AT dusk, when Slumber's gentle wand Beckons to quiet fields my boy, And day, whose welcome was so fond, Is slighted like a rivaled toy, -- When fain to follow, fain to stay, Toward night's dim border-line he peers, We say he fears the fading day: Is it the inner dark he fears? His deep eyes, made for wonder, keep Their gaze upon some land unknown, The while the crowding questions leap That show his ignorance my own. For he would go he knows not where, And I -- I hardly know the more; Yet what is dark and what is fair He would to-night with me explore. Upon the shoals of my poor creed His plummet falls, but cannot rest; To sound the soundless is his need, To find the primal soul his quest. In vain these bird-like flutterings, As when through cages sighs the wind: My clearest answer only brings New depths of mystery to his mind, -- Vague thoughts, by crude surmise beset, And groping doubts that loom and pass Like April clouds that, shifting, fret With tides of shade the sun-wooed grass. O lonely soul within the crowd Of souls! O language-seeking cry! How black were noon without a cloud To vision only of the eye! Sleep, child! while healing Nature breaks Her ointment on the wounds of Thought; Joy, that anew with morning wakes, Shall bring you sight it ne'er has brought. Lord, if there be, as wise men spake, No Death, but only Fear of Death, And when Thy temple seems to shake 'T is but the shaking of our breath, -- Whether by day or night we see Clouds where Thy winds have driven none, Let unto us as unto Thee The darkness and the light be one. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...LENNIE SWENSON by KAREN SWENSON TO THE LAPLAND LONGSPUR by JOHN BURROUGHS THE TEST by RALPH WALDO EMERSON THE PROMETHEUS VINCTUS OF AESCHYLUS by AESCHYLUS BY THE SALPETRIERE by THOMAS ASHE S. MATTHIAS by JOSEPH BEAUMONT SONG by FRANCOIS JOACHIM DE PIERRE DE BERNIS THE MIDNIGHT MASS; AN INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION by ADA CAMBRIDGE |