Synesius

I dwell amid the city ever.The great humanity which beatsIts life along the stony streets,Like a strong and unsunned riverIn a self-made course,I sit and hearken while it rolls.Very sad and very hoarseCertes is the flow of souls;Infinitest tendenciesBy the finite prest and pent,In the finite, turbulent:How we tremble in surpriseWhen sometimes, with an awful sound,God's great plummet strikes the ground!

The champ of the steeds on the silver bit,As they whirl the rich man's carriage by;The beggar's whine as he looks at it,--But it goes too fast for charity;The trail on the street of the poor man's broom,That the lady who walks to her palace-home,On her silken skirt may catch no dust;The tread of the business-men who mustCount their per-cents by the paces they take;The cry of the babe unheard of its motherThough it lie on her breast, while she thinks of the otherLaid yesterday where it will not wake;The flower-girl's prayer to buy roses and pinksHeld out in the smoke, like stars by day;The gin-door's oath that hollowly chinksGuilt upon grief and wrong upon hate;The cabman's cry to get out of the way;The dustman's call down the area-grate;The young maid's jest, and the old wife's scold,The haggling talk of the boys at a stall,The fight in the street which is backed for gold,The plea of the lawyers in Westminster Hall;The drop on the stones of the blind man's staffAs he trades in his own grief's sacredness,The brothel shriek, and the Newgate laugh,The hum upon 'Change, and the organ's grinding,(The grinder's face being neverthelessDry and vacant of even woeWhile the children's hearts are leaping soAt the merry music's winding;)The black-plumed funeral's creeping train,Long and slow (and yet they will goAs fast as Life though it hurry and strain!)Creeping the populous houses throughAnd nodding their plumes at either side,--At many a house, where an infant, newTo the sunshiny world, has just struggled and cried,--At many a house where sitteth a brideTrying to-morrow's coronalsWith a scarlet blush to-day:Slowly creep the funerals,As none should hear the noise and say"The living, the living must go awayTo multiply the dead."Hark! an upward shout is sent,In grave strong joy from tower to steepleThe bells ring out,The trumpets sound, the people shout,The young queen goes to her Parliament.She turneth round her large blue eyesMore bright with childish memoriesThan royal hopes, upon the people;On either side she bows her headLowly, with a queenly graceAnd smile most trusting-innocent,As if she smiled upon her mother;The thousands press before each otherTo bless her to her face;And booms the deep majestic voiceThrough trump and drum,--"May the queen rejoiceIn the people's liberties!"

I dwell amid the city,And hear the flow of souls in act and speech,For pomp or trade, for merrymake or folly:I hear the confluence and sum of each,And that is melancholy!Thy voice is a complaint, O crowned city,The blue sky covering thee like God's great pity.

O blue sky! it mindeth meOf places where I used to seeIts vast unbroken circle thrownFrom the far pale-peaked hillOut to the last verge of ocean,As by God's arm it were doneThen for the first time, with the emotionOf that first impulse on it still.Oh, we spirits fly at willFaster than the winged steedWhereof in old book we read,With the sunlight foaming backFrom his flanks to a misty wrack,And his nostril reddening proudAs he breasteth the steep thundercloud,--Smoother than Sabrina's chairGliding up from wave to air,While she smileth debonairYet holy, coldly and yet brightly,Like her own mooned waters nightly,Through her dripping hair.

Very fast and smooth we fly,Spirits, though the flesh be by;All looks feed not from the eyeNor all hearings from the ear:We can hearken and espyWithout either, we can journeyBold and gay as knight to tourney,And, though we wear no visor downTo dark our countenance, the foeShall never chafe us as we go.

I am gone from peopled town!It passeth its street-thunder roundMy body which yet hears no sound,For now another sound, anotherVision, my soul's senses have--O'er a hundred valleys deepWhere the hills' green shadows sleepScarce known because the valley-treesCross those upland images,O'er a hundred hills each otherWatching to the western wave,I have travelled,--I have foundThe silent, lone, remembered ground.

I have found a grassy nicheHollowed in a seaside hill,As if the ocean-grandeur whichIs aspectable from the place,Had struck the hill as with a maceSudden and cleaving. You might fillThat little nook with the little cloudWhich sometimes lieth by the moonTo beautify a night of June;A cavelike nook which, opening allTo the wide sea, is disallowedFrom its own earth's sweet pastoral:Cavelike, but roofless overheadAnd made of verdant banks insteadOf any rocks, with flowerets spreadInstead of spar and stalactite,Cowslips and daisies gold and white:Such pretty flowers on such green sward,You think the sea they look towardDoth serve them for another skyAs warm and blue as that on high.

And in this hollow is a seat,And when you shall have crept to it,Slipping down the banks too steepTo be o'erbrowzed by the sheep,Do not think--though at your feetThe cliffs disrupt--you shall beholdThe line where earth and ocean meet;You sit too much above to viewThe solemn confluence of the two:You can hear them as they greet,You can hear that evermoreDistance-softened noise more oldThan Nereid's singing, the tide spentJoining soft issues with the shoreIn harmony of discontent,And when you hearken to the graveLamenting of the underwave,You must believe in earth's communionAlbeit you witness not the union.

Except that sound, the place is fullOf silences, which when you cullBy any word, it thrills you soThat presently you let them growTo meditation's fullest lengthAcross your soul with a soul's strength:And as they touch your soul, they borrowBoth of its grandeur and its sorrow,That deathly odour which the clayLeaves on its deathlessness alway.

Alway! alway? must this be?Rapid Soul from city gone,Dost thou carry inwardlyWhat doth make the city's moan?Must this deep sigh of thine ownHaunt thee with humanity?Green visioned banks that are too steepTo be o'erbrowzed by the sheep,May all sad thoughts adown you creepWithout a shepherd? Mighty sea,Can we dwarf thy magnitudeAnd fit it to our straitest mood?O fair, fair Nature, are we thusImpotent and querulousAmong thy workings glorious,Wealth and sanctities, that stillLeave us vacant and defiledAnd wailing like a soft-kissed child,Kissed soft against his will?

God, God!With a child's voice I cry,Weak, sad, confidingly--God, God!Thou knowest, eyelids, raised not always upUnto Thy love, (as none of ours are) droopAs ours, o'er many a tear;Thou knowest, though Thy universe is broad,Two little tears suffice to cover all:Thou knowest, Thou who art so prodigalOf beauty, we are oft but stricken deerExpiring in the woods, that care for noneOf those delightsome flowers they die upon.

O blissful Mouth which breathed the mournful breathWe name our souls, self-spoilt!--by that strong passionWhich paled Thee once with sighs, by that strong deathWhich made Thee once unbreathing--from the wrackThemselves have called around them, call them back,Back to Thee in continuous aspiration!For here, O Lord,For here they travel vainly, vainly passFrom city-pavement to untrodden swardWhere the lark finds her deep nest in the grassCold with the earth's last dew. Yea, very vainThe greatest speed of all these souls of menUnless they travel upward to the throneWhere sittest THOU the satisfying ONE,With help for sins and holy perfectingsFor all requirements: while the archangel, raisingUnto Thy face his full ecstatic gazing,Forgets the rush and rapture of his wings.