Canticle Of The Race

Song Of Men     How beautiful are the bodies of men -     The agonists!     Their hearts beat deep as a brazen gong     For their strength's behests.     Their arms are lithe as a seasoned thong     In games or tests     When they run or box or swim the long     Sea-waves crests     With their slender legs, and their hips so strong,     And their rounded chests.     I know a youth who raises his arms     Over his head.     He laughs and stretches and flouts alarms     Of flood or fire.     He springs renewed from a lusty bed     To his youth's desire.     He drowses, for April flames outspread     In his soul's attire.     The strength of men is for husbandry     Of woman's flesh:     Worker, soldier, magistrate     Of city or realm;     Artist, builder, wrestling Fate     Lest it overwhelm     The brood or the race, or the cherished state.     They sing at the helm     When the waters roar and the waves are great,     And the gale is fresh.     There are two miracles, women and men -     Yea, four there be:     A woman's flesh, and the strength of a man,     And God's decree.     And a babe from the womb in a little span     Ere the month be ten.     Their rapturous arms entwine and cling     In the depths of night;     He hunts for her face for his wondering,     And her eyes are bright.     A woman's flesh is soil, but the spring     Is man's delight.     Song Of Women     How beautiful is the flesh of women -     Their throats, their breasts!     My wonder is a flame which burns,     A flame which rests;     It is a flame which no wind turns,     And a flame which quests.     I know a woman who has red lips,     Like coals which are fanned.     Her throat is tied narcissus, it dips     From her white-rose chin.     Her throat curves like a cloud to the land     Where her breasts begin.     I close my eyes when I put my hand     On her breast's white skin.     The flesh of women is like the sky     When bare is the moon:     Rhythm of backs, hollow of necks,     And sea-shell loins.     I know a woman whose splendors vex     Where the flesh joins -     A slope of light and a circumflex     Of clefts and coigns.     She thrills like the air when silence wrecks     An ended tune.     These are the things not made by hands in the earth:     Water and fire,     The air of heaven, and springs afresh,     And love's desire.     And a thing not made is a woman's flesh,     Sorrow and mirth!     She tightens the strings on the lyric lyre,     And she drips the wine.     Her breasts bud out as pink and nesh     As buds on the vine:     For fire and water and air are flesh,     And love is the shrine.     Song Of The Human Spirit     How beautiful is the human spirit     In its vase of clay!     It takes no thought of the chary dole     Of the light of day.     It labors and loves, as it were a soul     Whom the gods repay     With length of life, and a golden goal     At the end of the way.     There are souls I know who arch a dome,     And tunnel a hill.     They chisel in marble and fashion in chrome,     And measure the sky.     They find the good and destroy the ill,     And they bend and ply     The laws of nature out of a will     While the fates deny.     I wonder and worship the human spirit     When I behold     Numbers and symbols, and how they reach     Through steel and gold;     A harp, a battle-ship, thought and speech,     And an hour foretold.     It ponders its nature to turn and teach,     And itself to mould.     The human spirit is God, no doubt,     Is flesh made the word:     Jesus, Beethoven and Raphael,     And the souls who heard     Beyond the rim of the world the swell     Of an ocean stirred     By a Power on the waters inscrutable.     There are souls who gird     Their loins in faith that the world is well,     In a faith unblurred.     How beautiful is the human spirit -     The flesh made the word!