Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE BREATH OF LIFE, by JAMES STEPHENS



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE BREATH OF LIFE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: And while they talked and talked, and while they sat
Last Line: And the great sun tossed laughter on the world!
Subject(s): Life


And while they talked and talked, and while they sat
Changing their base minds into baser coin;
And telling -- they! how truth and beauty join,
And how a certain this was good, but that
Was baser than the viper or the toad,
Or the blind beggar glaring down the road.

I turned from them in fury, and I ran
To where the moon shone out upon the height,
Down the long reaches of a summer night
Stretching slim fingers, and the starry clan
Grew thicker than the flowers that we see
Clustered in quiet fields of greenery.

The quietudes that sunder star from star;
The hazy distances of loneliness,
Where never eagle's wing, or timid press
Of lark or wren could venture; and the far
Profundities untroubled and unstirred
By any act of man or thought or word:

These held me with amazement and delight!
I yearned up through the spaces of the sky,
Beyond the rolling clouds, beyond the high
And delicate white moon, and up the height,
And past the rocking stars, and out to where
The aether failed in spaces sharp and bare.

The Breath that is the very Breath of Life
Throbbed close to me! I heard the pulses beat,
That lift the universes into heat!
The slow withdrawal, and the deeper strife
Of His wide respiration -- like a sea
It ebbed and flooded through immensity.

The Breath of Life, in wave on mighty wave!
O moon and stars swell to a raptured song!
Ye mountains toss the harmony along!
O little men, with little souls to save,
Swing up glad chauntings! Ring the skies above
With boundless gratitude for boundless love!

Probing the ocean to its steepest drop!
Rejoicing in the viper and the toad;
And the blind beggar glaring down the road;
And they, who talk and talk and never stop,
Equally quickening! With a care to bend
The gnat's slant wing into a swifter end.

The silence clung about me like a gift!
The tender night-time folded me around
Protectingly! And, in a peace profound,
The clouds drooped slowly backward, drift on drift
Into the darkness; and the moon was gone;
And soon the stars had vanished, every one.

But on the sky, a handsbreath in the west,
A faint cold, radiance crept, and soared and spread;
Until the rustling heavens overhead,
And the grey trees, and grass, were manifest.
Then, through the chill, a golden spear was hurled,
And the great sun tossed laughter on the world!





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