Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HARPOCRATES, by BAYARD TAYLOR


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HARPOCRATES, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The message of the god I seek
Last Line: "I am the truth that cannot change"
Alternate Author Name(s): Taylor, James Bayard
Subject(s): Life; Love; Night; Thought; Bedtime; Thinking


I.

THE message of the god I seek
In voice, in vision, or in dream,
Alike on frosty Dorian peak,
Or by the slow Arcadian stream:
Where'er the oracle is heard,
I bow the head and bend the knee;
In dream, in vision, or in word,
The sacred secret reaches me.

II.

Athwart the dim Trophonian caves,
Bat-like, the gloomy whisper flew;
The lisping plash of Paphian waves
Bathed every pulse in fiery dew:
From Phoebus, on his cloven hill,
A shaft of beauty pierced the air,
And oaks of gray Dodona still
Betrayed the Thunderer's presence there.

III.

The warmth of love, the grace of art,
The joys that breath and blood express,
The desperate forays of the heart
Into an unknown wilderness, --
All these I know: but sterner needs
Demand the knowledge which must dower
The life that on achievement feeds,
The grand activity of power.

IV.

What each reveals the shadow throws
Of something unrevealed behind;
The Secret's lips forever close
To mock the secret undivined:
Thence late I came, from weary dreams
The son of Isis to implore,
Whose temple-front of granite gleams
Across the Desert's yellow floor.

V

Lo! where the sand insatiate, drinks
The steady splendor of the air,
Crouched on her heavy paws, the Sphinx
Looks forth with old, unwearied stare!
Behind her, on the burning wall,
The long processions flash and glow:
The pillared shadows of the hall
Sleep with their lotus-crowns below.

VI.

A square of dark beyond, the door
Breathes out the deep adytum's gloom:
I cross the court's deserted floor,
And stand within the sacred room.
The priests repose from finished rite;
No echo rings from pavements trod;
And sits alone, in swarthy light,
The naked child, the temple's god.

VII.

No sceptre, orb, or mystic toy
Proclaims his godship, young and warm
He sits alone, a naked boy,
Clad in the beauty of his form.
Dark, solemn stars, of radiance mild,
His eyes illume the golden shade,
And sweetest lips that never smiled
The finger hushes, on them laid.

VIII.

Oh, never yet in trance or dream
That falls when crowned desire has died,
So breathed the air of power supreme,
So breathed, and calmed, and satisfied!
Those mystic lips were not unsealed
The temple's awful hush to break,
But unto inmost sense revealed,
The deity his message spake:

IX.

If me thou knowest, stretch thy hand
And my possessions thou shalt reach:
I grant no help, I break no band,
I sit above the gods that teach.
The latest-born, my realm includes
The old, the strong, the near, the far, --
Serene beyond their changeful moods,
And fixed as Night's unmoving star.

X.

"A child, I leave the dance of Earth
To be my horned mother's care:
My father Ammon's Bacchic mirth,
Delighting gods, I may not share.
I turn from Beauty, Love, and Power,
In singing vale, on laughing sea;
From Youth and Hope, and wait the hour
When weary Knowledge turns to me

XI.

"Beneath my hand the sacred springs
Of Man's mysterious being burst,
And Death within my shadow brings
The last of life, to greet the first.
There is no god, or grand or fair,
On Orcan or Olympian field,
But must to me his treasures bear,
His one peculiar secret yield.

XII.

"I wear no garment, drop no shade
Before the eyes that all things see;
My worshippers, howe'er arrayed,
Come in their nakedness to me.
The forms of life like gilded towers
May soar, in air and sunshine drest, --
The home of Passions and of Powers, --
Yet mine the crypts whereon they rest

XIII.

"Embracing all, sustaining all,
Consoling with unuttered lore,
Who finds me in my voiceless hall
Shall need the oracles no more.
I am the knowledge that insures
Peace, after Thought's bewildering range;
I am the patience that endures;
I am the truth that cannot change"





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