stormed the secret beauty of the world.