Ode

In the old days of awe and keen-eyed wonder,The Poet's song with blood-warm truth was rife;He saw the mysteries which circle underThe outward shell and skin of daily life.Nothing to him were fleeting time and fashion,His soul was led by the eternal law;There was in him no hope of fame, no passion,But, with calm, god-like eyes, he only saw.He did not sigh o'er heroes dead and buried,Chief-mourner at the Golden Age's hearse,Nor deem that souls whom Charon grim had ferriedAlone were fitting themes of epic verse:He could believe the promise of to-morrow,And feel the wondrous meaning of to-day;He had a deeper faith in holy sorrowThan the world's seeming loss could take away.To know the heart of all things was his duty,All things did sing to him to make him wise,And, with a sorrowful and conquering beauty,The soul of all looked grandly from his eyes.He gazed on all within him and without him,He watched the flowing of Time's steady tide,And shapes of glory floated all about himAnd whispered to him, and he prophesied.Than all men he more fearless was and freer,And all his brethren cried with one accord,--"Behold the holy man! Behold the Seer!Him who hath spoken with the unseen Lord!"He to his heart with large embrace had takenThe universal sorrow of mankind,And, from that root, a shelter never shaken,The tree of wisdom grew with sturdy rind.He could interpret well the wondrous voicesWhich to the calm and silent spirit come;He knew that the One Soul no more rejoicesIn the star's anthem than the insect's hum.He in his heart was ever meek and humble,And yet with kingly pomp his numbers ran,As he foresaw how all things false should crumbleBefore the free, uplifted soul of man:And, when he was made full to overflowingWith all the loveliness of heaven and earth,Out rushed his song, like molten iron glowing,To show God sitting by the humblest hearth.With calmest courage he was ever readyTo teach that action was the truth of thought,And, with strong arm and purpose firm and steady,An anchor for the drifting world he wrought.So did he make the meanest man partakerOf all his brother-gods unto him gave;All souls did reverence him and name him Maker,And when he died heaped temples on his grave.And still his deathless words of light are swimmingSerene throughout the great, deep infiniteOf human soul, unwaning and undimming,To cheer and guide the mariner at night.

But now the Poet is an empty rhymerWho lies with idle elbow on the grass,And fits his singing, like a cunning timer,To all men's prides and fancies as they pass.Not his the song, which, in its metre holy,Chimes with the music of the eternal stars,Humbling the tyrant, lifting up the lowly,And sending sun through the soul's prison-bars.Maker no more,--O, no! unmaker rather,For he unmakes who doth not all put forthThe power given by our loving FatherTo show the body's dross, the spirit's worth.Awake! great spirit of the ages olden!Shiver the mists that hide thy starry lyre,And let man's soul be yet again beholdenTo thee for wings to soar to her desire.O, prophesy no more to-morrow's splendor,Be no more shame-faced to speak out for Truth,Lay on her altar all the gushings tender,The hope, the fire, the loving faith of youth!O, prophesy no more the Maker's coming,Say not his onward footsteps thou canst hearIn the dim void, like to the awful hummingOf the great wings of some new-lighted sphere.O, prophesy no more, but be the Poet!This longing was but granted unto theeThat, when all beauty thou couldst feel and know it,That beauty in its highest thou couldst be.O, thou who moanest tost with sea-like longings,Who dimly hearest voices call on thee,Whose soul is overfilled with mighty throngingsOf love, and fear, and glorious agony,Thou of the toil-strung hands and iron sinewsAnd soul by Mother-Earth with freedom fed,In whom the hero-spirit yet continues,The old free nature is not chained or dead,Arouse! let thy soul break in music-thunder,Let loose the ocean that is in thee pent,Pour forth thy hope, thy fear, thy love, thy wonderAnd tell the age what all its signs have meant,Where'er thy wildered crowd of brethren jostles,Where'er there lingers but a shade of wrong,There still is need of martyrs and apostles,There still are texts for never-dying song:From age to age man's still aspiring spiritFinds wider scope and sees with clearer eyes,And thou in larger measure dost inheritWhat made thy great forerunners free and wise.Sit thou enthroned where the Poet's mountainAbove the thunder lifts its silent peak,And roll thy songs down like a gathering fountain,That all may drink and find the rest they seek.Sing! there shall silence grow in earth and heaven,A silence of deep awe and wondering;For, listening gladly, bend the angels, even,To hear a mortal like an angel sing.

Among the toil-worn poor my soul is seekingFor one to bring the Maker's name to light,To be the voice of that almighty speakingWhich every age demands to do it right.Proprieties our silken bards environ;He who would be the tongue of this wide landMust string his harp with chords of sturdy ironAnd strike it with a toil-embrownèd hand;One who hath dwelt with Nature well-attended,Who hath learnt wisdom from her mystic books,Whose soul with all her countless lives hath blended,So that all beauty awes us in his looks;Who not with body's waste his soul hath pampered,Who as the clear northwestern wind is free,Who walks with Form's observances unhampered,And follows the One Will obediently;Whose eyes, like windows on a breezy summit,Control a lovely prospect every way;Who doth not sound God's sea with earthly plummet,And find a bottom still of worthless clay;Who heeds not how the lower gusts are working,Knowing that one sure wind blows on above,And sees, beneath the foulest faces lurking,One God-built shrine of reverence and love;Who sees all stars that wheel their shining marchesAround the centre fixed of Destiny,Where the encircling soul serene o'erarchesThe moving globe of being like a sky;Who feels that God and Heaven's great deeps are nearerHim to whose heart his fellow-man is nigh,Who doth not hold his soul's own freedom dearerThan that of all his brethren, low or high;Who to the Right can feel himself the truerFor being gently patient with the wrong,Who sees a brother in the evil-doer,And finds in Love the heart's-blood of his song;--This, this is he for whom the world is waitingTo sing the beatings of its mighty heart,Too long hath it been patient with the gratingOf scrannel-pipes, and heard it misnamed Art.To him the smiling soul of man shall listen,Laying awhile its crown of thorns aside,And once again in every eye shall glistenThe glory of a nature satisfied.His verse shall have a great, commanding motion,Heaving and swelling with a melodyLearnt of the sky, the river, and the ocean,And all the pure, majestic things that be.Awake, then, thou! we pine for thy great presenceTo make us feel the soul once more sublime,We are of far too infinite an essenceTo rest contented with the lies of Time.Speak out! and, lo! a hush of deepest wonderShall sink o'er all this many-voicèd scene,As when a sudden burst of rattling thunderShatters the blueness of a sky serene.