The Philosopher's Oration.

(From 'A Faun's Holiday')     Meanwhile, though nations in distress     Cower at a comet's loveliness     Shaken across the midnight sky;     Though the wind roars, and Victory,     A virgin fierce, on vans of gold     Stoops through the cloud's white smother rolled     Over the armies' shock and flow     Across the broad green hills below,     Yet hovers and will not circle down     To cast t'ward one the leafy crown;     Though men drive galleys' golden beaks     To isles beyond the sunset peaks,     And cities on the sea behold     Whose walls are glass, whose gates are gold,     Whose turrets, risen in an hour,     Dazzle between the sun and shower,     Whose sole inhabitants are kings     Six cubits high with gryphon's wings     And beard and mien more glorious     Than Midas or Assaracus;     Though priests in many a hill-top fane     Lift anguished hands - and lift in vain -     Toward the sun's shaft dancing through     The bright roof's square of wind-swept blue;     Though 'cross the stars nightly arise     The silver fumes of sacrifice;     Though a new Helen bring new scars,     Pyres piled upon wrecked golden cars,     Stacked spears, rolled smoke, and spirits sped     Like a streaked flame toward the dead:     Though all these be, yet grows not old     Delight of sunned and windy wold,     Of soaking downs aglare, asteam,     Of still tarns where the yellow gleam     Of a far sunrise slowly breaks,     Or sunset strews with golden flakes     The deeps which soon the stars will throng.     For earth yet keeps her undersong     Of comfort and of ultimate peace,     That whoso seeks shall never cease     To hear at dawn or noon or night.     Joys hath she, too, joys thin and bright,     Too thin, too bright, for those to hear     Who listen with an eager ear,     Or course about and seek to spy,     Within an hour, eternity.     First must the spirit cast aside     This world's and next his own poor pride     And learn the universe to scan     More as a flower, less as a man.     Then shall he hear the lonely dead     Sing and the stars sing overhead,     And every spray upon the heath,     And larks above and ants beneath;     The stream shall take him in her arms;     Blue skies shall rest him in their calms;     The wind shall be a lovely friend,     And every leaf and bough shall bend     Over him with a lover's grace.     The hills shall bare a perfect face     Full of a high solemnity;     The heavenly clouds shall weep, and be     Content as overhead they swim     To be high brothers unto him.     No more shall he feel pitched and hurled     Uncomprehended into this world;     For every place shall be his place,     And he shall recognize its face.     At dawn he shall upon his path;     No sword shall touch him, nor the wrath     Of the ranked crowd of clamorous men.     At even he shall home again,     And lay him down to sleep at ease,     One with the Night and the Night's peace.     Ev'n Sorrow, to be escaped of none,     But a more deep communion     Shall be to him, and Death at last     No more dreaded than the Past,     Whose shadow in the brain of earth     Informs him now and gave him birth.