O WONDROUS work of Mind's invention, List to my secret-sworn intention To keep thee still!— Whilst life-blood gives its kindling heat, And Reason holds her regal seat And power to will. Whilst gratitude my bosom sways For kindly deeds of other days, I'll be thy master, And place thee near my heart, I vow, And listen whether it or thou Can beat the faster. It was thy mate in merrier time, Ere Hope's sere leaf or winter's rime Had gathered o'er it; When life was leaping in its mains As though 'twould sweep, adown my veins, The world before it. O, oft when Pleasure's giddy trance Had lured me on her dizzying dance, Some call of thine, Speaking in accents cold and clear, Thrilled startlingly upon mine ear Like Voice divine. And, often, when the bands of sloth Had bound me, all too little loth, In silken den, Thou, ticking monitor of Time, Didst rouse in me, as at the prime, The Man again. When Youth's feet fared on fields remote, Thy categoric silvery note, Thy warning sign, Importunate, unglamoured, clear, Said: "Be @3thou@1 true within thy sphere, As @3I@1 in mine!" Or,—when unfriended, far, alone,— Thy cheery, leal familiar tone, Thine outstretched hand Nerved me, through broken hopes or pain, Like voice of brother heard again In foreign land. I've asked myself, O beating wheel, If thou canst love, if thou canst feel As I for thee; For, often in the darksome weather, Thy heart and mine do make together Rare harmonie. And Night is strange: forecastings drear And shadows, oft of cark or fear, Stalk to and fro: O, then thou seem'st to me opprest With fellow-feeling in thy breast, Thou throbbest so! I've suffered, suffered through the night, And palpitated for the light, Soul-racked and sad; O, I have thought, when Morning broke And the new world to joy awoke, Thou too wast glad. Or, when in doubt I've lost my way, And longed for glint of star or day, I've touched thy hand; Then, all around me came the song Of comrades and Youth's jocund throng In mine own land. Pulse of the Timeless, set to chime Law-girt and spaced and orbed in Time, Thy mystic voice Saith, at the breaking o' the day, "O soul, uplift thee, gird thee, pray, Work, and rejoice! "Thy brief day's toil transcends thy day; Thy small-sphered life doth reach away Beyond thy sight: Dare till thy Time the Timeless gain, Thy low-roofed, narrow Space attain The Infinite!" O, trusty friend and sentinel, Shall gold, or bribe, or fashion's spell Rend us asunder?— No, nor wild witches' magic broth, Nor force nor fraud shall shake our troth, Nor Earthquake's thunder! They name thee "old," and "antiquate"; Mayhap they deem @3I'm@1 out of date As well as thou! Peace to their carpings, right or wrong, But friends who've lived-and-loved so long Shall not part now! In both of us is something strange, And much removed from common range And, certes, grand:— Something, beyond the common ken, That common watches, common men Can't understand! Thou'rt worn, and battered is thy face; I, too, am spent in this fierce race 'Gainst Fate and men: Rough usage is the mortal lot,— Ah, friend, for one dinge @3thou@1 hast got I've dinges ten. I'll wind thee up with gentle hand Till I, like all Earth's siftering sand, Shall have run down: We two will keep good time together, 'Spite changes of the fretful weather, Or Fortune's frown. At years and ills that curse thy race Ring ticking laughter from thy face In silvery glee; And I at plodding schemes o' men Will laugh myself half-young again For companie. And when for aye my mainsprings rest Thou shalt lie pillowed on my breast, And silent be— Above a heart, to ashes turned, That erst with eager longings burned So near to thee! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...CHAMBER MUSIC: 23 by JAMES JOYCE PORTRAIT OF ONE DEAD by CONRAD AIKEN BURNING DAWN by HAYDEN CARRUTH NOT OUR GOOD LUCK by ROBINSON JEFFERS A PARADOX by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON GOOD-BYE DOROTHY GAYLE: THE ROAD TO BUFFALO by KAREN SWENSON |